OR rather ghazal-singing perfected, for I think there would be little doubt among those with some ear for music that no one has sung the ghazal more perfectly than Mehdi Hasan. The occasion for writing this arises from a collection of his ghazals put together by one of Pakistan’s leading writers and compilers of music, the one and only S. M. Shahid.

He has done some marvellous work before, writing a treatise on classical music for beginners, compiling other songs — such as that two-CD collection, Immortal Film Songs inspired by Raags — and now he has done it again by a two-CD collection of some of Mehdi Hasan’s most unforgettable ghazals.

Like some of his earlier work, this too is supported by a private sector corporation (I am being coy in not giving its name), so I can’t say whether it will be commercially sold. But it will be a pity if it is not made available to a wider audience. After listening to these ghazals you get a measure of Mehdi Hasan’s greatness as a singer and the extent of his artistic achievement.

Shahid doesn’t confine himself to the ghazals. Accompanying the collection is a beautifully-produced book in which you find the texts of the ghazals and some very helpful explanatory notes, indispensable for the enthusiastic amateur. For instance, you get to know in which raag a particular ghazal has been sung. You also come across the somewhat surprising fact — it was at least a surprise for me — that Mehdi Hasan composed most (although not all) of his ghazals himself.

Another thing to be noted is that whereas Mehdi Hasan sang some great film songs, as Shahid explains, “to tell you the truth, what has made Mehdi Hasan’s name immortal is not these filmi songs but his non-filmi ghazals.” We also learn that he was at his best not in the recording studio but in concert. Which I suppose is the way with all great singers: the rapport and electricity of a live audience bringing out their best.

Some of Maria Callas’s best-sung arias are those surreptitiously recorded by amateurs during live performances. Technically, the recordings are not perfect — in some of them you can hear people coughing — but the quality of the singing, Callas belting out those impossibly high notes, is at times simply demonic.

So too with our maestro. Many of these are live recordings, the audience reacting to the singing and offering its praise. But considering that this is the natural setting of both Urdu poetry and ghazal singing — reciting or singing before an audience — no wonder the effect evoked is so mesmeric and overpowering. You listen to the ghazals once and you want to hear them again and again.

To clear the confusion in my own mind rather than to impart any wisdom, let me say that there is no final frontier in art or creativity. If there were, it would be the end of the human race. Of course I exaggerate: more properly, it would be the end of imagination, which of course would be a great pity. So when we say, “he/she was the greatest”, Callas was the greatest, Saigol was the greatest, Rafi was the greatest and so on, we are not making an artistic judgment. We are giving vent to our admiration, and the more intense our admiration, the greater our use of superlatives.

So in saying that Mehdi Hasan sang the ghazal to perfection, which I think he did, is not to detract from the greatness or excellence of other singers. Indeed, the firmament of ghazal-singing contains many bright, even dazzling stars: Kamla Jharia (you can get one or two of her ghazals at that excellent website Thumri.com), the divine Akhtari Bai Faizabadi, Talat Mahmood, Ustad Amanat Ali Khan (although personally I like him only in bits and pieces), Iqbal Bano, Farida Khanum and, of course, Kundan Lal Saigol.

Each adds to the lustre of this firmament. Each brings to it something unique, not quite shared by the others. Even so, I would venture to say that Mehdi Hasan occupies a place of his own. In his voice the ghazal comes to a pitch of controlled perfection never quite achieved before and I am sure extremely difficult to surpass in future.

What do I mean by ‘controlled’? Saigol’s ghazal singing, or indeed his singing in general, has the touch of the rhapsodic about it. He sings and you hear passion’s waves breaking on the distant seashore. This is not perfection and certainly not sophistication. It is pathos — which the dictionary defines as ‘the power to evoke pity or emotion’ — springing not just from the style or even the voice, although the voice was heavenly, but from the recesses of his being.

There are singers who sing and look differently. You listen to them and a certain image comes to your mind. You look at them and the image is at variance with the person. Saigol looked the way he sang. There was pathos in his voice and pathos on his countenance.

Not that there is no pathos in Mehdi Hasan. What’s an artist without the power to evoke pity and emotion? His rendering of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s ‘baat karni mujhe mushkil kabhi aisi to na thi’ is sure to bring tears to your eyes. But there’s also sophistication, or rather perfection, in his singing. It’s like the difference between an uncut and a polished diamond: raw magnificence versus polished brilliance.

I think the more perfect composer is Mozart, but by far the more powerful, Beethoven. Those with a more sophisticated musical ear find themselves preferring Mozart. Romantic souls with something chaotic in their souls veer more, I suspect, towards Beethoven. Character is destiny. It is also the final arbiter of artistic taste.

But whatever your inclination, you will like this collection. Salim Gillani’s ‘phool hee phool khil uthay mere paimanay mein’ in “raag Kidara with glimpses of Bahar” as Shahid informs us; Saghir Siddiqui’s ‘chiragh-i-toor jalao zara andhera hai’ inspired by raag Anandi and Shiv Kalyan; Mir’s haunting ‘dekh to dil keh jaan se uthta hai’ inspired by raag Jhinjhoti and Gorakh Kalyan; Irfani’s ‘ghuncha-i-shouq laga hai khilnay’ inspired by raag Kirwani; Dagh’s ‘uzr aanein mein bhi hai aur bulatay bhi naheen’ in raag Partabvarali; Momin’s ‘wo jo ham mein tum mein qarar tha tumhein yaad ho keh na yaad ho’ in raag Shiv Ranjni; and that simply beautiful ‘taaza hawa bahar ki dil ka malal lay gayee’ by Aziz Hamid Madni and composed by Ustad Nihal Abdullah in raag Jaijaiwanti; these and many more you will find here.

Not only is this an education in music but a grand tour of the best in Urdu literature. Sub-continental ghazal singing brings three vital strands together: great poetry, sublime voices and extraordinary music. In no other genre of music, western or eastern, is such a mix to be found. Here you find it at its best or greatest.

Mehdi Hasan is still alive and lives in Karachi although stricken by an attack of paralysis a few years ago; his performing days are over. But if anything deserves the title of immortal, his ghazals do. Ten thousand years from now they will still be heard and remembered, the sad of heart and keen of sense moved by them as much as we are today.

If this were ancient Greece, a public purse would be collected for Mehdi Hasan. Since it is not, it is scarcely surprising if the greatest ghazal singer of all time, in whose person the Urdu ghazal — the brightest ornament of Urdu literature — has reached the height of its perfection, lives in relative neglect and want. Strange are the ways of the world.