On 30 October Nishat Khan appeared as soloist with the European Philharmonia Orchestra and Walter Proost in the Omani premiere of ‘The Gate of the Moon’ (Sitar Concerto No.1) at the Royal Opera House, Muscat, headlining the opening of their 2024/25 season.
The 45-minute work, orchestrated Pete Stacey, integrates the traditions of sitar writing with Western orchestral instrumentation to tell the love story between the mystical “unknown traveller” (sitar) and the princess, the soloist emanating a mystical energy of its own, given voice by the instrument’s sustained, sympathetic resonances; it follows in the tradition of Ravi Shankar’s concerto for the instrument in its combination of classical orchestration with the habits and gestures of Indian classical music. Throughout the sitar emerges from and recedes into the orchestral texture, exemplifying the mystery attached to the traveller, with sweeter melodies reserved for the ‘Princess’ figure.
The first of three movements is underpinned by an undulating double bass ostinato from which material accumulates slowly. The middle movement is lighter, brighter, and more dancelike, with raga-inspired scalic themes and gentle rhythmic games played between sitar and instrumental soloists. A ferocious finale draws the work to a spectacular close, with explosive brass writing culminating in a frenzied cadenza for the sitar.
It premiered at the 2013 BBC Proms, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by David Atherton and Khan himself as soloist – his third appearance at the festival, but the first time he had presented his own work. Khan performed a 15-minute excerpt of the piece with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 2018 as part of the Symphony’s tenth annual “Celebrate Asia” concert highlighting music by noted Chinese and Indian composers.
"This concerto is a journey through my life experiences with melodies, musical lines, and phrases that have been especially meaningful to me”, Khan has said of the piece. “It is a commemoration of the treasures of western classical music that rings in my psyche and my soul; the work of masters I have heard while living, in various periods of my life, in Europe.”