The year turns round, and before we know it, the Music Festival is once more upon Chennai. Once again, there is the mix of veteran virtuosos and aspiring performers, the average, the exceptional and the mediocre, the diehard traditionalists balanced against the boldly, sometimes audaciously ‘different', the old performers holding on to a mellow rendition but with failing voices and the vigorous, enthusiastic, young would-be achievers charging ahead born of dedicated drill (‘asura sadakam') under the eagle eye of a master (sworn to shaping his disciple to win, if not stun the audience) and impeccable in the execution of the different passages of a concert…
The city bristles with activity. There is the new artist from the district, entering the august portals of Chennai city's ‘Halls of Fame,' apprehensive of the icy stares of the audience, uncertain about the much cherished applauses.
A matter of pride
To a novice performer, an empty hall is both depressing and relieving, in equal measure! On the one hand, he wonders whether he came all the way to sing to the walls, but on the other, he can tell his peers back home that he has participated in ‘the' Festival; without anyone to intimidate him, barring perhaps a forlorn music critic somewhere, noting away!
As in all festivals, here too, there is style and fashion - in attitude and glamour; probably more among rasikas than artists -- of body language, lobbying and ostentation aplenty. In fact, everyone seeks to be somebody he is probably not but would like to be, at least for the moment. Amidst this melee, one wonders where music is. It is everywhere and yet perhaps nowhere. While the essence of music and dance lies in composition, melody, rhythm and expression, tala has been on the ascendancy and concerts have grown to turn into arithmetic contests.
Dwelling on compositions is now passé and exploring the depth of the composer's ethos and adorning the original with different sangatis makes way for machined arithmetic development. Some among the audience, not impervious to the glamour of gimmicks, cheer lustily. Sabhas use this as a barometer to reward such artists by advancing their slot closer to the evening hours in the succeeding year's engagement. Somewhere the vicious circle cries to be broken. True manodharma can be made inspiring through developing the passages of dedicated compositions, and above all, letting momentary pauses of total silence spread the mantle of tranquillity over the scene and aid the process of contemplation of nadabrahmam...
In dance recitals, the need to synchronise the voice, cymbals, mridangam and other instruments of the orchestra with the dancer's intricate footwork and regimentation is of paramount importance. Confined within this straitjacket, where can the dancer find room for extemporaneous creativity? That some dancers do indeed achieve this does them credit.
During Margazhi, music, dance and the omnipresent flavour of sanctity, culture and tradition abound in Chennai, surpassing any other city in the world. In which other city can you experience this ambience, this congregation of lovers of music and dance, whose conversance with classical music runs so high as to make even the most popular artist watch his step?
The Music Festival indeed is the stone on which the acknowledged connoisseur and casual novice alike can not only whet their blade of musical appreciation but also satiate their hunger for great music.
Creative pilgrimage
All roads lead to Chennai. The city draws artists, students of music and dance, from all parts of the country; musicologists and ethnomusicologists from foreign universities, students working on their doctoral thesis in art and most important, the plain, unassuming music enthusiast from the world over. Every artistic endeavour, creative innovation and new idea needs to pass through the test of fire at its altar! Thank God for the Margazhi Utsavam! But for the rigorous cleansing during this annual convocation, half-baked ideas bereft of any artistic value and pseudo themes would raise their hoods and proliferate laying claim to being new art forms.
