Sankaran Namboodiri @ Fort School Ramanavani Concert, 08 Apr 2012

Vocal: Sankaran Namboodiri

Violin : S Varadarajan

Mrudangam : Poongulam Subrmaniam

Ghatam: Sukanya Ramgopal

List:

01. ??

02. brOchEvA ravarurE- khamAs – Mysore Vasudevacharya

03. ?? – aThANa -

———————————– I reached only after this —————————-

04. dorakuNA ituvaNTi – bilahari – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S,T )

       neraval & swara @ ‘ rAma brahma tanayuDau tyAgarAju tA baDucu’

05.  raguvar tumkO – Ahir bhairav ? – Tulsidas

06.  rAmanAma pAyasakE – bhImplAs – Purandara Dasa

07.  rAmanAmame stuti manamE – dEsh – Tanjavur Sankara Iyer

08.  dEva bandA namma ranga banda – ?? – Purandara Dasa

09.  tambUri mIti tava – sindhu bhairavi – Purandara Dasa

10.  thillAna (tana dhimta dhimta dhiraNa) – mAND- Lalgudi Jayaraman

It was the ‘Founder Day’ function at Ramaseva mandali, yesterday and Vid.Sankaran Namboodiri, was felicitated by the Mandali along with Rudrapatnam Brothers,  H S Sudheendra and Dayanand Mohite, for their contribution to carnatic Music. The function was scheduled to begin at 10:00 am, and to skip sitting through the function, I reached the venue around 10:45 to listen to Sankaran Namboodiri. However, the function had a delayed start ( possibly due to the late arrival of dignitaries) and to add salt to the wound, I was told that the concert started early and the team had already sang for 20+ minutes. So, much for my planning.

So, I had to sit through the ceremony. To their credit, the organisers managed to keep the program short ( well, all those speeches , shawl and garland , photo session etc had to be there). Rudrapatnam Thyagarajan spoke n behalf of the awardees, and Minister Ashok, did the honours ad gave his little speech. My congratulations to those feted , and we the listeners are indeted to them for their music and teaching.

Back to Sankaran Namboodiri, the concert resumed after the function without much delay. He directly choose to present the main for the day and in what a classical way ! Bilahari alapana was brilliant, with some good violin returns by Varadarajan. Dorakuna was very good , the neraval was fabulous. The kalpana swara that followed took the overall effect to a very different level, with Varadarajan pitching in beautifully. The percussion support was apt and the duo continued with a brilliant tani avartanam , a bit long for a shorter concert, though.

A chain of post main kritis followed from tulsidas to a couple of dasar nama. The ‘free food’ offer was in the air and Sankaran Namboodiri managed to hold the crowd until the thillana. As soon as he begun ‘tana dhimta’ one side of the ’pandal’ emptied as the crowd imediately queued up near the door, leaving Sankarn Namboodiri with a handful of us to conclude. An extremely discourtious behaviour.

While, I regret the miss of the initial part ( I was told both khamas and atana were very good) I cherish the superb bilahari for a long time. Once again, congratulations to Sankara Namboodiri on his ‘recognition’ by Ramaseva Mandali.

 

Sanjay Subrahmanyan @ Rama Seva Mandali , Fort High School Grounds 07 Apr 2012

Vocal : Sanjay Subrahmanyan

Violin : S Varadarajan

Mrudangam : B Harikumar

Ganjira : Venkataraman

List:

01  everEmi bOdhana ( varNam) – sahAna – Patnam Subramanya Iyer

02  paralOka sAdhanamE – pUrvikalyAni – Thyagaraja ( S )

03  rAma ninnu vinA – SankarAbaraNam – Thyagaraja

04  mAmava pattAbhirAma – maNirang – Dikshitar ( A,N,S )

      neraval & swara @ ‘ vichitra maNimaya simhAsanE navaratna maNTapE’

05  nIyE sharaN shanmukhA – kAmbOji – Papanasam Sivan

06  endukO nI manasu – kalyANi – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S,T)

     neraal & swara @’ sharaNAgata vatsala nammiti tAaka nAma parAtpara’

