सोहिनी राग — सितार अकेला

“Sohini Raga — Sitar Solo” is a Hindi film song from Gramophone Company — Second Far Eastern Recording Tour (1904). Musically it set in Raag Sohini, in the Hindustani Classical idiom. Its prevailing mood is spiritual, the recording runs 02:51, released on the gramophone concert record label.

Sohini's nocturnal image descends here without words, on strings alone. Imdad Khan's meends display the vocalist's-idiom foundation on which the Etawah gharana would rise — notes melt into one another, the jhala's rapid shimmer builds to a climax. Among India's first instrumental recordings, it stands tall both technically and emotionally.

As a raga, Sohini evokes the poignant folk legend of the Punjabi maiden who crossed the river Sutlej nightly to meet her beloved — a narrative of romantic yearning rendered in pure instrumental form. The absence of words emphasizes the raga's emotional communicative power.

Ustad Imdad Khan (1838–1920) was the founder of the Etawah gharana, one of the two dominant schools of sitar playing in Hindustani classical music. His innovations in the use of bowed-sitar techniques (meend, krintan, zamzama) represented a revolutionary departure from the plucked-sitar tradition. This 1904 recording occurred near the end of Khan's life but captures his playing at full maturity. The recording session took place when William Sinkler Darby, an engineer for the Gramophone Company, visited Calcutta as part of the Second Far Eastern Recording Tour (1904-1905). Imdad Khan and engineer Darby overcame significant acoustic recording challenges to produce six sitar and surbahar recordings that would become among the rarest and most treasured documents of early Indian music.

This recording stands at the intersection of three historic moments: (1) the emergence of the gramophone as a technology for preserving non-Western music, (2) the codification of gharana styles in the early twentieth century, and (3) the first international recognition of instrumental Indian classical music as a serious art form. The Sohini recording has been extensively studied by musicologists and sampled by contemporary artists exploring the intersection of classical and electronic music. The Archive of Indian Music has produced several excellent restorations of this recording. Musicians cite it as the foundational reference for understanding Etawah gharana aesthetics and the bowed-sitar tradition.

The Sohini recording is historically significant as the first successful preservation of Indian instrumental classical music on any recording medium. It documents the performance style of Imdad Khan at the height of his influence, just before the Etawah gharana became widely recognized in the early twentieth century. The recording demonstrates how early gramophone technology, despite its acoustic limitations, could capture the nuanced technique of a virtuoso instrumentalist. Later sitar players cite this recording as the foundational reference for understanding authentic Etawah gharana aesthetics.