Sunday 30 December 2012

T.M. Krishna's concert: As usual unusual!

This weekend, on Dec. 29, one of the season's 'free' concerts of T.M. Krishna was for Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha at Vidya Bharathi Kalyana mandapam in Mylapore.

Though the hall and acoustics are not of great standards, the 700 plus seats at the hall was full and two CC TV monitors were kept outside the hall.

Both T.M. Krishna with Guru Karaikudi Mani on the mridangam have their own admirers and had turned out in large numbers despite the fairly heavy rains in the morning.


'Gurulekha' in Gowrimanohari was perhaps a tribute to guru Karaikudi on the mridangam that day! The main piece was different. Krishna renders the main item differently in his concerts nowadays. Beginning with alapana in Sriranjani and Kedaragowla raga and a slokam 'Vande maataram', Krishna sang tanam in Purvikalyani. The violinist followed the tanam in the reverse order of the ragas rendered by the vocalist.

Then, it was a tani avartanam in Rupaka talam. The clarity of the rhythm syllables, for which Karaikudi Mani is known for, received a huge applause from the audiences. However, the audio level was set to a higher decibel. And Krishna followed the tani with the pallavi 'Soga suga mridanga talamu' in Sriranjani with kalpanaswarams and continued it with Kedaragowla swarams and ending it with the pallavi Paradevate Lalithe and sang niravals in those lines.

Following another solo mridangam session, Krishna took up the pallavi lines 'Sabesan darisanam' in Poorvikalyani with elaborate rendition in 'trikalams' in Adi talam as in the traditional singing of pallavis and another short tani avartanam followed!

The concert continued with a javali in Behag, a slokam in ragamalika, Kanakadasa's composition Baro Krishnayya in ragamalika and concluded with Sadasiva Brahmendral's Sarvam Brahmamayam in Madhuvanthi.

A slow paced concert with three tani avartanam sessions. Definitely different from the concert pattern of these days.

1 comment:

  1. Do you have a recording of baro krishnaiah that Krishna sir sang that day ?????

    ReplyDelete