07  chalamlarA – mArgahindOLam – thyagaraja

08  RTP – sAvEri – tisra tripuTa

     pallavi line ‘ varaTTum, manamE varaTTum, iru manamE varaTTum, patarAdiru maname – varaTTum..’

     pallavi in rAgamAlika sAvEri, Anandabhairavi, hamIr kalyANi, mOhanam

     ragamalika swaras in sAvEri, Anandabhairavi, hamIr kalyANi, mOhanam

09  mAtADa bAradEnO – khamAs – Narahari Dasa

10  kalilO harismaraNa – kApi – Muthaiah Bhagavathar

11  viruttam ( vizhikku tuNai ) – mAND

      ArumO Aval – mAND -  Kannan Iyengar

12  mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja

Another brilliant concert by Sanjay at the Fort high School grounds. The cracking swaras of Purvi kalyani, the outstanding manirang, the sangatis of the rare sankarabharanam kriti and saveri alapana stood out in a remarkable day.

Concert started with the sahana varnam in the typical two speed variation. The purvikalyani kriti came quick follwed with some fabulous swara singing, despite the dampener came in the form of power interruptions. Power outage seems to be following Sanjay here almost every time ( last time while he was concluding a mesmerisig everi mata main ). While he was at the cresendo ( so to say) with some superb swara the power went off to the dismay of the listeners. Sanjay , unperturbed continue singing, but was harldy audible to people sitting in the back rows.

A rare Sankarabharanam kriti of Thyagaraja came in next. The only knowledge I have of this kriti is a BMK version (I was told that there is another by Dr.S Ramanathan). The elaborate sangati’s he sng for nannu rakshimpa’ was phenomenal. If this wasgood, what followed was fabulous. A 7-8 minutes of manirang alapana followed by the predictable mAmava pattAbhirAma’. Neraval , interestingly was taken up at ‘vichitra manimaya’ ( this kriti provides ample possibilities of neraval lines). Neraval, to say the least, was just briliant, so was the swaras that followed.

A short shanmukhapriya came in before the main. Sanjay started the main with few shortish phrases. an unplanned, uncontrolled yawn broke out from me, and I immeditely sensed the ‘kalyani’ on its way. I dont know if it’s only me, but the kalyani alapana did not give many aha or ‘tsch, tsch’ moments. However, the kriti with rather shortish neraval and swaras were good enough to cover the main. Harikumar and the young Venkataraman gave a spirited, well received tani avartanam.

To make up, sAvEri alapana was very very good. All that was missing in kalyani was her e. He received the maximum applause after the brilliant saveri alapana. Tanam was just good. Pallavi was interesting. After few rounds of pallavi neraval , he changed the raga to Anandabharabi, hamir kalyani nd mohanam. He did it in a tricky ( may be a it gimmicky) way with these combinations as :saveri , saveri+ anandabhairavi, saveri+anandabhairavi+hamirkalyani,  saveri+anandabhairavi+hamirkalyani+mohanam easing from one raga to other for the same line. ragamalika swaras folowed the same pattern in the reverse order.

The support cast did a great job to make this concert memorable. Varadarjan was following Sanjay near 100%. His retunrs for manirang , kalyani and saveri were top class, so was his swara returns. Harikumar also gave a great support, along with the Ganjira aritst.

Post main had only  couple of songs. I was expecting a longer version of viruttam, before arumo aval. Apart from the small glitch in the power, the rest of the concert was very very good.

