Karnatak music
What is performed today as Karnatak music is derived
most immediately from three outstanding composers of the eighteenth century,
known collectively as the trinity: thyagaraja (1759 -1847); Svami Shastri (1773
– 1827) and Dikshitar (1775 – 1835). The trinity, although not themselves
patronized by the courts, spent most of their lives within a few miles radius
of tanjore, which became the focal point of musical patronage in the south
after the fall of vijayanagar (1565). Thyagaraja is revered both as the supreme
artist and a saint, and epitomizes the ideal of musicianship in the south. Most
of his immediate disciples were not professional musicians but devotees and is
only after the succeeding generation that professional musicians received
thavagaraja’s compositions.
Karnataka performance practice tends to give greater
emphasis to the actual composition than is the case for Hindustani music. The
fixed and memorized composition along with its memorized variations are longer
and constitute proportionately much more of a given performance than in the
north.
Karnatak music include the major performance genres as
well as some minor ones: the varnam as advanced etude – like composition of ten
performed as the first item of a performance. The kriti, which is the classical
compositional form most often associated with the eighteenth century trinity,
is devotional in its musical form embodying extensive unmetered sections along
with a new or borrowed compositional line characterized by rhythmic variation
in the pallavi section. The regamtenam – pallaviis in principle the centerpiece
of a Karnataka performance, although a kriti will often assume this role in
actual practice.
