Carnatic music is the classical tradition of South India, carried above all by the voice. Varsha Ramann sings. Aparna Raghuraman answers her on violin, shadowing and challenging the line rather than accompanying it. Rambranavan Sivasubramaniam holds the whole thing in shape on mridangam, the double-headed drum played across the lap.
Very little of what you hear will be fixed in advance. Each piece begins in a raga — a melodic framework with its own permitted phrases, its own characteristic bends and oscillations between notes. The singer opens it first without pulse, unhurried, testing where it will go. Only then does the composition arrive. From there the improvisation grows: a single line returned to and reworked, then a torrent of solfège syllables traded back and forth with the violin, the drum answering both. What you are watching is decision-making at speed, in public.
Underneath all of it runs the tala, the rhythmic cycle. You will see people in the audience counting it out on their hands — beats, finger-counts, a turn of the palm. You’re welcome to do the same. You’re also welcome to respond while the music is happening rather than saving it all for the end. That is how this music has always been listened to.
An hour at one o’clock, perhaps four or five pieces, in a church built for sound. Most people arrive expecting something distant and leave having sat closer to a performance than they usually get to.
