What is Ghazal?
Ghazal is a melodic framework (raag) in South Asian classical music. It evokes a devotion mood. Stream 42 renditions of Ghazal on Saarey Music.
Ghazals are melodies based on Urdu or Persian poetry. It is one of the most popular genres of music in Pakistan, in the wider Pakistan-India subcontinent and in the South Asian diaspora. Early Arabic ghazal revolved around two broad themes: the rakish celebration of wine, women, and song; and the elegiac lament over lost love. By the time the ghazal passed into Persian from the early eleventh century onward, this second theme had come to have mystical overtones: separation and suffering were at the heart of love, while the faithful, longing lover was even a kind of martyr. These days, at the most basic level, the ghazal is the first-person voice of a passionate lover who laments his lack of access to his beloved.
