Shortly after the assassination of Gandhi, Pandit Ravi Shankar was in a studio in Mumbai, preparing a live broadcast for All India Radio. The producer asked him to play something in honour of the Mahatma, and he quickly devised Mohan Kauns, taking for a motif three notes from the Indian solfège, Ga, Ni and Dha, much as European composers use the notes B-A-C-H.

Shankar recreated that occasion for this 1978 recording, now on CD for the first time. While the piece unfolds according to standard rules of Hindustani classical music, it is easy to impute a programmatic dimension as the music moves from the brooding, dark-hued a¯la¯p, or introduction, via the teeming incidents of the middle sections to the sudden conclusion: the episodes seem to symbolise Gandhi’s reflections on the injustices he saw in South Africa and India, his long struggle against them – drawing together so many factions only to see schisms arise as independence drew near – and his spiritual triumph transcending the violent ending of his life.

Shankar, utterly in control of his art, opens his exploration of the r¯aga with remarkable excursions into the lower register which are so dark and sonorous that I had to check the cover to confirm he wasn’t using the surbahar, the ‘cello’ of the sitar family. His long-time partner, the legendary Alla Rakha, spars with and supports him as skilfully as ever, and shines on the tabla showcase, Farodast.

Gara, from 1978, is another dazzling performance, moving straight from the out-of-tempo a¯la¯p to three gats played slow, medium-fast and fast.