"L Subramaniam is the best this listener has heard." - The New York Times "Violinist L Subramaniam proved to be a peerless virtuoso. Subramaniam’s poetic imagination formed inexhaustible permutations" - Los Angeles Times L Subramaniam, India's foremost violinist, orchestral composer and creator of the Global Fusion concept, is perhaps the greatest representative of Indian classical music today. He has performed/recorded with some of the greatest musicians of all times including Yehudi Menhuin, Stephane Grapelli, Herbie Hancock, Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, George Harrison and Stevie Wonder. He has written/performed orchestral compositions with the New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Orchestra Nationale du Lille, among others. L Subramaniam starts this album with a compositional form called the varnam, which he performs in multiple speeds. The varnam 'Evvari bodhana' composed by Patnam Subramania Iyer is in the raga Abhogi and is set to an 8 beat cycle (divided as 4+2+2) called Adi tala. The second composition is a famous 'kriti' in praise of lord Ganesha composed by Muthuswami Dikshitar. It is in the raga Nattai and set to Adi tala. The third composition is divided into three parts: Ragam, Tanam and Pallavi. This is a musically complicated and technically challenging form and is regarded as the acme of a South Indian classical performance. The Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi is based on a technically complex and musically rich raga called Vachaspati and is set to a Tisra Jati Jhampe tala (Kanda Nadai) which is a 6 beat cycle (divided as 3+1+2) where every beat is further divided into five pulses. The final composition is a traditional conclusion (Mangalam) -- Ni nama rupamulaku, a kriti composed by Saint Tyagaraja in the raga Saurashtra set to Adi tala.