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.
Brain Drain 