 

Hyderabad Brothers at Fort School Grounds, 1st May 2011

Vocal : Hyderabad Brothers ( Seshachary and Raghavachary)

Violin : Mysore Srikanth

Mrudangam : B C Manjunath

Ghatam : Giridhar Udupa

Songlist:

01 sAmi ninnE kOri ( varNAm ) – Sri – Karur Devuda Iyer

02 Ela nI dayarAdu ( bAlakanaka maya) – aTANa – Thyagaraja     ( O , S)

03 hiranmayim lakshmIm – laLita – Dikshitar  ( A,S )

04 mitri bhAgyamE bhAgyamu – kharaharapriya – Thyagaraja ( A,S )

05 brOva bhAramA – bahudhAri – Thyagaraja (S )

06 marukELarA – jayanthasrI – Thyagaraja

07 mOhana rAma – mOhanam – Thyagaraja ( A,S,T )

08 rAma rAma rAma rAma rAmA ennirO – tilang – Purandara Dasa

09 krishNA nI bEganE bArO – yamunA kalyANi – Vyasaraya

10 thillAna ( dhim tana dha dhIm tana dhA dhiraNA) – pahADi – Lalgudi Jayaraman

11 mangalam – saurAshtram  / madhyamAvathi – Thyagaraja

Requests galore, and they entertained every one of them with enthusiasm and altering the original planned list. The entire concert list ( apart from the first two) , was based on request from the audience. That had both the plus and minus. On the positive side, it was a new experiment and a fine gesture from the artists and it kept the audience glued till the end. On the other hand, it lost the logical progress of the concert and in the melee, lost out many elements of the concert. If you see the list, you observe , there was no neraval sung for any of the kritis. The selection of ragas ( a prati madhyama kalyani was in the offing , which he changed to Mohanam after the request) , most of the kritis were of Thyagaraja ( hence a bit of variety is also lost) , a possibility of pallavi was also lost.

For me Lalita is the take of the concert. It was brilliant on all aspect. The alapana, the kriti rendering itself, and the kalpana swara that concluded were brilliant.  Raghavachari’s alapana of kharaharapriya was also good at most part. Mitri Bhagyame is a good kriti ( I’ve heard them sing the same at the same venue a couple of years back as main), but lack of neraval and not so exciting swaras left me with an unfulfilling feling.

After two quick kritis ( requested again) , he choose to sing mOhanam as main , instead of kalyani (music to my not so Kalyani friendly ears ) . Alapana from Seshachary was brilliant at pieces. He excelled at the lower octave ‘sancharas’ however at the rest were just ok ( somehow a mohanam feel was missing). The kriti was also average. It sounded very structural than melodious. The floating feeling of lisening to Santhana’s mohana rama was missing. There was no neraval here again, and the kalpana swara was also had nothing great to talk about.

B C Manjunath and Udupa enthralled the audience with an outstanding tani avartanam. This is undoubtedly one of the best I’ve heard in last one year. People attended the other concerts here tells me that the same duo had another spell-binding tani avartanam for Mysore Brothers concert. Manjunath, I’m hearing him for the second time on the same day, continued his good form from the morning concert of Trichy Pradeepkumar to the much senior and seasoned artists. Mysore Srikanth was the perfect shadow for the main singers. Whatever, they performed, he reproduced them in exact form.  His return alapana were also crisp and following the main artists.

Post main had the Purandara Dasa devarnama , and a very good pahadi thillana of Lalgudi. The announcer during the post main talk mentioned that the duo sing Lalgudi’s thillana brilliantly. Biting the clue, Seshachary was quick to acknowledge this as a request and accepted to sing the same.

Three reasons for my unhappiness, 1. No neraval, 2. No neraval and 3. No neraval. Otherwise, the concert and the kritis performed in isolation were good. Lalitha was outstanding.

 

T N Seshagopalan, Ramanavami Festival Fort High School Grounds, 26 Mar 2010

Vocal: T N Seshagopalan

Violin : S Varadarajan

Mrudangam : Arjunkumar

Ganjira : Chandramouli

Songlist:

01 koluvai UnnAdai – bhairavi – Thyagaraja

02 sItApatE – khamAs - Thyagaraja

————————————–  ( I came in after this)

03  hanumAne swAmikkinda aDayALam – malayamArutham – Arunachala Kavi ( A )

04 kaddanu vAriki – thODi – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S,T )

      neraval @ ‘ baddu tappaka bhajiyincE bhakta pAlanamu’

05 slOkam ( vandE sautaka gautamAjya..) – kAmbOji , rItigaULa, hamsAnandi , jAunpuri

      slokam ( jagati vijati manthram..) – jAunpuri

     rAma manthrava japisO – jAunpuri – Purandara Dasa

06 mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja

      srIyay kAntAya – SrI

Yesterday was one of the days where his voice was not cooperating. He was struggling and it was painful to watch. Hence less said about the concert is better.

