O S Thyagarajan @ Ranjani Fine Arts , 14 May 2016

Vocal : O S Thyagarajan

Violin : Mullaivasal G Chandramouli

Mrudangam : Akshay Ananthapadmanabhan

List :

01 dinamaNi vamsha – harikAmbOji – Thyagaraja ( O,S )

02. teliyalEru rAma – dhEnuka – Thyagaraja

03. sItamma mAyamma – vasanta – Thyagaraja ( N,S )

neraval & swara @ ‘dharajita bhAgavatAgrEsarulevvarO vArellaru’

04. dvaitamu sukhamA – rItigauLa – Thyagaraja ( A,S )

05. shrI kAnta nI eDa – bhavapriya – Thyagaraja

06. evvarurA ninnu vinA – mOhanam – Thyagaraja ( A,S )

07. dAcukO valEnO dAsharathi – thODi – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S,T )

neraval @ ‘saumitri tyAgarAjuni’

08. eppO varuvArO – jOnpuri – Gopalakrishna Bharati

09. shObanE – pantuvarALi – Thyagaraja

10. vinAyakuni – madhyamAvati – Thyagaraja

11. mangaLam – saurAStram – Thyagaraja

This was the second concert of OST in 7 days, at the same locality. As expected, this was again a ‘Thyagaraja’ special concert, making tribute to the legendary composer on his 250th birth centenary. To most of us who attended the previous concert, it felt as though he started off from where he left us last week. Same exuberance, same focus and involvement passed on to the others on the stage as well as the listeners. I found his voice to be in much better shape than last week. He was able to move up and down the octaves with ease, which he deployed extensively during alapana. However, he was a bit restrained from his free flowing mood of  the previous week, probably because of the ‘sabha concert settings’.

Ritigaula and mohanam alapana were the best part for me. I liked them more than the main thodi alapana he did. Both reetigaula and mohanam were marvelous. He did spent ample amount of time in setting the stage with slow short phrases to some extremely impressive ‘sanchAra’ moving across three octaves as he progresses. Few quick ‘akara’ phrases , quirky shifts of modulation, few longish higher octave expositions of the beauty of the raga were very very impressive for both reetigaula and mohanam, and to a much lesser effect in thodi. Mullaivasal Chandramouli almost always matched the sojourn of the lead singer with his violin during his turn. Some of his ‘deviations’, especially for mohanam was praiseworthy. With his special stand and the placement of violin was a bit unconventional but he was excellent through out.

Concert started with a harikamboji kriti as in the case of last week. It came to full flow only during the vasanta neraval. Interesting place to sing neraval and in his customary style he did a fantastic job. Ritigaula was fabulous. These days one get to hear only ‘janani ninnu vina’ and occassionally  a ‘paripalayamAm’ or’ninnu viDachi’. It’s  been ages since I heard ‘dvaitamu’  in a concert. He did sing this in a faster tempo, not sure  if that was the actual  ‘kalapramanam’. Fantastic rounds of kalpana swaras followed. I hoped for a neraval, though. After a short bhavapriya filler, mohanam came into fore.Very  good again and another nice choice of kriti. Thodi alapana was good in parts, but ‘dacukO valeNo’ choice was superb. Yet another masterpiece almost in obscurity. There was a grand neraval and much bigger and longer kalpana swara befitting a main. I still dont get why artists sing neraval at ‘saumitri tyAgarAjuni’, which to me sounds incomplete and meaningless. Akshay Ananthapadmanabhan was having a difficult day. He was continuously tuning his instrument through out the concert. Probably this pre-occupation affected his performance to some extend. He uses the modern mrudangam and had all the ‘handyman’ tools with him which he used after every kriti and post alapana before the song. The spanners, screw driver, hammer, ‘sAlagrAma :-)’ etc were used alternately. He is a talented musician and that was evident in the brilliant tani avartanam he played post the main.

Eppovaruvaro was an aberration in otherwise a complete ‘thyagaraja composition’ concert. OST sang that well, but one hoped for better support for this song. Shobane and vinayakuni completed the remainder of the evening before the closure. I always believe, singers can do a better preparation and present much better ‘post main’ kritis. Having said that this was another immensely enjoyable concert, very traditional and orthodox classical music performance.