The Score Magazine - Archive February 2015 issue! | Page 17

Madras String Quartet
Breaking Musical Boundaries
V S Narasimhan and his Madras String Quartet have successfully combined
two grand music systems that have been around for thousands of years.
Mr. Narasimhan is here to give some background on the quartet and how they
were able to accomplish this innovative feat.
Can you tell us a little about MSQ and how this
unique group came together? Do you perform
regularly?
Sure, it would be my pleasure. The Madras String Quartet was
formed back in 1993.
We recently had some changes in the group with Mohan Rao
and Bhaskar joining our group. Its members are V R Sekar
(cellist), Bhaskar (viola), R Mohan (2nd violin) and myself (VS
Narasimhan – Founder and First Violinist). We are excited to
have them on board and are excited for the future of our group.
We are all professional musicians and we began our careers playing
in the Indian film music industry.
Back in the early 1960s, I had the opportunity to play chamber
music (Western) with my colleagues. We would meet on Sundays
to practice and eventually the group was christened Madras
Chamber Orchestra and I was the leader of the group. We
performed with many visiting artistes from the UK, Germany and
the USA. We also took advantage of chances to participate in their
master classes to build up our skills. After many years, there was
what one could term a crisis in the film-industry, and this led to the
unfortunate disbanding of the group.
Sekar and I had become close friends and due to our
passion for chamber music, we fought hard to establish
a new group. We were able to add a violinist and
one of our founding members Chandran switched
from violin to the viola – and suddenly The
Madras String Quartet was born!
We have been fortunate to have great success
and are humbled by the exposure we have
received as a group. We have performed
across India, in Europe, and in the USA
as well. To date, we have four albums
featuring our blend of carnatic music in
our string quartet format.
Who thought of the idea of
playing traditional Carnatic
compositions against a
background of Western
harmonies?
I began playing as a violinist in films so I naturally became
interested in the theory of Western Music. When I bought my
Yamaha QY20 sequencer, I started working on various versions of
Raravenu Gopala and they sounded good to me! That’s when a light
went off inside my head and I got this idea of playing traditional
Carnatic music compositions against a background of Western
harmonies in a quartet format.
Who composes the Western score for the pieces MSQ
plays? How long does it take you to record an album?
I had a natural curiosity in Western music since I was young. I then
delved into studying elements of Western music such as harmony
– so as I gained familiarity and a comfort level with such musical
elements, I began arranging the Western score for the pieces that
we would play and also composing my own pieces.
It typically takes at least a year or more to come up with the
music material to record an album. The process of arranging and
composing pieces can be quite long and must be done thoughtfully.
Then there is usually a 3-4 month period of practicing the album
material by the quartet before final recordings. So the process is
quite intense and long but our love for music pushes us forward!
You have achieved critical acclaim for your work as
a violinist from famous music directors in the past
including Ilaiyaraja and AR Rahman. Were you
inspired by any of the albums or music that you were
a part of during that time?
I played the solo violin parts in his albums How to Name it and
Nothing But Wind and while I was certainly inspired by those
previous projects, I saw a great potential for the works for The
Madras String Quartet to be even more revolutionary in a
sense because of the cross cultural dualistic sound that we are
creating through very structured, disciplined efforts through our
String Quartet format. We keep the music true to its Carnatic
roots – we follow all the Indian music principles as they ought to
be followed—however, we introduce a new world by bringing in
Western harmonies thereby adding greater depths and new facets
to Carnatic music. Its quite beautiful to hear two violins playing
Carnatic passages in harmony not to mention the rare magnificence
of hearing gamakas played on the Cello by Sekar. Our goal is to
break musical boundaries but still remaining respectful and
cognizant of what is distinctly a feature of each music
system.
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