Sangeetha Ksheerasagaram: Celebration of a musician’s oeuvre

The centenary year of Tadepally Subrahmanya Sastry culminated with concerts, chanting and a book release

The Sunday event to commemorate the centenary of Tadepalli Subramanya Sastry offered varied fare. There was a chanting of mantras, a Carnatic music concert, a book release, family bonding and plenty of speeches — mercifully all brief — on everything from musical excellence to the politics of the day.

The event marked the culmination of a year-long celebrations of the musician and composer Tadepalli Venkata Subramanya Sastry (1918-2010). Sastry was a noted musician, poet, educationist, writer and freedom-fighter. As a composer, he was particularly renowned for his thousand compositions on the thousand names of Goddess Lalitha as contained in the Lalitha Sahasranamam, employing many hitherto unheard-of ragas.

Organised by Sangeeta Ksheerasagaram and Saptaparni, the event saw group chanting of Lalitha Sahasranamam by women come up first on the agenda.

The Carnatic music concert that followed quickly was a vocal rendition by the distinguished musician Tadepally Lokanadha Sarma, son and disciple of Subramanya Sastry. Lokanadha Sarma has also trained under many stalwarts of Carnatic music like Chittoor Subramaniam Pillai, T Brinda, and Musiri Subramanya Iyer, etc.

Appropriately, the entire concert featured compositions of his father Subramanya Sastry. Since the idea was, presumably, to showcase as many compositions as possible, Lokanadha Sarma dispensed with manodharma elements like swarakalpana, neraval and even an RTP. A brief alapana preceded a couple of compositions. In keeping with the same format there was no room for a violin solo or a tani avarathanam.

Radhika Srinivasan on the violin and Karra Srinivasa Rao on the mridangam offered competent and unobtrusive accompaniment to the vocalist. Lokanadha Sarma's niece Tadepalli Sindhura provided vocal accompaniment.

Lokanadha Sarma preceded his vocal performance with a brief talk on the significance of his father's contributions to Carnatic music. Saying that “music is the delivery of sound”, he emphasised the need to understand a lyric and sing with involvement and full bhavam.

Starting off with Vighna Nivarana Vinayaka (Nata raga) and proceeding to a brisk pace in the varnam-like Naa Saami Neeveyani (Vasantha), he went on to Bhavasagara Madhanam (Mohana). Sarvani Samhaarakarini (Saramathi) was one of the thousand compositions from his father's repertoire on goddess Lalitha.

The highlight was Navavarnamayam Nadamayam (Anandabhairavi). It was an example of how many ways the word Nava can be employed in a lyric. This sonorous composition which brought out the raga-chaaya and meandered gently over its various notes stayed with us long after the programme ended. After a short alapana in Kalyani he went on to Kalyanamu Ganare and there was Gauri Shankha Kundendu Varna (Gauri).

A fitting finale to the 90-minute concert was the rendition of Idi Kadasaari Janmamuga Cheyumu (Hamsanandi) where the composer asks God that he be freed from the cycle of birth and rebirth. The philosophical bhavam of the song and mood of vairagyam (world-weariness) which Sarma conveyed perfectly made this another rendition to remember.

Later, the book authored by Subramanya Sastry, Panchamruthamulu was released. Short speeches and distributions of mementoes followed. The event was attended by Komanduri Seshadri, Ayyagari Syamasundaram, D. Raghavachary, Mohan Kanda, Kompella Sarma, Anuradha Gunupati, Madabhushi Sridhar Acharya, Radhika Chakravarthy, Karthika Anagha and others.