The Khurja Gharana is a musical apprenticeship tribe of Hindustani classical music. Known for being Azmat Hussain Khan's and Jitendra Abhisheki's musical lineage, the gharana emerged from a family of Nauharbani musicians and gained recognition during the life of Altaf Hussain Khan who was born at Khurja.
With its own distinct aesthetics, stylings, practices, and repertoire, the gharana melded with Jaipur-Atrauli, Agra, Qawwal Bacchon, Atrauli, and Hapur musical traditions.
History Ustad Altaf Hussain Khan's grandfather, Ghulam Hussain Khan, "spent the major part of his life in Dankaur, another small town in Uttar Pradesh in the district of Bulandshahar, before he moved to Khurja."
As the notion of the Khurja gharana largely revolves around the person and style of Ustad Altaf Hussain Khan, the musicians most closely associated with this gharana in the 20th century were those he was responsible for training. These included his sons, Mumtaz Hussain Khan and Wahid Hussain Khan, and his nephew, Azmat Hussain Khan. Azmat Hussain Khan combined Altaf Hussain Khan's style with additional input from Vilayat Hussain Khan of Agra gharana and Alladiya Khan of Jaipur-Atrauli gharana. In turn, Azmat Hussain Khan trained his brother-in-law, Aslam Khan, who combined this style with his prior background in the Hapur and Delhi gharanas. Azmat Hussain Khan's son Vajahat Hussain Khan received musical training not only from his father but also from Aslam Khan. Therefore, in this line, Khurja gharana indicates not an independent khandan but rather a body of compositions and stylistic approaches which musicians make use of alongside other material. On the other hand, Mumtaz Hussain Khan's and Wahid Hussain Khan's sons and grandsons have not received formal training outside the Khurja gharana.
Pedagogical Genealogy The following visualization is based on several historical accounts.
Ancestral Pedagogy of Khurja Gharana
Overview According to S. K. Saxena, some of the distinguishing features of the Khurja gharana, as reflected in the performances of Ustad Altaf Hussain Khan, include "emphasis on the natural opennes of akara during the executions of tans, avoidance of sudden changes in their structural design, and a relatively infrequent employment of boltans." In the vilambit sthayi, "care is taken to keep out drut embellishments altogether and the unity between the different accents of the sthayi is maintained by resorting to what is popularly called kanbharna—that is, by interspersing them with thin, luminous lines of musical continuities, rather than with turns and twists of notes." Among the Ustad's favorite ragas, Saxena lists "tirwan, lalitabasant[,] suha, bhankar, nat, gaura, sri, jayat, lacchasakh, hem khem and shahana," as well as "varieties of gauri, bihag, nat, bilawal and mallhar."
Azmat Hussain Khan, in his performances, is noted as having emphasized "rare Ragas, complex Laykari, Taan-s with perfection, and diversity of compositions."
Aslam Khan's performances were noted as "evoking simultaneously the sweetness and gravitas that was characteristic of the Nauhar bani of dhrupad singing from which these khayal traditions are thought to have evolved."
The singing of Ghulam Khusro Khan, son of Wahid Hussain Khan and grandson of Haji Altaf Hussain Khan, has been described as "uniquly [sic] feminine, a signature of the Noharbani Khurja gharana."
References