When people sent in WhatsApp message that the famous violinist Sri Nagai Sriram passed away, I could not make out who the person was till Nadhan called me yesterday and informed me that it is about Sri Nagai Sriram!
I always felt that Sri Nagai Sriram was one of the thinnest Carnatic musicians and was always suspicious of his health. He would never have any variations in his facial expressions, even surprising everyone around with his own electrifying ghamakam (that did not come from the main artist), while playing or accompanying the main artist. The unbelievable flow of ghamakam-choked musical ideas would flow through his performance and convince one and all that his mastery is inborn and not by pure training. I could only remember two of his performances at CTU, one in 2016 accompanying Sangeeta Kalanidhi Sankara Narayanan and another in CTU 2017 as a duet violinist with his uncle, the renowned violinist-Kalaimamani Nagai Muralidharan.
Even now I am able to recall their duet presentation-Ninne Bhajana in Chala Nattai of Saint Tyagaraja and Nandagopala of Deekshitar in Yamuna Kalyani. I have heard Ninne Bhajana only from two other artists-namely violin genius Sangeeta Kalanidhi MS Gopalakrishnan and from Hyderabad Brothers ( CTU 1993). As for Nandagopala, the format was out and out that of Sangeeta Kalanidhi Maharajapuram Santhanam and also of the same by his father Sangeeta Kalanidhi Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer. It is somewhat different musically from the usual Krishna Nee begane, that we are often used to, for identifying raga Yamuna Kalyani.
I never realized that he was just 41 when he passed away on April 8th, 2022. Even though we have had his accompaniment to several leading musicians at several CTU programs, I could not easily locate the details of those programs. Our core music loving volunteer Seshadri Ramasharma reminded me that he accompanied Sikkil Guucharan in 2009, Hyderabad Brothers in another CTU concert the same year, was also as CTU music competition judge with Kalaimamani Srimushnam Raja Rao in 2016, besides his duet performance in CTU 2017 with his uncle Kalaimamani Nagai Muralidharan. The enclosed list of their duet violin performance will be enough to show their total adherence to classicism and respect for our immortal composers spread across different languages.
Here they are
- Ninne Bhajana seyuvadanu – Chala Nattai-Adi 2 kalai-Tyagaraja
- Tsalakallaladu – Arabhi-Adi-Tyagaraja
- Nannuvidachi-Reethigaula-Misra chapu-Tyagaraja
- Nandagopala-Yamunakalyani-2 Kalai-Deekshitar
- Ranganayakam Bhavayeham-Nayaki-Adi-2 kalai-Deekshitar
- Raghunathanannu-sura-Ranjani-adi-Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar
- Upacharamulanu-Bhairavi-Adi 2 kalai-Tyagaraja
- Palukutenelatalli-Abheri-Khanda chapu-annamacharya
- Bharo krishnayya: Ragamalika-Maand-Bilahari-Mishra Piloo, Jonpuri-Adi-Kanakadasa
- Saagara sayana vibho-Bhageshree-Adi 2 kalai-MD Ramanathan
- Vishveshwar dharshan kar-Sindu Bhairavi-Roopakam-Swati Tirunal
- Tillana-Senjurutti-Adi-Mysore Chowdaiah
- Tunbam nergayil-Desh-Adi-Bharatidasan
- Bhagyata Lakshmi Bharamma-Madhyamavati-Adi-Purandaradasa
- Mangalam-Pavamana-Sowrashtram-Tyagaraja
Like Mandolin Srinivas who died quite young, Carnatic music is going through the trauma of losing many remarkable instrumentalists at such a young age. My father used to say this about Madurai Pushpavanam, (uncle of Sangeeta Kalanidhi Madurai Mani Iyer) who died quite young while rising like a meteor in the musical world with an unusually melodious voice.
We are able to retain for posterity the contributions of Sri Nagai Sriram only through such musical collections of CTU.
In grief,
TES Raghavan