About Maestro's Choice: Mohan Veena
Maestro’s Choice: Mohan Veena is a studio album by Indian slide guitarist and composer Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, released in 2004. The recording features Bhatt performing on the mohan veena, a modified arch-top guitar designed to emulate the tonal qualities of the veena and sitar. The album was issued by Music Today in CD format as part of its Maestro’s Choice series, which highlights solo performances by prominent Indian classical musicians.
Bhatt composed and performed three raga-based tracks for the release. The album opens with Raga Maru Bihag, a late-evening raga associated with the Bihag family, characterized by its use of komal re (flattened second) and komal dha (flattened sixth). The second track repeats Raga Maru Bihag in an extended exploration, emphasizing the instrument’s capacity for meend (glissando) and gamak (ornamentation). The closing piece, Raga Pahadi, draws from the folk-inspired Pahadi tradition, often performed in lighter classical or semi-classical contexts. Each composition showcases Bhatt’s adaptation of North Indian classical (Hindustani) techniques to the mohan veena, including alaap, jor, and jhala sections.
The album was recorded in a studio setting, though specific session details, accompanying artists, or production personnel remain undocumented in available sources. The release date aligns with the broader 2004 catalog of Music Today, a label known for its focus on Indian classical, devotional, and folk music. Maestro’s Choice: Mohan Veena serves as a representative example of Bhatt’s work during the early 2000s, a period in which he continued to refine the mohan veena as a solo concert instrument.
Critical reception and commercial performance data for the album are not widely published. Bhatt’s prior collaborations, including his Grammy Award-winning album A Meeting by the River (1994) with Ry Cooder, established his reputation in fusion and world music circuits, though Maestro’s Choice returns to a purely classical framework. The CD remains in circulation through physical and digital retailers specializing in Indian classical music.