Credits:

Ravi Shankar, London Symphony Orchestra & Andre Previn

Description:

Ravi Shankar's groundbreaking work "Sitar Concerto," a fusion of East and West, is reissued on 180g analog LP. He is a master of Indian classical music and a world-class sitar player. He has had an unprecedented impact on the world. He has shown new possibilities for musicians such as George Harrison of the Beatles, jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, and composer Philip Glass. In addition, he collaborated in groundbreaking collaborations with classical performers such as Yehudi, Menuhin, André Previn, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Zubin Mehta. Shankar's concerto is in the Indian tradition, with melody and rhythm coming from the raga and including a section for improvisation by the soloist. However, Shankar imaginatively set it up as a collaboration with a Western orchestra. The bongos are used as tablas and two harps add scale and echo with the sitar.The strings are tambura drones, with stunning lyrical horn solos and the use of blasting and percussion to create new effects that had never been heard before. This was Ravi Shankar's first sitar concerto, commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1970, and the first album André Previn recorded for EMI Classics (now Warner Classics) in 1971. This memorable album is being reissued in limited quantities as a 180g analog LP disc. Warner Music Japan