Blurring boundaries through musical strings

Engrossing experience

The Madras String Quartet performed a beautiful concert in the heart of the City, recently. The Quartet, founded by V S Narasimhan in 1993 follows the typical Western string quartet format – with two violins, one viola and a cello. The group doesn’t have any other accompaniments, except occasionally turning on an electronic tambura in an event for a solo improvisation.

Regarding the Madras String Quartet, their performance demonstrated how music can act as a bridge between different cultures and different traditions, and how it removes boundaries between different civilisations and cultures.

Post the performance, Narasimhan shared his thoughts with Metrolife, “We originally started out performing typical Western repertoire, but now we have become a unique ensemble performing exclusively Indian classical music and mostly Carnatic music compositions of our great composers – Thyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshithar and Shyama Sastri, also popularly known as the trinity.”

“Another major feature that makes our music a distinct and in a new genre is that we render original compositions of the great South Indian masters unaltered and at the same time provide harmony with our structures of Western classical music,” he added. The String Quartet includes V S Narasimhan on first violin, Bemanthraj Muliyil on second violin, B J Chandran on viola and V R Sekar on cello.

The group has received a lot of appreciation from audiences both in India and abroad. The Indian listeners finds that the beauty of the original melodies are enhanced and are more interesting for them, whereas, their renditions have a special appeal to the Western ears also, thus, taking Indian music to a global platform.

The musical arrangements are made by Narasimhan and some of the compositions performed include both North and South Indian folk music. In addition, some of the contemporary compositions of legendary musician Lalgudi Jayaraman are also included by the group.

The 11 compositions that they played included Navaragamalika Varnam, composed by Patnam Subramanya Iyer, Vathapi composed by Muthuswamy Dikshithar, Manavi composed by Thyagaraja, Petals in the Mist composed by Karaikudi R Mani and Chinnanjiru Kiliye composed by C R Subbaraman. The group ended their soothing performance with Krishna nee begane baaro composed by Vysaraya.

 All together an enchanting evening!