Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

(c) Thumrī.

The third main style of Hindustani classical music is embodied in the compositions called thumrī, developed in Lucknow in the 18th and 19th centuries, and later in Banāras (see also §IV, 1 below). The texts are extremely short and characterized by the mādhurya bhāva (‘sweet sentiment’) of erotic love. Thumrī has sthāyī and antarā divisions like khayāl but is rendered in a much more elaborately florid and perhaps rather sentimental manner. The main tempo is slow, but towards the end there is a section in a fast time cycle in which the singer repeats the first line indefinitely to keep the time while the tablā player plays virtuoso solo passages called laggī; the conclusion is again at the slow tempo. Thumrī has its own slow time cycles (see Tables 13 and 14) and its own rather small number of rāgas, which are found in dhrupad but hardly ever used in khayāl. The chief thumrī rāgas are Pīlū Khamāj, Kāfī, Jogiyā and, above all, Bhairavī. Whatever the rāga, phrases and elements from other rāgas are often mixed in (hence designations like miśra [‘mixed’] Khamāj and miśra Kāfī), sometimes to the extent that only the refrain belongs to the same rāga throughout. Dādrā compositions in the fast dādrā tāla also use thumrī rāgas.

Renditions of thumrī rāgas in thumrī style are now used as concluding items in most concert programmes, both instrumental and vocal. Furthermore, bhajan (popular devotional poetry) is now often sung in some of the very popular thumrī rāgas by musicians who like these rāgas but do not handle the thumrī style easily, or who prefer not to sing the somewhat erotic thumrī texts; this practice was begun by Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872–1931).

India, Subcontinent of, §III, 5: Theory and practice of classical music., Compositions, genres and performance of vocal music.

(iv) Genres and performance: Karnatak music.

Compositions play a much more central role in concerts of Karnatak music than they do in Hindustani music. The oldest south Indian compositions that probably retain some of their original musical settings are the padam compositions of Ksetrayya, used for the south Indian classical temple dance now called bharata-nātyam. They are devotional texts, mostly in the mādhurya (‘erotic’) mode, and sung in a rather slow tempo that gives the dancer ample time to illustrate and elaborate the text with the stylized gestures of abhinaya. A few Karnatak rāgas are considered too vigorous for padam – they are called ghana (‘heavy’) and are especially suitable for tānam improvisation (see §3(ii)(d) above) – but most of the well-known rāgas are used in padam. Some of the smaller and more melodious rāgas particularly good for padam are called rakti (‘emotional’) rāgas. Jāvalī, a small-scale and lightly erotic genre sung in rather fast tempos, also uses rakti rāgas.

In the mid-18th century probably the most important compositional form was the varnam, which unlike other genres has two completely independent sections. The opening pallavi is followed by a rhyming anupallavi, the two being related to one another as are the sthāyī and antarā of Hindustani music (see §(i) above). Following the anupallavi comes a passage sung first with its svara syllables and then with a sāhitya (text), followed by a return to the pallavi. Then a caranam (stanza) is sung; the caranam itself serves as a refrain for several passages of svara-sāhitya like that following the anupallavi, and the varnam concludes with the last return to the caranam. Uniquely in the varnam, there is never a final return to the opening section, the pallavi.

Varnam compositions are of two kinds; pada varnam is for dance and is the major item of a bharata-nātyam recital; tāna varnam is for singing (or playing), and the extra passages following the anupallavi and caranam are sung with svara syllables only. Traditionally a varnam is sung as the first item of every concert; otherwise, they are regarded as advanced study pieces, from which many important rāga configurations are learnt. The verbal texts of tāna varnam are short and floridly set; the individual svara in the pulsed melismas are sung in a distinctly emphatic and separated fashion unique to the tāna varnam.

The most important modern south Indian type of composition is the kīrtanam. A kīrtanam used as a concert piece and endowed with composed variations (sangati, cittasvara) is often called a kriti. In essence a kīrtanam is a simple devotional song for group singing, comprising a short refrain, the pallavi, sung by the whole group, and a number of stanzas, the caranam, for the leader or for individual members of the group. The pallavi is sung in a low register and the caranam in the upper register. Kīrtanam like this, including many composed and used by Tyāgarāja for his own devotions, are still sung as bhajana (devotional songs).

Even the simplest kīrtanam, however, usually have besides pallavi and multiple caranam an anupallavi, following and rhyming with the pallavi, set to a contrasting melody in the upper register. Many simple devotional kīrtanam have anupallavi and caranam in the same tune. In a more complex kīrtanam the full ABCB' structure of kriti and dhrupad is observed (see §(i) above). In the typical design of the small concert kriti, the pallavi and anupallavi have one line each, while each caranam has two lines (sometimes four). A larger kriti normally has two lines in the pallavi, two lines in the anupallavi and four or more lines in the caranam; normally only one caranam is used for a large kriti.

Ex.8 above shows the basic melodies of the whole of Tyāgarāja's ‘Gītārthamu’, a song of 2 + 2 + 4 lines (= tāla cycles) treated as a moderately substantial concert piece. As mentioned above, any individual line of a composition may be enlarged with a succession of memorized variations called sangati. Omitted from ex.8 are whole sets of sangati for the first half-line (‘gītârthamu sangītânandamu’ etc.), and for both lines of the anupallavi; only the returns to the pallavi are indicated, to show the overall shape and continuity in performance. As is common, the first two lines of the caranam revert to the register of the pallavi, but with a different melody focussing on the 5th scale degree, while the last two lines (from ‘hari vara rūpudu’) have the same tune as the anupallavi.

