Sri T.V. Sankaranarayanan – A Master of Swara Patterns

The sudden demise of Sangeeta Kalanidhi, Padma Bhushan Sri T.V. Sankaranarayanan is an irreplaceable loss to Indian classical music. As the nephew of Madurai Mani Iyer, he inherited  Madurai Mani Iyer’s musical treasures and especially his style of swaraprastarams. I still treasure his early concert tapes that are sample demonstrations of the musical genius of his uncle. 

East West society was perhaps the earliest organization that initiated concert tours of great Carnatic musicians in the United States in the early 70’s. The concert tour of Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman with Flute Ramani and Sri Ramnad Raghavan was one of the earliest ones by them and it was quickly followed by a concert tour of Sri T.V. Sankaranarayanan. 

There were many organizers in that society who were pining for the music of Madurai Mani Iyer. The nearest substitute for the music of Madurai Mani Iyer was from his nephew Sri T.V. Sankaranarayanan. He was young, energetic and was a master of the swara patterns of his uncle. In the initial days, his concerts would exhibit, now and then, the ingenious swara patterns of Madurai Mani Iyer and every one loved the renditions and were constantly longing for the same. I was no exception. 

Over the years, if I had listened to a tape of his again and again, it would have been his RTP in Brindavana Saranga. His father Vembu Iyer was always anxious that TVS covered the major ragas like Todi, Karaharapriya, Kambodhi, Bhairavi, Sankarabharanam etc in all of his concerts. Of course many Madurai Mani Iyer fans like me will be longing for the tukkadas of Madurai Mani Iyer from Sri TVS. 

TVS had an unusual way to start a Telugu or Kannada kriti with a viruththam in Tamil as preamble!! He was one of the pioneers in initiating RTP’s in multiple ragas. I would have listened to his Tamadam Tagadayya sung at Coimbatore Raga Sudha Concert at least 30 times. 

His first concert under CTU was organized at Triton college auditorium on 28th August 1994 [see photo insert]. TKV Ramanujacharlu (Violin) and Harikumar (Mridangam) were his accompaniments for this program. Except for Samaja Vara Gamana by Tyagaraja Swamy and Varadarajam Upasmahe by Deekshitar, the rest were from many composers of the 20th century (Papanasam Sivan, Ambujam Krishna, Periasami Thooran, Tulasivanamand and so on). 

We were blessed as a family to host the TVS troup for nearly a week. His simplicity would touch any one who moved with him. 

He visited Chicago and gave a memorable CTU concert in Nov 2002. 

His RTP in Lathangi at this concert is still ringing in my ears. 

I used to ask him about the advantages and disadvantages of krithis in various languages. 

He was the first one to clarify the point that Telugu krithis often contain many words ending in vowels. This helps musicians to open up their throat to prolong a sangathi with free breath control. Tamil and Sanskrit compositions by and large have the following serious problems. 

1. Too many words to be rendered within each tala cycle with minimal space for managing one’s own manodharmam in between. 
2. They often end in consonants that obstruct easy musical flow. 
3. While I was always tickled by Venkata Kavi’s compositions, except for one or two, rest remained dormant and never were a part of concerts of veteran musicians like GNB, Chemmangudi, Alathoor Brothers, Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer and a few more. It was only through Madurai Mani Iyer that even things like Taye Yasoda were popularized. 

In grief,

TES Raghavan