27th March

Concert review for T.V.Shankaranarayanan

There is a saying in Chennai. TVS means quality and quality means TVS. While people there referred to the TVS industry, one has to musically paraphrase the saying as follows: TVS means Paaramparia and it means TVS. Yesterday's concert by Shri TV Sankaranarayanan and Co. was amazing. The music deluge never stopped for close to three hours. If Bhuvaneshwariya in Mohanakalyani was divine, then in Sankarabharanam, TVS paid rich homage to his illustrious uncle Sri Madurai Mani Iyer through the unique paani of swaraprasthaarams made popular by the great man. In between there was the classic half-way starting in the Hindolam piece - Ramanukku mannan mudi thariththaaney!

The RTP in Brindavana Saaranga was interesting with shades of Hindustani music flirting in. And we learnt a new Raaga today - Vandanadhaarini during the Raagamalika that followed the RTP. While the crowd pleasers of 'Eppo Varuvaro' and English Notes met the expectations, what stole the evening in my opinion was the Virutham + 'Srinivasa Thiruvengadamudaiyaan' set in Hamsanandi. This piece was definitely steeped in all the virtues that one can expect from a maestro like TVS - Bhaava, Bhakthi, Vidwat, Innovation and Tradition.

The accompanying artistes - Shri Mahadevan Sankaranarayana (an able vocal foil to his father!) Shri Raghavendra Rao (he followed the vocalists like a shadow - never missing a note or sangathi); Shri Neyveli Narayanan (what a great differentiation that he was able to show between Smt Aruna Sairam's concert and today's concert - dipping us in the rhythmic bliss throughout); Shri TR Sundaresan on Morsing (our beloved SIFAS teacher) was in his elements during the concert and his thani performance was something that was worth waiting for 2 hours!

All in all a traditional & fulfilling evening.
Sri Ganesh

For me the experience was akin to a high school student being given an opportunity to sit in a University class with a very experienced Mathematics Professor effortlessly teaching Differential Equations and Fourier Transforms. Throughout the concert of Sri TVS this evening I was in total awe of this Maestro. At times I even felt like standing up reverentially to listen to his music as if sitting down and listening was a show of disrespect. Such was the mastery and purity of his rendering. It was an out and out purists’ delight. From the very first words that he rendered “Sudaroliye potri” he was fully into it with an unbelievable gusto and energy. It lasted all the way through the next nearly three hours till his final western waltz notes based on Sankarabharanam swaras and through the customary mangalam. It was unbelievable that even as late as at 10pm he was still into a superb exposition of raga alapana & neraval.

His majestic treatment of Hamsadhwani (Sri Raghukula), the presentation of Sudhdha danyasi (Sri Parthasarathy), his enchanting elaboration of Mohana Kalyani (Bhuvaneswari), his toying with Hindolam in the Arunachala Kavirayar sahityam (Ramanukku mannan mudi) , the outstanding raga alapana and delightful neraval in Sankarabharanam (Sarojadhalanetri Himagiriputri) ..... each one was a masterpiece in its own right. But my personal pick was the Brindavana saranga alapana and the way he moved effortlessly into different ragas vandanadharini & sindhubhairavi during this krithi “Brindavana saranga hari ranga panduranga”. His rendering of Papanasam Sivan’s Srinivasa Thiruvengada Udaya was a moving experience bringing tears to one’s eyes.

Another highlight was the superb level of vidvat of the accompanying artists and the excellent chemistry between the Master Vocalist and the accompanists. If Sri Raghavendra Rao with his violin was in an inspired mood ably tracing and following TVS in his journey of musical exploration with aplomb, the mridangam vidwan Sri Narayanan and our own Morsing expert Sri Sundaresan were a fantastic duo adding beautiful dimensions to the concert. TVS’ son Sri Mahadevan provided admirable back up to his father and gave signs of doing more than adequate justice to the great musical lineage of the family he belongs to. I am sure the young student (Rajath?) on Thambura would have been greatly benefited by being among this august pantheon of artistes.

On the whole it was an enchanting evening with the Maestro inspiring his accompanying artistes and elevating the entire audience to a different plane.
-V.Prabhakar Rao