T M Tyagarajan - Todi

T M Tyagarajan was a great musician.
I never had the chance to attend his live concerts.
His was an academic approach to music, if I am right.

Here is an article from The Hindu's pages.

Sangeetha Kalanidhi Thanjavur Mahalingam Pillai Thyagarajan was born on May 28, 1923, in descendant of a very special artistic lineage.

After his initial training under his father, he joined the privileged stable of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer. A vidwan of extraordinary musical wisdom, exemplary character and excellent culture, TMT occupied an exclusive elevated plane.

When he was a mere boy of six, Malaikkottai Govindaswami Pillai, the outstanding violinist of those times, predicted a bright future for Thyagarajan and blessed him. His maiden concert was at Thiruvaiyaru at the age of eight and no less a stalwart than Dakshinamurthi Pillai accompanied him on the mridangam. The vidwan had many strings to his artistic bow, as a performer, guru, composer, tunesmith, administrator, and so on.

Semmangudi who groomed and honed TMT’s praiseworthy skills, once told this writer that rather than TMT being referred to as his disciple, he was more privileged and proud to be known as TMT’s guru. His contemporaries such as K.V.Narayanaswami, B.Rajam Iyer, T.Brinda, S. Ramanathan, Thiruppambaram Swaminatha Pillai and others held him in high esteem. M.L.Vasanthakumari, D.K. Jayaraman and other musicians enjoyed singing songs tuned by TMT in their concerts. His cerebral activity was something exceptional that was well exemplified in his kriti pangeedu of Chengalvaraya Sastri, Ramaswami Sivan, Aanayya, Periyasami Thooran, the arutpas of Vallalar Ramalinga Swamigal, Thayumanavar, Guru Surajanandha and Manikkavasagar’s ‘Thiruvembavai’. He added rich gloss to the compositions of Sadasiva Brahmendra, Narayana Tirtha, and particularly the Ashtalakshmi songs for which he provided tunes that were the acme of melody. TMT was the Principal of the Teachers College of the Music Academy and the Principal of the Central College of Carnatic Music in Chennai. He was indeed a Principal with high principles. The Annamalai University, Chidambaram and the Madurai Music College were fortunate enough to have TMT adorning their faculties. TMT’s music was an extension of tradition that was judiciously and beautifully combined with pertinent innovations. His raga suites had an individualistic style, with neither aesthetics nor grammar taking a back seat.

I bring you T M Tyagarajan's excellent Todi rendition.
There is also an extra track after Todi.

Link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=10f3f26dc390f408ab1eab3e9fa335ca0c25838705c111d6

Let us enjoy good music.