Raga, Khayal, classical hindustani repertoire

Khayāl genre is characterized by a very ornamented style conducive to the demonstration of the performer's virtuosity and creativity: the sung poem, as a more or less fixed part, is the core piece for the establishment of the elaboration of the rāga. By following different stages of development and applying different methods of variation and improvisation, the singer "extends" the rāga. Coming from Arabic language, the term Khayāl actually means "imagination".

The sung poem (bandiś) represents the quintessence of the rāga, that is to say a digest of its form (rūp) and its image (shakal) as the musicians express it. Each poem sung reflects a certain image of the rāga in which it is composed.

The Khayāl is subdivided into two categories: the baŗā Khayāl  (literally "great" Khayāl), on the one hand, which develops in slow tempo (vilambit), in the first part of a recital, over long cycles, and the choṭā Khayāl * (“small” khayāl) which succeeds it, sometimes without hyphenation, in medium or fast tempo.

The rāga is developed gradually in the baŗā Khayāl in an exhibition that can range from half an hour to 1.15 hours, before being treated more rhythmically in the choṭā Khayāl, in a generally different metric frame, on a removed tempo.

While baŗā Khayāl is often presented today in the twelve-stroke ektāla cycle, choṭā Khayāl is often in tīntāla, a cycle of sixteen beats.

Lyrical poems are composed in any of these forms, as well as in a given rāga and tāla. A Khayāl song consists of two verses, referring to two sections, called respectively the "sthāyī" and the "antarā". As the "sthāyī" explores the mid register of the rāga, the antarā is centered on the upper register. Each line can be subdivided into two, three or four sections, marked by a hyphen.

The first part of the first line, which concludes on the first beat of the cycle, is called "mukhṛā". Like the incipit of a song, the mukhṛā gives its name to the composition. Like the first sentence of "sthāyī", it is sung throughout the performance as a refrain to punctuate the improvised parts.

Khayāl songs are generally in Braj, a western dialect of Hindi, spoken in the region of Mathura and Agra (about 150 km south of the capital New Delhi). Braj is also a literary language: between the 15th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Braj was the medium of expression for the great saints-poets of North India.

The spectrum of themes covered in the Khayāls is very broad. There are poems sung with romantic inspiration as well as devotional and philosophical themes, and songs describing nature and the seasons. The gods of the Hindu pantheon are the subject of many songs of praise (the goddess, the god Shiva but especially Krishna). The praises of Sufi saints and spiritual masters are also widespread. Among the other usual themes of Khayāl songs is the separation or the reunion of two lovers. Finally, some discuss the power of music, and the bond that unites the artist with his boss, or the artist with his master.

The historical beginnings of Khayāl are the subject of controversy but this vocal genre would have appeared at the end of the 16th century within the framework of the Indo-Persian culture of the princely courts of North India to develop the following centuries as the highlighted historian Katherine Butler Brown (2010). This view departs from the oral tradition which often attributes to the medieval saint poet Amir Khusrau (14th century) the origin of this song.