Faiyaz Khan

He was born on 8 February 1886 at Sikandara near Agra, the son of Safdar Hussain, who died four months before his birth; some secondary works contest the birth year, giving 1888 or 1889.¹ He was brought up by his maternal grandfather Ghulam Abbas, who taught him music up to the age of twenty-five, and he also studied with Mehboob Khan "Daraspiya", Natthan Khan and his uncle Fida Hussain Khan.¹

He served for a long time as court musician of Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the Maharaja of Baroda, who awarded him the "Gyan Ratna" (Gem of Knowledge); the Maharaja of Mysore conferred on him the title Aftab-e-Mausiqi — "the Sun of Music" — in 1908.¹ His specialities were dhrupad and khyal, though he also sang thumri and ghazal, and he composed bandishes under the pen name Prem Piya; his most popular thumri was Baaju band khul khul jaye.¹ He performed in the musical conferences of Lucknow, Allahabad, Calcutta, Gwalior, Bombay and Mysore, and counted among his admirers the tabla maestro Ahmed Jan Thirakwa and the vocalists Amir Khan and Vilayat Khan.¹

Typhoid in 1945, followed by tuberculosis, forced him to lower his pitch in his last years, and he died of tuberculosis at Baroda on 5 November 1950.¹ Among his students were K. L. Saigal, Dilip Chand Bedi, Shrikrishna Ratanjankar, Khadim Hussain Khan and Sharafat Hussain Khan.¹

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