Hori
होरी
Holi songs of Krishna and Radha, from Braj folk song to dhamar and thumri
Hori is the Holi song of North India about Krishna's colour play with Radha and the gopis, sung as folk song, as hori dhamar in dhrupad and as hori thumri.
History & Evolution
Hori began as folk song. Erika Caranti, following du Perron's study of thumri lyrics, links folk hori to the rās and carcarī music of Braj, the country around Mathura and Vrindavan, which also fed thumri. Peter Manuel names the same Braj genres among thumri's ancestors and calls that early history conjectural.
The folk hori is sung across the Gangetic plain, from Braj through eastern Uttar Pradesh, Banaras and the Bhojpuri region of Bihar. Trained musicians took it up, elaborating folk originals or composing new pieces, and it entered art music as hori dhamar in dhrupad and as hori thumri in the purab ang, the eastern thumri style of Banaras.
One Kafi hori tune travelled further. Manuel suggests it may have been the most familiar light-classical melody in North India during the nineteenth-century indenture period, and that it may have reached the Caribbean by oral tradition, where K. L. Saigal's recording reinforced it.
Hori also names a literary genre, a written composition on the Holi theme. Before Independence, writers composed horis, as they did kajris, as propaganda on social and political issues.
- 16th Century
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Surdas and the Dan-lila
Surdas, the sixteenth-century devotional (bhakti) poet, tells the dan-lila: Krishna waylays the gopis of Braj on their way to market and demands a toll of milk and curd. Later hori texts rework these episodes as colour play.
- 19th Century
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Thumri at the Lucknow court
Thumri, whose sister form is hori thumri, takes its standard form at the Lucknow court of Wajid Ali Shah (r. 1847 to 1856). A bandish thumri in Kafi that depicts Holi and Krishna's escapades is attributed to the Nawab.
- 20th Century
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Hori on Record
Hori enters the gramophone repertoire: Narayanrao Vyas records horis in Kafi and Brindavani on 78 rpm discs. Siddheshwari Devi, Girija Devi, Shobha Gurtu, Rasoolan Bai and Begum Akhtar all record and perform horis.
- Late 20th century to present
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Contemporary Practice
Hori is still sung at Holi. Savita Devi sang horis beside thumri, dadra and kajri in a 1987 recital whose recording the IGNCA archive holds, and in Banaras the masane ki hori draws professional and amateur singers each spring.
Technical Aspects
What Hori Songs Are About
In most horis Krishna throws gulal (coloured powder) at Radha and the gopis and sprays colour from a pichkari, a water gun. Some give the play to Rama and Sita in Awadh, or to Shiva and Parvati.
The Banaras masane ki hori has no Krishna or Radha: Shiva plays Holi with ash in the cremation ground. Caranti transcribes it from the rendition by Chhannulal Mishra of the Banaras gharana.
Hori, Dhamar and Thumri
Hori names the Holi song; dhamar names a 14-beat tala and the dhrupad-style song set in it. In hori dhamar the tala sounds on the pakhawaj, and the singer works the text through layakari.
Hori thumri takes the ragas and talas of thumri and often ends in a laggi, a fast tabla passage in 8-beat Kaherva that grew from the footwork of singer-dancers.
When Hori Is Sung
Hori is sung in the Holi season. Holi falls on the Phalgun full moon (February to March); a bonfire the night before recalls the burning of the demoness Holika. Vasant Panchami, forty lunar days earlier, marks the start of spring and heralds Holi. Hori sits among the season songs of Banaras and eastern Uttar Pradesh, beside chaiti for Chait and kajri for the rains.
Journey to Mastery
Follow this structured journey to master this discipline
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Texts and Themes
Begin with the words. Read hori texts and learn the stories behind them: Krishna's colour play with Radha and the gopis, the cowherd women of Braj, and the dan-lila episodes of Surdas that many texts rework. Then study the exceptions, the horis of Rama and Sita in Awadh and of Shiva in Banaras, and notice how each deity plays Holi in a different manner.
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Vocal Technique
Train two kinds of delivery. For hori dhamar, practise layakari: singing the text at two, three and four times the base tempo (dugun, tigun, chaugun). For hori thumri, work on bol banao, free melodic play on the words, and on the devices heard in recordings: pukaar, a stretched cry of longing, and the quick ornamental turns called khatka and murki.
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Raga Kafi and related ragas
Start with raga Kafi, heard in more horis than any other raga. Its character suits shringar, the mood of romantic love. Kafi takes a flat third and seventh, and in light-classical Kafi many singers also touch the natural third and seventh. Then learn Khamaj and Pilu, and listen for Bhairavi and the mixed (mishra) ragas that carry other horis.
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Repertoire: dhamar and thumri
Build repertoire in both forms: a hori dhamar in the 14-beat dhamar tala, and hori thumris in 14-beat Deepchandi or 16-beat Jat. Learn how a thumri-style hori hands over to the tabla for the closing laggi, and how the tabla player ends it with a tihai, a phrase played three times to land on the first beat, before the song returns to its opening tala.
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Listening and Performance
Listen across the forms. Girija Devi's Kafi hori thumri, with Mahapurush Mishra on tabla, shows Banaras bol banao; Siddheshwari Devi recorded horis in Jat and Deepchandi; Shobha Gurtu and Begum Akhtar recorded horis too. Dhrupad singers usually set horis in dhamar, though Nasir Aminuddin and Nasir Moinuddin Dagar also sang one in thumri style, in Deepchandi. Then compare concert recordings with hori at a Holi gathering.