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M.S. Gopalakrishnan (1931–2013)

The modern tantrakari

6 min readJan 12, 2020

This post was in large part first published elsewhere in January 2013

The NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) in Mumbai has produced a series of recordings from its archives of live performances (mostly from late 70s and early 80s). Of all the performers, MS Gopalakrishnan is the only one who has one recording each from the Carnatic and Hindustani traditions.

This versatile violinist (or more archaically, fiddle maestro) passed away last week.

The first word that invariably comes to mind when thinking of MSG and his music is “clean” — primarily because of his superlative bowing technique. In all his recordings you will not hear a single scratch, squeak or imperfection of sound of any sort. Apart from such perfect bowing, the other main characteristic of the Parur school of violin playing (established by MSG’s father Parur Sundaram Iyer, perfected by his sons) is the use of short strokes, even when playing long phrases.

With these two main ingredients, MSG perfected what is, to borrow a Hindustani idiom, a modern tantrakari or instrumental mode of violin playing in Carnatic music; tantrakari as opposed to a gayaki or vocal mode of violin playing.

The voice has long been considered the most perfect instrument, especially in Indian classical music. This is especially true in the Carnatic music system where instrumental music developed primarily as accompaniment to vocal music and all the compositions were designed for vocal rendition. The great vageyakkaras paid equal attention to raga and sahitya (lyrics). The mimicking of the voice (and sahitya, to the extent possible) to perfection was the ultimate goal of the instrumentalist. The violin, introduced to southern India by the Portugese, and adapted for use in Carnatic music by Baluswamy Dikshitar (the brother of the great vageyakkara, Muthuswamy Dikshitar), was perfect for this purpose.

However, it took several decades (in the early part of the 20th century) for practitioners to fully master the instrument and fully make use of the ability of the instrument to sustain and glide between notes (as does the voice). Rather than mimic the voice, the pioneers instead chose the harmonium (the instrument that the violin would eventually replace on the concert stage) as the benchmark. This early harmonium-based violin play can be considered the “early tantrakari” school of Carnatic violin play. At a recent interaction between the Hindustani and Carnatic musicians, the violinist Lalgudi GJR Krishnan adeptly demonstrated this style, marked by quick fingering that jumped between notes rather than sliding between them.

It was with the advent of violinists such as Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu, Papa Venkataramiah and Chowdiah that the gayaki style of Carnatic violin playing started taking root on the concert platform. And it was the then young trio of Lalgudi Jayaraman, TN Krishnan and MS Gopalakrishnan that firmly established the gayaki style that we now all take for granted.

There is with any ebb and flow of currents, the danger of throwing out the baby with the eddy. While it was now clear that the violin could reproduce the voice with fidelity and establish the same depth of emotion in the rendering of a composition, the violin was capable of much more than the voice, especially in the hands of a virtuoso.

However, introducing a new virtuosity that highlighted the repertoire of the king of instruments into the essentially voice-based Carnatic idiom required great skill, understanding and above all finesse. MS Gopalakrishnan was up to the task. It is no small feat to use virtuosity in aid of a krithi or a raga, without overwhelming it, and MS Gopalakrishnan was one of the earliest to show the way. In doing so, he established the modern tantrakari style of Carnatic violin playing. This aspect of his music is best demonstrated in his kalpanaswaras, some of which cannot be reproduced by the voice, but none of which is over the top. His use of short strokes in long phrases, melodic embellishments that are perfect for the violin at the end of pre-composed phrases (“sangatis”) in a krithi, are also characteristic of this modern, balanced, tantrakari style of playing.

That he managed to do so without causing a whole lot of backlash, in a field notorious for its outsized egos (despite the false modesty) was a tremendous feat.

Here are a few pieces.

M.S. Gopalakrishnan and M. Narmadha playing Palukavemi na deivama (Thyagaraja, raga Poornachandrika), accompanied by Neyveli Narayanan (mridangam) and Srirangam S. Kannan (morsing)

A more expansive Kambhoji raga (Maa Janaki, by Thyagaraja).

MSG of course made his name, like most Carnatic violinists do, as an accompanist. Here combined brilliantly with all the top artistes. Here is an excerpt from a 1961 concert, accompanying Balamuralikrishna.

Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi in Todi raga (Balamuralikrishna vocal; MS Gopalakrishnan violin; TV Gopalakrishnan mridangam)

Finally, here’s his rendition of Abhogi in the Hindustani style. It’s one (very impressive) thing to master Carnatic ragas and the idiom and Hindustani ragas and idiom separately. To be able to take a Carnatic raga like Abhogi and be able to defy decades of conditioning and play it in the Hindustani style with such consummate ease is simply awesome.

Raag Abhogi

[Incidentally Sriram Parasuram an artiste who like MSG is proficient in both Carnatic and Hindustani idioms and the violin, recently delivered a wonderful lecture-demonstration on the differing ‘sound-scapes’ or use of gamakas in the two traditions. He beautifully demonstrated how Abdul Karim Khan adapted the Carnatic Abhogi to the Hindustani tradition to make it ‘their own’, and conversely, how Muthuswamy Dikshitar adapted Jaijaiwanthi for Carnatic acceptance. You can watch it here.]

I’ll end with a few asides. First, it was MSG’s father, Parur Sundaram Iyer, who introduced the violin to Hindustani music. This happened through his association with Vishnu Digambar Paluskar who taught Iyer Hindustani music and made him the professor of violin at the Gandharva Vidhyalaya. Second, I have always wondered what the relationship between MSG and his elder brother MS Anantharaman would have been like. MSA is by most accounts in a similar, if not the same, league as MSG, yet it was MSG who became part of the famed trio, not MSA. How did MSA and MSG deal with this? It is not often than an elder sibling is superseded in the arts. As a further aside, of all the remaining exponents of the Parur bani, my favourite is MA Krishnaswamy, son of Anantharaman. He combines the traditional technical perfection of the Parur school with a rare sensitivity and feel for ragas. He also smiles, which makes a big difference to the overall experience.

My final aside was also gleaned from the interactive workshop between musicians at the NCPA. I have always wondered why the tantrakari style of instrumental music is so much more firmly established in Hindustani music — even if lyrics do not have a position of primacy in Hindustani music, the voice is still considered the ultimate instrument. Was the north simply more open minded than the south? I learned from Nayan Ghosh that part of the answer lies in the technical limitations of the primary north indian instrument — the sitar. Even if they wanted to mimic the voice, early instruments did not have the “sustain” and ability to glide between notes that the voice does. And since the sitar was a performance instrument in its own right (not just an accompanying instrument), a whole vocabulary and a rich trove of “gats” (composed refrains) that highlighted what was best of the sitar was fully established before khayal singing became popular. As soon as the sitar evolved to enable more sustained notes, a “gayaki” style also emerged, but only after a long tradition of tantrakari exposition had been firmly established.

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Vishnu Vasudev
Vishnu Vasudev

Written by Vishnu Vasudev

I write mainly about my experience as a listener of Carnatic music.

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