Some highlights, nonetheless. Thodi Alapana was long with dual shrutibhedam ( once to mOhanakalyAni and then to husEni ). So much for his luck, that each time he returned back to thodi after the shruthibhedam, there was a power interruption ( just a switch over, not a real failure, though ). Smartly, instead of exploring areas of difficulty, he spend more time on swara kalpana, with his trademark structural and calculative expositions. Varadarajan and Arjunkumar supported briliiantly.

Yesterday was the briefest speech I’ve heard in any concert. He took less than a minute of time, but good enough to make another blunder. This time ( it was a different person ), he thanked Sri T N Gopalakrishnan ( ! ) and the team,  before TNS corrected him with a ” You have missed an ‘S’ in the name’ (or something to that effect).

He closed the concert with a ragamalika slokam and the expected rAma manthrava japiso.

 

Sanjay Subrahmanyan , Ramanavami Festival Fort School Grounds, 25 Mar 2010

Vocal : Sanjay Subrahmanyan

Violin : S Varadarajan

Mrudangam : Neyveli Venkatesh

Ganjira : Guruprasanna

Songlist:

01 varNam – rItigauLa – ?? ( reached at the end of this)

02 maNavi nAlakinca – naLinakAnti – Thyagaraja ( S )

03 jaya jaya padmanAbha – maNirang – Swathi Thirunal  ( A )

04 kuvalayadaLa nayana – nAttakurinji – ThyagarAja ( A ,S )

05 ArO ivar ArO - bhairavi – Arunachala kavi ( A,N,S,T )

      neraval @ ‘ chandrabimba mukhamalarAlE ennaitAnE pArkirAn orukAlE’

06 enna rakshisO – shubhapantuvarALi – Purandara Dasa ( O )

07 RTP – chalanAta – chatusra triputa , 2 kaLai

      pallavi line ‘ srI rAma jayarAma jayajayarAma shringAra rAma

     rAgamAlika swaras in sahAna, behAg and yadukula kAmbOji

08 srI rAma jayarAma shringAra rAma yeni – yadukula kAmbOji – Thyagaraja   ( continued with the pallavi)

09 dAsara nindisa bEDa – ?  – Purandara Dasa

10 viruttam ( vazhikku tuNai tirumen malar pAdangal) – sindhubhairavi

      vA vA vElmurukA – sindhubhairavi -  Mayuram Viswanatha Shastri

11 mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja

My first concert at the fort school season. Sanjay Subrahmanyan and team did a good concert . The highlight of the concert was the electrifying Ragam Tanam Pallavi in Chalanata.  The concert until then was just ok for his standard and our expectations.  Both manirang and nattakurinji alapana were good but short, no neraval for either of them. Bhairavi main came pretty soon in the concert. While the bhairavi alapana was brilliant, the krithi not being a heavy weight, could not pull it off. Within 3-4 minutes, he was into neraval. ‘Chandrabimba mukha..’ is a fantastic line for neraval and it was very good. Swara singin was also short.  Pallavi was sure to be there, and after initial phrases into alapana, he announced it as chalanata . Tanam was exceptionally good by both Sanjay and Varadarajan. Pallavi was also good ( no complex tala , and no trikalam). Ragamalika swaras were very good and he continued from the yadukula kamboji swaras into ‘sri rama jayarama’ before the break.

The ‘speaker’ lavishing praise on Sanjay made a mess of it declaring the ragas in the pallavi to the murmer and laughter from the audience, before Sanjay himself came into his rescue. 

Overall a good concert, but not an outstanding one.