The Agra Gharana has been devoting its entire time and energies to the science and technique of music and to the art of singing. Music was not only their profession and source of bread; it was a mission and a faith of their lives. Their mornings began with the Bhairav Raga and the evenings and nights were devoted to the Deepak Raga and the Malkaus Raga sung in groups and in mehfil.
The greatest maestro of the Agra Gharana was Ustad Faiyaz Hussain Khan, ‘Aftab-i-Musiki’, who lived in the twentieth century. Ustad Faiyaz Khan was a top singer of the Kheyal. He sang Dhamar with authority. His style, technique, his method—was all unique. It is said of him that while singing Dhamar he played in the course of his musical performance hide and seek with tempo or the Ragas and Raginis.
The gharana adopts a kind of voice-production which relies on a flatter variation of the vowel-sound 'a'. The usage enables it to produce stressful, accented music conducive to rhythmically-oriented elaboration of selected melodies. The gharana enjoys a rich repertoire of composition-types and bada khayal chota khayal, dhrupad, dhamar, sadra, thumri, tarana can easily be enumerated. The raga is methodically elaborated and there is an unmistakable emphasis on grammatical correctness. The singing maintains a kind of carefully structured approach to the raga and followers of the gharana-s hardly fail to deliver at least the minimum musical fare, indeed an achievement in itself! Many rare ragas are sung in the gharana and the treatment is always as detailed as that of any known raga. This obviously augurs well for the thought-content of the Agra-music.
The Agra Gharana is a living institution. The music of Agra Gharana finds its place in almost all the important musical functions throughout the country. The Agra Gharana or the Rangila Gharana is a unique gift of the Agra Culture to the nation as a whole.
