T M Krishna, one of the rising stars of vocal music today, gave a performance at the Narada Gana Sabha Hall, under the auspices of Kartik Fine Arts. This young gentleman is quite talented and tries to maintain a high standard in his singing. On the whole, the concert was quite enjoyable, but this reviewer wishes that Krishna realizes the undesirability of two qualities that marks, masks and mars his musicianship nowadays. The first is the parallel stream of Ahs and Ohs that he keeps up throughout the concert, which keeps interrupting the music. The second is the extreme loudness of voice (aided and abetted by the mike), which is matched only by the loudness of his hand movements and gesticulations. Perhaps, not all musicians can be expected to emulate the late Voleti Venkateswaralu, when it comes to moving the non-singing limbs of the body. However, when a vocalist continuously serves a variety of fast balls, spins, googlies, aces and volleys to the audience and to his accompanists on stage, it is heavily distracting, to say the least. After a while, one had to resort to sitting through the concert with eyes closed, both to relieve one’s visual organ and to check if the audio input alone proved to be equally effective. Perhaps the audience by and large felt the same level of discomfort, as applause was not over-effusive.

The accompaniments were hardly heard during the opening piece, Ninnu Joochi (Sowrashtra, Adi, Patnam Subramanya Iyer). This despite the fact that T K Murthy had a disciple on stage, providing additional Mridangam support. Krishna had to gesture to the audio person to raise the volume of Vittal Ramamurthy’s violin, during the middle of the second piece, Anupama Gunambudhi in Atana (Khanda Chapu, Tyagaraja). A better solution would have been to slightly reduce the amplification given to Krishna’s voice and balance out the accompanying instruments accordingly.

Krishna’s strong point lies in his ability to render raga alapana-s expressively. Both Abhogi (Sabhapatikku) and Varali (Mamava Meenakshi) got the benefit of his imaginative skill in raga essaying. One thing he needs to watch carefully is his tendency to slowly accelerate during the course of the composition and perceptibly so during kalpanaswara passages. Mamava Meenakshi began at a reposeful pace, but by the time the neraval and swara-s were done, at Syame Sankari, the speed had picked up substantially. Among the tukkada items after the Tani Avartanam, Krishna began Vanipondu in Kanada with the Anupallavi, which seemed quite inappropriate for such a short Javali. The Tiruppugazh, Kadi Modi, was rendered reasonably well. The standard Mangalam Nee nama in Sowrashtram segued into Manirangu at the end, instead of Madhyamavati or Sriragam.

Vittal Ramamurthy’s violin accompaniment, as always, was competent but never rose to great heights. He stood out in a couple of swara exchanges, but his raga alapana-s were a bit on the pedestrian side. Mridangam vidwan, T K Murthy, lent his seniority and calibre to the concert. The level of anticipation with which he accompanied kriti-s was remarkable, and the Tani Avartanam in Misra Chapu was excellent. B S Purushottam on the Khanjira provided able percussion support.

Ratings:

Rendering of Compositions - 80 %
Sahitya - 75 %
Alapana - 75 %
Neraval - 70 %
Kalpanaswaras - 70 %
Excitement - 70 %
Sowkhyam - 50 %

Remarks:
Audience in hall - 50 %
Audience response - Average
Bandh in Chennai city upto 6 pm
Pleasant weather

- Nisshanka

Copyright 2004, Chennai Interactive Business Services (P) Ltd.
Phone: 91-44-52024601; 52071942; 52071943. Fax: 91-44-52122754
cibs@chennaionline.com