This year, the loosely- structured festival that will stretch till the second week of January has programmed an unprecedented 1,400 recitals in 30 or so gana sabhas. This is an endearing element; recitals are spread all over the city, in auditoriums, parks, even neighbourhood street-corners, day and night.

And hidden in this overload of a Carnatic classical banquet are some sour notes. T.T. Vasu, president of the Music Academy, the oldest of the sabhas, talks about the lack of sponsors as a result of corporate cutbacks. While this obviously hasn't stopped organisers from going ahead, the massive proliferation has happened, says T.S. Parthasarathy, a former official with the academy, because a performance in the music festival has become a stamp of approval for budding musicians and dancers.

So, pressure for quick success often dictates that selection is ad-hoc. Parthasarathy warns that "this can dilute the quality of the art and the performance".

Organisers at other prestigious sabhas like the Fine Arts Society, Tamil Isay Sangam, Mylapore Fine Arts Club and Srikrishna Gana sabha agree. While they find out ways to stem the tide -- unlikely, given the rush -- the festival has recently had to give in to performances of Kathak and recitals of saxophone and flute to satisfy an increasingly varied and younger crowd.

"The old order is slowly giving way to the new," comments music critic K.S. Mahadevan. He doesn't have a problem with that, just some of the detritus it generates.

--K M Thomas