With Grace and Intensity

With Grace and Intensity

CHENNAI: He is a maverick musician with abundant knowledge in the cultural arena, no doubt, but the seriousness with which vocalist TM Krishna tried to convey the recital contents in a style replete with perfection of raga and notes leads us to ruminate whether he contributed towards the ‘majesticity’ of the performance, when he gave a recital at Tamil Isai Sangam recently.

The recital opened with Saveri Raga (Muruga-Muruga) of Periaswami Thooran with exhilarating swaras at ‘Senthil’ indicating the musical breeziness that was to set  in. The Bilahari Raga alapana (Chuttum Vizhi Chudar) of Bharathi, traversed through a range of ragamalika (Bhairavai, Sama and Vasantha), with  focus on its shapeliness as a raga of appealing grace. The vocalist after a short alapana of Karaharapriya (Pullahi) revealed his vivid perceptions of the subtleties of Raga Kalyani through an admirably nuanced raga exercised to a dainty description of the Kriti (Ellam Sivan Seyal). The vistas of raga attributes were mellifluous. Though the concert revealed the enduring quality of his music touching the intrinsic aspects of the compositions, which was indicative of his encompassing musical capacity to handle the passages with tidiness, it lacked the ‘gambiram’ of a ‘celebrity vocalist’. While violinist Hemalatha excelled in her ingenuity in presentation, Muruga Bhoopathy on violin confined himself to softness of beats while Chandrasekara Sharma on ghatam, followed suit.

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