The unpredictability is what makes a T.M. Krishna concert special and his recent performance at the Asian College of Journalism’s M.
S. Subbulakshmi auditorium in Chennai did not fail to disappoint the audience in this respect. Till today, Krishna is the only Carnatic musician who has the ability to elicit contrasting opinions from two music lovers who may even identify as his die-hard fans.
His experiments with the format and manodharma could annoy someone who is emotionally attached to a particular composition and they may feel that his tampering is unjustified. While the other could simultaneously squeal with joy at the attempt and wonder how he is able to pull off such moves with elan and aesthetic sense. Such is Krishna spontaneity that even a padam, quite often sung by him in his concerts, sounds different each time one hears it.
Padams have been glorified not only for their musical nuances but for the unmatched erudition they lend to intimate settings. The auditorium, which is acoustically designed for performances without any form of electrical amplification, enabled the audience to hear even the micro sangatis that Krishna generously improvised in the pallavi of ‘Yaarukagilum’, a sringara padam, symbolic of rebellion. His demonstration of about half a dozen ways to end the phrase ‘Penne’ exhilarated the listeners.
One of Arun Prakash’s significant contributions to the arrangement is no doubt his no-fuss arudis; here it rounded up the anupallavi and carefu.