ETERNAL LIGHT by Lalgudi GJR Krishnan & Anil Srinivasan

Eternal Light is the meeting (jugalbandi) of two great artists and two royal instruments: piano & violin. A meeting that instead of the usual program of Western Classical Music this time is centered on a repertoire of classical composition of Carnatic Music (South India).
And this make this encounter unique.

The violin is entered in Carnatic music over 300 years ago and in this period has become the main instrument in accompanying singers and, after WWII, an important instrument on his own thanks to figures like Mysore T Chowdaiah, Dwaram Ventastaswamy Naidu, Lalgudi G Jayaraman or T N Krishnan while the piano is a complete outsider.
Piano with its rigid tuning piano has not been able to fit in the melismatic music of India. (V. Balsara is the only pianist little known, in the Hindustani music (North India) no player is know from South India.)
Here the duo presents a program of classical compositions from Carnatic tradition spanning from composers like legendary Muthuswamy Dikshitar to contemporary ones like Muthiah Bhagavatar and Lalgudi G Jayaraman.
The result is intriguing. While the violin plays, naturally, the lead role, the piano is always presents sustaining and dialoguing with the bowed strings.
The music sounds romantic, thanks to Anil's melodious piano, while the violin add a roughness that brings the sound into unfamiliar musical territories. With this recording we think the two artists have well shown how the dialogue between these two instruments can continue in the East.
The importance of the two main artists of course adds value to a meeting that is unique of his own.

LALGUDI GJR KRISHNAN, violin, is the son of the legendary Lalgudi Jayaraman. He has already released on our label two titles as leader: Bow to the Violins, with his sister Lalgudi VJ and the world acclaimed Strings Tradition, a meeting with Shujaat Husain Khan and Mamadou Diabate.

ANIL SRINIVASAN is a western-trained classical pianist and composer who has begun to make a mark for himself in collaborative spaces with South Indian classical musicians. Awardee of the prestigious Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for creative and experimental music from the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi, India central cultural authority, he is best known for his work with vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan. He has also collaborated extensively with Mandolin U Srinivas, in particular for his last CD Samjanitha (Dreyfuss, 2008).