Dr L Subramaniam & Ambi Subramaniam

I did a little research before I went, and found this quote by the featured headliner, Dr Lakshminarayana Subramaniam, who appears to be the world authority on music of Southern India, known as Carnatic music. He says: “Music is a vast ocean and no one can claim to know it all. The more you know, the more you realize how little you know. It is an eternal quest.” Comforted by those words, I started to look forward to what was going to be quite a different musical experience for me.

Billed as the “Paganini of Indian classical music”, Dr L Subramaniam performed his own composition, a Carnatic traditional style work in a kriti form. The kriti is divided into three sections, the pallavi, anupallavi and charanam. The audience that was present were obviously a lot more comfortable with things than I was and I saw several of them keeping count with the fairly complex rhythms in the same way as the musicians themselves during the variations and improvisations going on. The audience also burst into applause at the end of each section which did not end in silence like western musical movements, but rather morphed into something else over the applause.

Dr L Subramaniam

While Yehudi Menuhin is best known for working with Ravi Shankar in the Indian musical idiom, he also worked with Dr L Subramaniam, and here is a short clip of the two of them working together which can be seen on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHSN4LtGJYw

The other members of the ensemble were Ambi Subramaniam, the son of the maestro, and a very accomplished violinist in his own right and BK Chandramouli, on an elongated barrel shaped drum called the mridangam which formed the principle rhythmic accompaniment. G Satya Sai played the morsing, which has been known to me from childhood as a “Jew’s Harp”. It is a little wind percussion instrument with a metal tongue which vibrates. And then there was another musician playing a series of instruments which looked like tambourines without the jingly bits. The press release and programme have conflicting information and the name given and instrument played and neither listed instruments tie up with what I saw in front of me. My apologies to the artist concerned. There was also a droning throughout the performance.

What did I make of this, my first formal exposure to Carnatic music? I liked it very much and wished I knew more about it. It was easy to determine that Dr L Subramaniam is a truly accomplished violinist and musician and the music itself was far more accessible to me than I had feared it might be. It was an incredible privilege to be in a performance by one of the world’s top violinists. The audience was enthusiastic and gave the ensemble a standing ovation.

I would not hestitate to attend another Indian classical music performance in the future.

The performance I saw took place at the Lyric Theatre, Gold Reef City, Johannesburg on Sunday 16 September 2012 as part of the Shared History: The Indian Experience festival. This also formed part of the Arts Alive programme.