Notes of purity

The music of D. Seshachary, who passed away recently, was guided by patantaram

he renowned vocalist D. Seshachary (of Hyderabad Brothers) believed that the prime objective of music was to create happiness. A musician can make rasikas happy only if he or she experiences joy when performing, he used to say.

Born into a family deeply rooted in music, Seshachary, along with his elder brother Raghavachary, learnt music from their father Daroor Ratnamacharyulu, who belonged to the fifthgeneration lineage of saint Tyagaraja. Their father would teach them a varnam or a kriti and would ask them to sing it repeatedly for a week to perfect every nuance. If they made a mistake while practising a composition, they would be made to sing it again from the beginning. This rigorous training helped them uphold the patantaram when they began performing on stage.

Though the brothers initially sang individually, they came together at a concert in 1980 in Tiruvaiyaru as Hyderabad Brothers. Since then, they only performed as a duo.

During the next four decades, the brothers toured all over the world and won accolades. They made it a point to participate without fail in Chennai’s December Music

Season. They won the Music Academy’s best vocalist award

Tconsecutively for three years, from 1990. The brothers also received the Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer Award for rendering rare Tyagaraja kritis.

Duo singing has always received special appreciation from music lovers. No wonder, the Hyderabad Brothers achieved phenomenal success. They sang in perfect unison and could largely fill the void left by the Alathur Brothers.

The deep, resonant voice of Seshachary and the softer, mellow voice of Raghavachary blended beautifully to create a melodious effect.

A stickler to tradition, Seshachary insisted on preserving the heritage of classical music. “Some distinctive prayogas cannot be produced by magic. One has to contemplate on them to capture their beauty,” he had once said before a concert.

Seshachary was also a mridangam exponent. He learnt the art from his uncle K. Sudarsanacharya and was a staff artiste (mridangam) in AIR.

Delhi P. Sunder Rajan, who has accompanied the brothers several times on the violin, remembers Seshachary’s astounding prowess in writing notations. He said Seshachary would listen to a piece just once and effortlessly transcribe the sahitya and swaras simultaneously.

Unable to recover from the shock of his younger brother’s passing, an emotional Raghavachary said, “I have lost my right hand.”