Nostalgic notes

Governing the choice of compositions in the recent double-solo violin recital of Lalgudi Krishnan and his sister, Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, at Hamsadhwani's annual music festival, were fond memories of Madurai Mani Iyer, T. Brinda and Palghat Mani Iyer, whose birth centenary is being celebrated this year.

Thus, the concert featured a well-knit string of kritis which were very close to the hearts of those legendary musicians -- Papanasam Sivan's ‘Tatvam Ariya Tarama' (raga Reetigowlai); Tyagaraja's ‘Bhajare Bhaja Manasa' (Kannada) and ‘Padavini' (Salagabhairavi); and Muthuswami Dikshitar's ‘Soorya Moorthe' (Saurashtram), ‘Chintaya Maa' (Bhairavi) and ‘Meenakshi Memudam' (Poorvikalyani).

Rich tone

The lighter and vibrant songs, ‘Karpagame' and ‘Eppo Varuvaro' reinforced the Madurai Mani spirit towards the end, and the concert concluded, as usual, with a lovely tillana, composed by the violinists' father and guru, Lalgudi Jayaraman, in raga Pahadi.

Throughout the recital the tone of the twin violins was particularly rich. In the Bhairavi number, Krishnan underplayed his role to give Vijayalakshmi a free hand to show us her paces; and she did so with élan. And in the Poorvikalyani segment, it was the brother's turn to dazzle. Percussionists Patri Satish Kumar (mridangam) and K.V. Gopalakrishnan (ganjira) gave brilliant performances, which greatly enhanced the excellence of the evening's music.