Album Notes

The Carnatic Violin is a presentation of Carnatic music - a classical music tradition of India - performed on the violin by T. N. Krishnan, India\'s preeminent virtuoso.

Carnatic music is one of India\'s oldest and richest cultural traditions. This classical music form has flourished and spread in the South Asian subcontinent for over two millennia and is distinguished by an intricate system of scales, modes, and complex rhythm patterns. An extensive catalog of compositional forms establishes the musical idiom through which practitioners of this art make their creative expression. In addition to the vocal traditions and the use of indigenous instruments, Carnatic music relatively recently (c. 1800) adopted the modern violin into its roster of performance technology. T. N. Krishnan is the foremost performer of this art form on the violin and has been presenting, composing, teaching, and promoting classical Indian music all over the world for the past six decades.

Krishnan\'s music represents the purest expression of the Carnatic tradition. His emphasis on melodic clarity, spectral fidelity, and a bold and emphatic bowing technique are unparalleled in his field. This recording presents a rare and unique collection of his works that showcases the classical heritage of T. N. Krishnan and a glimpse of the creative genius behind his music.

On this record, Krishnan is accompanied by his son Sriram Krishnan on the violin and Trichy Sankaran on the mridangam. Sriram started training under his father at the age of six and has been performing and innovating his family tradition ever since. Trichy Sankaran, a master exponent of the mridangam, hails from the renowned Palani Subramania Pillai school of music and has been performing and teaching music for over forty years.