Photo: Madurai Somasundaram with his Guru Chittoor Subramanya Pillai
What made this musician distinctive from his contemporaries? Why a listener always experiences a pensive, melancholic sruti as the base of his music? Whether his eventful life had derived this adhaara shruti? Yesterday night I have come across a rare video of his rendering. It is an excerpt of a Todi Tagalapana from a 1987 concert in Kanchipuram, two years before his demise at the age of 70.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou4qV5ATTnU&list=UUizoqbWqbuEStaK4LS9YhcQ&index=1&feature=plcp
You can also listen to a 3 hour live concert of Madurai Somu recorded in 1975 from this link:
http://chowdaiahandparvati.blogspot.com/2010/01/madurai-somu-music-that-stormed-mysore.html
In the year 1975 "Idahyam Pesugirathu" magazine carried a concert review by Subbudu " titled Somu-Sruti-Sahana - referring to Somu's Sahana alapana at Tamiz Isai Sangam-December season. In 1972 I recall a conversation with late violinist Madurai B.K.Vishwanatha Sharma who had accompanied Somu as well as his guru Chitoor for decades, BK mentioned that even now Somu practices 6 hours a daily.
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Raju Asokan