Bhavalu Impressions: South Indian Instrumental Music

V.V. Subramaniam, Palghat Raghu and Sarota Balasubramaniam - Bhavalu Impressions: South Indian Instrumental Music

performers:

V.V. Subramaniam - violin

Palghat Raghu - mridangam

Sarota Balasubramaniam - tambura

K.V. Narayanaswamy - singer (only on Mridangam Solo)

From the liner notes:

The two instruments featured on this recording are indispensable members of almost every South Indian concert group. The violin, played in Indian style, and the barrel drum mridangam form the normal accompaniment for classical vocal music, South Indian flute, and often for the typical plucked stringed instrument, the vina. The drone instrument tambura provides an essential pitch reference point.

The mridangam is one of the most highly developed percussion instruments in the world, and early forms of it are found in Buddhist sculpture of the 2nd century B.C. The present South Indian mridangam is played on both ends with the bare hands. Each head is a composite of several layers of hide, and two kinds of tuning paste are used, making possible a great variety of controllable tonal inflections. The playing technique is difficult, and requires years to master.

The violin seems to have been introduced into South Indian classical music during the latter part of the 18th century, and as the public concert became a more and more important social phenomenon, it became increasingly popular as an accompanying instrument because of the strength of its tone. The player sits cross-legged, resting the instrument against foot and chest, thereby facilitating the sliding-finger technique necessary to produce the almost constant flow of gamakas, or ornaments, in which the music abounds. Recently, the violin has been heard more and more often as a solo instrument, sometimes with the accompaniment of a second violin. Like the other South Indian solo instruments - principally the vina, flute, and the reed pipe nagaswaram - it has no separate repertoire of compositions, but is used to play an instrumental version of the classical songs which form an extensive literature from the past four hundred years or so.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Mridangam Solo {18:51}

Side 2

1. Kriti: Bhogindra Sayinam {3:40}

2. Kriti: Minakshi {13:40}

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