From the Tanjore Court to the Madras Music Academy

Description

This book traces the adaptation of the traditional music in south India, from the quiet courtyards of Tanjore to the concert halls of Madras, to the necessities of colonial and post-colonial social realities. An engaging narrative of the production of knowledge about music and the related institution-building process, the volume raises larger questions of identity and imagination. It discusses the influence of nationalism in the creation of an auditory habit as much as it shows how performance and patronage influenced the self-development of the consuming elite. Anticipating the dilemmas of the emerging modern Indian middle class, the author also explores the ambivalence and ambiguities that informed musical practices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The second edition carries a new introduction which updates research on the subject and also discusses the new issues and trends emerging in the study of south Indian classical music.
This book will interest students and scholars of history, music, sociology, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, south India, as well as informed general readers.

About the Author

Lakshmi Subramanian is Coordinator, Indian Ocean Studies Programme, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and was formerly Senior Fellow in History at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata.

Table of contents

Preface and Acknowledgements; List of Illustrations; Introduction; Chapter 1. Music Comes to the City; Chapter 2. Defining the Classical: The Nationalist Imperative; Chapter 3. Consolidating the Classical: The Madras Music Academy and the Politics of Custodianship; Chapter 4. On the Margins of the Classical: Law, Social Reform, and the Devadasis in the Madras Presidency; Chapter 5. Contesting the Classical: The Tamil Isai Iyakkam and the Contest for Custodianship; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.