Concept The scope for innovation in music is vast.
Carnatic music owes its stability and steadiness to the sheet-anchor of the Trinity of composers (Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri), Purandaradasa, Swati Tirunal, and their direct disciples and descendants who were more preceptors than performers.
The lyrics of their kritis and those of some others who followed in their footsteps, mostly in Sanskrit and Telugu, were steeped in religious fervour which inspired a great devotional spirit. While their songs always extol the manifold virtues of devotion to God and His Consort, each kriti also demonstrates the unique and challenging grammar and idiom that governs that particular composition, with a wide parameter for individual variation and excellence.
The works of composers of the last 100 years or less have become part of the standard repertoire of the Carnatic musician, alongside the compositions of the Trinity. These later-day composers, divinely gifted and inspired, had drawn their ideas and themes from the vast and inexhaustible reservoir that is filled with ‘sapta swaras’.
Though sometimes called ‘modern-day composers’ because of their original contemporariness, they are no longer modern in any sense and their works are as classical as those of their ancestors of centuries ago.
Many of their compositions are in Tamil, with the music and structure based and modelled on the lessons learnt from the legacy of the past. It is out of veneration and profound admiration for these compositions that many associations, sabhas and sangams arrange Carnatic music festivals exclusively featuring compositions in Tamil. Almost all singers of several generations have felt that their concerts would be incomplete without some Tamil song.
Liberty and limits
The great singers who were at their peak 50 years ago had learnt music from the descendants of the founders of Carnatic music who, while having a firm hold on tradition, were not austere or narrow-minded or intolerant, and they let flourish different styles of performance of Carnatic music. It is this ability to appreciate and let grow variations that has ensured the sustained growth of Carnatic music.
There are three players in this drama — the composer (guru), the performer (sishya) and the rasika (knowledgeable and sensitive listener). Without a determined unity of purpose on the part of the three actors in this play to serve the higher goals of Carnatic music, the ancient art form would not still possess its attractive magnetic force.
Whether it is a simple teacher and his disciple in an obscure village, or a sophisticated city performer who has enjoyed the benefit of receiving instruction from an erudite, versatile and experienced guru, they have one thing in common — hold on tight to the basics, but of course with variations within the permitted parameters.
The very basis and strength of Carnatic music is the individual performer’s imagination (manodharma). Without this freedom, Carnatic music will become sterile and stereotyped. But the performer and the listener know instinctively up to what extent this liberty can be stretched without underlining the very foundation of the edifice.
They know well that the strength and resilience of Carnatic music are derived mainly from the art form as developed by the classical composers, and that any attempt to alter its basic character will be disastrous, forcing them to fall by the wayside and be overtaken by the traditionalists. When one reads expressions like “the music was pure”, “the singing style was chaste”, etc., one has to bear in mind that what is meant is the unpolluted purity of the music, and not the narrow, constrained “puritanical” version which is totally alien to the very concept of Carnatic music.
Carnatic musicians sing the same song and music in different styles. They do not sing as if in a chorus. Even when they sing the Pancharatna kritis in a group, while there is an undeniable, underlying thread of unity, each singer’s individual voice is often clearly heard and recognised and his school and patanthara can be identified. That is the greatness of Carnatic music. The scope for innovation and creativity in Carnatic is as vast and as deep as the seven oceans. There are jetsam and flotsam on the surface of the sea, but can they in any way pollute the ocean?
These miniscule strange features are quite insignificant in relation to the dimensions of the ocean, and the vast sheet of unending water remains open for free navigation by the fervently dedicated and devoted, setting in motion what is called the “butterfly effect” that is so powerful that it cannot be turned back. It is this inherent strength that is carrying forward Carnatic music, tranquil, meditative, blissful and contemplative.
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