T. M. Krishna acting at M.S. Subbulakshmi auditorium in Chennai.
| Picture Credit score: M. SRINATH
The unpredictability is what makes a T.M. Krishna live performance particular and his latest efficiency on the Asian School of Journalism’s M. S. Subbulakshmi auditorium in Chennai didn’t disappoint the viewers on this respect. Until immediately, Krishna is the one Carnatic musician who has the flexibility to elicit contrasting opinions from two music lovers who could even establish as his die-hard followers. His experiments with the format and manodharma might annoy somebody who’s emotionally hooked up to a selected composition they usually could really feel that his tampering is unjustified. Whereas the opposite might concurrently squeal with pleasure on the try and marvel how he is ready to pull off such strikes with elan and aesthetic sense.
Such is Krishna spontaneity that even a padam, very often sung by him in his live shows, sounds completely different every time one hears it. Padams have been glorified not just for their musical nuances however for the unequalled erudition they lend to intimate settings. The auditorium, which is acoustically designed for performances with none type of electrical amplification, enabled the viewers to listen to even the micro sangatis that Krishna generously improvised within the pallavi of ‘Yaarukagilum’, a sringara padam, symbolic of rise up. His demonstration of about half a dozen methods to finish the phrase ‘Penne’ exhilarated the listeners.
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Certainly one of Arun Prakash’s important contributions to the association is little question his no-fuss arudis; right here it rounded up the anupallavi and thoroughly linked it to the charanam. The charanam ended with the phrase ‘Kasugusena’ on the higher gandharam. A spherical of swaras was rendered by Krishna at this level with a set of whirlwind phrases that touched the decrease and higher gandharams in a wild method. Simply when one thought this was not sufficient of a deviation, Krishna subsequent selected to discover the mandra sthayi with a spherical of swaras at ‘Enna’ within the pallavi. One should say this was an astute selection to make use of the setting successfully because the auditorium facilitated even the bottom mandra sthayi phrases to be heard clearly.
Krishna with Arun Prakash on the mridangam and H.N. Bhaskar on the violin
| Picture Credit score:
M. SRINATH
One of many items that Krishna selected to current was ‘Shubh sukh chain’, a Hindustani translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s poem ‘Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata’ whose first stanza is used because the nationwide anthem. Rewritten by Subash Chandra Bose with the assistance of author Mumtaz Hussain and Colonel Abid Hasan Safrani, the tune is a reimagination of the nationwide anthem and makes important departures from the unique textual content and melody. Krishna talked about that he selected to current this piece as sure verses in it echoed his ideas on nationalism.
Risk is what Krishna has proven the Carnatic music world from the start. Take as an example his dissecting of the Surutti nishadam. With out going into a lot of its customary phrases, he selected to exhibit how a lot the madhyama to higher nishada part will be exploited to get one of the best out of the raga. Subsequent, he added the shadjam to panchamam layer , later transferring on to approaching the nishada from the higher rishabham.
H. N. Bhaskar set out on an identical expedition to unearth the potential of ‘Ni’ in Surutti when Krishna interjected to infuse the kakali nishadam into the alapana to make it right into a soulful Desh. Finally nonetheless, the kaishiki nishadam reigned supreme and wrestled itself again to change into Brindavana Saranga. Muthuswamy Dikshithar’s ‘Soundararajam’ was rendered at a breezy tempo main as much as the thani. Arun Prakash supplied a seamless stream of sentimental strokes all through the composition and his thani was a direct extension of this subtle strategy. Some would even be daring sufficient to ask if what they heard was a ‘Soundararajam’ in the course of that incessant mridangam move — such was Arun’s melodic presence that night.
Krishna carried out a mikeless live performance on the Asian School of Journalism.
| Picture Credit score:
M. SRINATH M
Eminent poet Perumal Murugan’s poems on birds are full of lovely imageries and make use of tasteful alliterations . His fascination with the Indian Curler often called ‘panangaadai’ in Tamil resulted in him going via the works of M. Krishnan, a world-renowned ornithologist. Murugan was notably intrigued by the truth that the Curler lives in solitude and barely makes any form of noise. Tuned and introduced by Krishna in Khamas, the composition makes use of some attribute phrases involving the kakali nishadam to focus on the distinctive options of the fowl within the strains ‘neela nira rakkaiyai serkka virithu sellumbodhu’ and ‘porambaai padakkendru paayum’. They speak in regards to the brilliant blue markings on its wings, that are distinguished in flight, and its tendency to show aerobatic twists and turns.
Asking Bhaskar to take up an alapana, Krishna noticed because the violinist performed a transparent Mayamalavagowla alapana. Throughout his flip, Krishna tactfully eliminated the daivatam to show it into Jaganmohini topping up the section with superfast one-avartana swaras for ‘Sobillu Saptaswara’.
Many within the viewers have been joyful to listen to him sing ‘Bhare Panduranga’ and felt that it was apt post-Ashadi Ekadashi. When rendering ‘Koluvamaregada’ in Todi, Krishna’s neraval at ‘Tambura jekoni’ was punctuated by significant pauses the place the harmonic drone of the 2 tamburas on stage accentuated the temper of the sahitya.
Krishna will all the time be the musician who has taught a complete technology how you can unshackle artwork from orthodoxy. The one pledge all of us should take is to permit various types of inventive expression to co-exist in concord, with out one overpowering the opposite.
