VIOLIN AND INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC

VIOLIN AND INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC

V.S.Gopalakrishnan

Today I came across an observation on a music page on internet that credited a very famous Mumbai gynaecologist with having introduced violin in Hindustani music! I was astounded by such extraordinary insight! And I searched and searched on google only to find no connection between the famous gynaecologist and violin! Anyway, that put me on a new track. I wanted to write on how violin came into Indian music.

Violin came into Carnatic music around 1800 and later into Hindustani music around 1930 after a gap of many generations. In Carnatic music it replaced essentially veena and flute as the accompanying instrument. In Hindustani music it replaced sarangi as the accompanying instrument but later harmonium came to replace violin. However, in both systems, violin attained a solo status in due course.

I remember that in my young age if any musician was made fun of, it was the violinist and not so much the singer or mridangist! We used to say, “Why can’t he use a cutting-saw instead of the bow?”! Quite often the violinist seemed to get into making “whining” noises that the uninformed youngsters could not take in!  

Often, in those old days and not nowadays, violin was called “fiddle” in common parlance. Luckily the player was not called a fiddler but a violinist! In actual fact, fiddle and violin is the same instrument. One calls it fiddle when used in traditional folk music in the West, and violin when used in Western classical ensemble. You might have heard the quiz, “What is the difference between fiddle and violin?” The answer is “You cannot spill beer on violin”. Got it?

If violin made inroads into Carnatic music, we must thank the East India Company for it. It was part of British “bands”, and the word “band” was used by Tamilians even to refer to Western Classical Music Ensemble! But the clever Tamilians adopted only violin but not its relatives namely viola, cello and bass. You can put it into a small box and scoot fast unlike when you have a cumbersome veena or tanpura.

CARNATIC MUSIC:

Writings on the subject sometimes refer to three or four musicians as responsible for introducing violin into Carnatic music. But I will refer to the two most credible names here. One was Baluswami Dikshitar and the other was Vadivelu of the famous Tanjore Quartet.

Baluswami Dikshitar (1786-1858):

Baluswami was the younger brother of Muthuswami Dikshitar, one of the Carnatic music trinity. Baluswami was multi-faceted and he could play the veena, sitar and mridangam. Baluswami and his brothers received immense patronage from Muthuswamy Mudaliar of Manali. The latter introduced Baluswami to a visiting European violinist from whom Baluswami picked up the instrument and adapted playing it to Carnatic music. Baluswami became the asthana vidwan of Ettayapuram Raja in 1825. He received many accolades from several patrons of music.

Vadivelu (1810-1848):

The young musical genius Vadivelu and his brothers Chinniah, Ponniah and Sivanandam formed the famous Tanjore Quartet. The Quartet had initial music training under Muthuswami Dikshitar. After this training they were appointed asthana vidwans in the Tanjore Court. From there, later on, they shifted to the Court of the Travancore Maharaja, Swathi Thirunal. Vadivelu learnt violin at Tanjore from a European missionary. He popularized it considerably. Vadivelu excelled as a violinist, vocalist, composer and bharatanatyam dancer. The famous saint Tyagarajar personally visited his house and honoured him.

Many others followed these two musicians and violin got recognition as an accompanying instrument in concerts. The way it was held by the seated violinist was different from the way the standing Western violinist held it. The manner of playing and the kinds of notes used were also changed to suit Indian music. It had three octaves to exactly follow the vocalist’s range of three octaves. The sound was very pleasing and close to the human sound. The sound was continuous and the possibilities of gamakas added to its beauty. Thus the stringed fretted instrument Veena lost its place as an accompanying instrument, and so was the case with flute also. Later on, both Veena and Violin became solo concert instruments on their own merit.

M.S.Gopalakrishnan and Smt N.Rajam are the two well recognized violinist names in the recent decades. Their expertise covered both Carnatic and Hindustani. Chowdiah was a big name to reckon with before them. In fact, Lalgudi Jayaraman and TN Krishnan  too deserve a mention as modern giants.

HINDUSTANI MUSIC:

Hindustani music has had very many bowed instruments for accompaniment such as sarangi, dilruba and esraj before the advent of the new bowed instrument, violin. Sarangi means hundred colours (sau rang) which denoted the versatility of the instrument which is hard to learn and hard to play.

The credit for adaptation of violin in Hindustani music is generally ascribed to the initiatives of Alauddin Khan,  Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, SN Ratanjankar and Gajananrao Joshi.  Pandit DK Datar and Pandit VG Jog came to be outstanding violinists in the Hindustani shaili.

India is known for re-exports too! We have the famous brothers L.Shankar and Dr.L.Subramaniam making international waves with their varied violin skills.

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