This article takes a closer look at the Tamil Music Movement of the 1940s that contested the basis of the classical music tradition reconstituted by the Madras Music Academy. In espousing the cause of Tamil songs, the movement attempted to articulate a parallel conception of classicism that related to the song texts and to the singing voice, but which failed to break out of the discursive model that the Academy had set up for classical music. This article looks at the pre-history of Tamil Isai, and at how critical changes in the sociology of performance produced a new conception of classicism in both language and music.
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