Also contributing to the expansion of many kīrtanam compositions into elaborate concert kriti is the use of a tempo slower than the brisk pace appropriate to a devotional group song. The slow tempo permits the stylish transformation of a square text rhythm into a gracefully varied and elegant musical rhythm. The underlying rhythmic unit of ‘Gītārthamu ’ at slow speed is represented in ex.8 as a quaver, making four beats to a minim count, eight counts in the time cycle. The long and short quantities in the text syllables can be regarded as doubled in value, the proportion being thought of as 4:2 rather than 2:1, which allows plenty of room for subtle rhythmic shifts of attack position. One sees that a value of 4 in a long syllable of the text can be replaced in the music by values of anything from 2 (in ‘dzūda’) to 6 (in ‘sam’); the duration of the short syllables can be reckoned on the same scale as being either 2 or 1. Among the rhythmic niceties made possible by this process is the reduction of the two longs of ‘gītā’ and ‘sītā’ and the four shorts of ‘hari-hara’ and ‘hari vara’ to a series of hemiolas, by squeezing them from two counts into one and a half. The etuppu (the time-point of each line beginning) is thereby shifted forward to the third beat of the first count, which in turn means that the ending of each line is carried across the first count before the next line is begun. The increased momentum thus given to line repetitions and variations, to continuations and to returns to the opening, contributes greatly to the unity of the composition as well as to its surface effect.

Ex.7 above, the pallavi and anupallavi of a kīrtanam by Muttusvāmi Dīksitar, illustrates a rhythmic technique of a different kind, intrinsic to the basic structure of the composition rather than superimposed upon it. The musical rhythms are precisely based on the syllabic quantities of the text, but two tempos are used. The basic tempo is represented by ‘budham āśrayāmi satatam’, while ‘sura-vinutam candra-tārā sutam’ goes at twice the speed. In the anupallavi the passage ‘madhura … sampadam’ is also at double time, called madhyama-kāla (‘medium speed’). Madhyama-kāla conclusions to sections are a constant feature of Dīksitar's compositions, and in some cases very complex text–music devices are employed in their construction.

A programme of Karnatak music will normally comprise a sequence of compositions in different rāgas and different forms: mainly kriti or kīrtanam, with perhaps a varnam to begin and a tillānā or bhajan to end. The extent of improvised elaboration will vary, some compositions being rendered with no more variation than the fixed sangati. Usually one item, often a large kriti, is elaborately developed, beginning with an extended ālāpanam. Some improvised niraval and/or svara-kalpana may be included during the rendition of the composition, and more may follow. The variety of improvisation techniques used and the extent of elaboration applied is limited, however, by the perception that the music is at root devotional, and the expression of the words should be enhanced, not overshadowed, by purely musical development. Full scope for abstract musical development is allowed only in the genre rāgam-tānam-pallavī, which may be performed as the centrepiece of a recital if time permits.

The performance of rāgam-tānam-pallavī, or pallavi for short, developed at the 18th- and 19th-century courts, beginning with the mid-18th-century Thanjavur musician Pachimiliam Ādiyappayya. It was and is the supreme test of a musician's skill in improvisation. The composed element is reduced to a single short section, the pallavi; there are no anupallavi or caranam as in other forms. The pallavi itself has a special structure, comprising two phrases separated by a short rest; the first phrase is repeated to conclude the melody. Usually the pallavi incorporates a technical challenge. It may be composed in an unusual rāga or tāla, or the two phrases may move at different speeds against the tāla. Two examples of pallavi melody are given in ex.15. The first is composed in an otherwise unknown tāla comprising successively shorter anga; in the second, set to miśra Cāpu tāla, the pattern of the tāla is presented in the first phrase at double speed, resulting in a highly syncopated rhythm. Such melodies were invented and proffered as challenges to court musicians by their patrons or rivals. The challenge was not only to repeat the pallavi immediately but also then to perform a complete rāgam-tānam-pallavī improvisation on it, lasting perhaps an hour (Catlin, 1985).

The elaboration of a pallavi begins with an extended unmetred ālāpanam, called rāgam in this context, in which the motivic material of the rāga is developed in all registers (see §3(ii)(d) above). When the soloist has completed this development, the violin accompanist is usually given an opportunity to play an ālāpanam independently. Then follows the tānam, where, as in the medium-tempo ālāp of dhrupad or the jor of a sitār solo, the rāga is unfolded against a steady but unmetred pulse (often articulated as a lightly pulsed drone by the violin). The pallavi melody is then introduced, and the percussion accompanist(s) (playing the barrel-drum mrdangam and optional instruments such as the pot drum ghatam) participate from this point on. Extended and elaborate niraval and svara-kalpana improvisations, by the soloist and the violin accompanist alternately, may also include the augmentation-diminution procedures known as anuloma and pratiloma, where the tāla is kept constant, and the composition is sung at faster or slower speeds (cf the lay-bat of dhrupad), or the composition is sung at a constant tempo and the tāla clapped at different speeds against it. A sequence of three or more progressive augmentations or diminutions may be termed trikāla (‘three time-reckonings’). Other variation procedures include a korappu, dialogue between the soloist and accompanists, in which the latter imitate immediately each phrase improvised by the former; and korvai, a pre-composed episode of complex rhythm played by all performers in unison. The performance ends with a final reprise of the pallavi, but this is normally preceded by tāni āvartanam, an extended percussion solo (or dialogue if there is more than one percussionist) in a number of episodes leading to a climax. The soloist must keep time for the percussionists by showing the tāla with the hand and must reintroduce the pallavi melody at exactly the right moment. Thus the underlying principle of pratigrahanikā -type improvisation, the return to the composition after improvised episodes, here becomes the final challenge of the pallavi performance.

India, Subcontinent of, §III: Theory and practice of classical music.