Mushtaq Ali Khan

Who was Mushtaq Ali Khan?

Mushtaq Ali Khan and was an Indian sitar, surbahar player. His father Ashiq Ali Khan was a renowned sitar player. His musical ancestor tree includes Masit Sen, the originator of Masitkhani Baaj. He was recognized as the foremost representative of the Senia gharana of sitar playing in the mid-20th century.

At first a court musician at Jaunpur, he left the court to pursue an independent career. He started playing for All India Radio in 1929, and performed at the 1931 Sangeet Sammelan in Allahabad. For all of the 1940s and most of the 1950s he was considered the most prominent sitar player in India, following the demise of Enayat Khan of the Etawah Gharana, and prior to the rise of the young Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan in the mid-1950s. In 1968 he won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, highest Indian recognition given to practicing artists, given by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama.

Being a purist, Khan-Saheb refused to yield to shifting popular tastes and to adopt the innovations introduced by Ravi Shankar on one hand and Vilayat Khan on the other, which lead to a gradual decline in his popularity. At the time of his death he was known as a "musicians' musician". Many of India's best known musicians expressed their appreciation of the purity of his style and musicality in a book published in Delhi after his death