Editorial Note, Jul-Aug, 2016

The current issue of Social Scientist has as its lead article the text of the Kumar Gandharva Memorial lecture delivered by T.M. Krishna, the renowned vocalist of Karnatic music. Krishna addresses the question: what exactly do we mean by ‘classical’ when we talk, say, of classical music? What is it that defines such music as ‘classical’? In a remarkable tour de force, he rejects all the answers that are usually provided to this question. ‘Classicality’ resides neither in its greater antiquity (since much of what we call ‘classical’ today has come into being in more recent times, and, conversely, many non-‘classical’ forms actually go back a long way), nor in its greater ‘sophistication’, since ‘sophistication’ has to be seen from within a tradition rather than as an extrinsic criterion applied from outside of it. Krishna sees ‘classical’ as an intentional bringing together of raga, tala, and vak in an abstract melodic form, in which musicality is not superimposed on a literary text (sahitya) but which uses words or vocal expressions for its own melodic purpose.