Shreekantham Nagendra Shastry @ Ananya Sangeethotsava 09 May 2013

Vocal : Shreekantham Nagendra Shastry

Violin : Nalina Mohan

Mrudangam : Anoor Ananthakrishna Sharma

Morsing : Bharadwaj Sathavalli

List:

01.  SLOkam ( SukLAmbaradharam) – kalyANi

vanajAkshirO ( varNam) – kalyANi – Rakti Veera saami pilley ( S )

02.  varAlandu kommani – gurjari – Thyagaraja ( A,S )

03.  sujana jIvana – khamAs – Thyagaraja

04.  indukA I tanuvunu – mukhAri – Thyagaraja  ( A )

05.  dorakuaA ituvaNTi sEva – bilahari – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S )

neraval & Swara @ ‘rAmabhrahma tanayuDau‘

06.  tripurasundari nApai – amrutavarshiNi –  Lalitadasar

07.  inta telisiyundeditu ? – kIravAni – khaNDa chApu – Tanjavur Ponnaiah Pillai  ( A,N,S,T )

neraval & Swara @ ‘ Orva vashama bAdha sarvEsha daya lEdA, sarvAparAdhamula kshaminchira’ ?

08.  irabEku haridAsara sanga – sAlagabhairavi – Purandara Dasa

09.  Oh my lovely lalanA ( english javali) – kharaharapriya – Karur Shivaramaiah

10. kayou SrI gauri – SankarAbharaNam – Basappa Sastry

Keeravani and Simhendramadhyamam is there to follow me through out this series. The equilibrium has to be maintained. If it was Sinhendramadhyamam the day early, it has to be balanced with a Keeravani today. That makes it 3 Keeravani and 3 simhandramadhyamam in this season ( of the 10 concerts I attended). But, this time it was a new kriti, I had never heard of and that is a reprieve.

I had to attend this after my excitement with the last concert of him at the Ram Mandir. I may not be as excited today, but my admiration for this artist is only growing. Just a look at the list ( do it again) reveal the stuff this man is capable of. Barring 2 kritis or so, most of them were either new or rarely heard. I say two for Khamas and Bilahari. You may add the Kalyani varnam. But wait, the varnam was sung in full. He sang ‘sahitya’ for the chittaswara as well or it was sung more like a ‘padavarNam’, which again is a first time listening for me.

This time the surprise package was the short, interesting alapana of gurjari. While I spent my time guessing, one could know it was a janya of Mayamalavagaula, until the kriti was sung. He added a few rounds of fast swara at the end of the kriti which was good.Sujana Jivana was also sung at a leisurely pace.

Mukhari alapana came soon. It started off very weel, but lost the steam in between. I did not enjoy the later part of the alapana. He was visibly not keeping well. He was somewhat distracted and the atmosphere was very stuffy as he was sweating profusely. Whatever, both mukhAri and the later keeravani alapana was ordinary. But the kriti that was chosen was a welcome change. I’ve not heard this kriti in a concert before. One ws waiting for the neraval to start, but he decided to skip all and stop.

Bilahari was treated much better. Alapana was decent, short neraval and the longer kalpana swara were very good especially his masterly ‘eduppu’ at various places. The rest of the crew were ready for the same. Another short not heard kriti came in as filler.  Keeravani alapana as mentioned earlier was again a dampener, there was a lack of energy in the alapana. He again surprised all with the selection of another rare piece, supposedly of Ponnaiah Pillai. The long neraval line was interestingly done, and as always his swara singing was top class with all those intricate patterns.

Anoor Ananthakrishna Sharma with the junior percussionist gave a brilliant tani avartanam in khanda chapu. Some of his muktais and mohras, were visibly and verbally appreciated by the veteran artist who were in the audience. The percussion was, as expected with him in control, was very good.

Post main had more surprises in hand. A ‘lovely’ javali, composed by Karur Shivaramaiah, in English for the Mysore Court spread a lot of smiles around, before concluding the evenings concert with the Mysore State Anthem composed by Basappa Sastry. I was later told that Rbindranatha Tagore was inspired by this piece and composed many kritis in similar style ( notably Ananda Loke). A good concert ( notwithstanding his illness), with an outstanding selection of kritis. I will remember this concert on that count.