Vocal: Neyveli Santhanagopalan
Vocal support : Guruprasad
Violin : Charulatha Ramanujam
Mrudangam : Arjun Kumar
Ganjira : Guruprasanna
List:
01 valaci vaci ( varNam) – navarAgamAlika – Patnam Subramanya Iyer
02 mahAgaNapatim – nAtta – Dikshitar (O, S )
03 manasA eTulO – malaya mArutam – Thyagaraja ( N,S )
neraval & swara @’ kalilO rAjasa tAmasa guNamulu kala vAri chelimi’
04 sAmaja vara gamanA – hindOLam – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S)
neraval & swara @ ‘ vEda shirOmaNi mAtruja saptaswara nAdachala’
05 rAmabhadra rA rA srI rAmachandra rA rA – Ananda bhairavi – Bhadrachala Ramadas
06 brOchEvAravarurA – khamAs – Mysore Vasudevacharya ( A,S,T )
07 nanda tanaya gOvindana – bhImplAs – Purandara Dasa
08 thillAna ( niri niri gama garisA ) – pUrvi – T Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar ( O )
09 mangaLam – saurAshtra , madhyamAvati – Thyagaraja
10 slOkam ( kAvEri tIra vAsAya) – madhyamAvati , varALi
slOkam ( AnjanEya ) – surutti
A fabulous concert yesterday by Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan at the Karanji Anjaneya Temple. All the struggle to reach the place after going in circles paid off at the end by some beautiful music.
A meditative hindolam and a cracker of a natta made the evening for me. He was in some presine mood yesterday, and despite occasional slip in shruthi, he was on top of the proceedings. Very verbal in his support to accompanying artists, often closing his eyes and contemplating the next phrases of the alapana , shaking his head in appreciation, one could feel that he is enjoying the concert along with the audience.
Varnam started briskly and in typical way. A short alapana of Natta before the Dikshitar kriti was sweet. Thie rendition of natta was very special for the way he sang swara. All one could ask for was there. Multi speed render, tisram and khandam, effective and intelligent use of ‘kanakku’ , outstanding violin accompaniment with some spirited percussion support. Interestingly, there was no use of the elongated ‘ri’, which I identify as the ‘jeevaswara’ of nAtta, in the entire swara singing.
Malayamarutam was just ok until the neraval. Neraval was detailed with some good sangathis and a short set of swaras. Hindolam alapana was utstanding. I said meditative earlier, for he gave a sublime unhurried , close to heart apalana nudging charulatha to play phrase after phrase after him. On her turn for return, Charulata ws in even greater form. Samajavaragamana was to come to our expectation. Neraval was short and had another set of cracking swaras.
Main khamAs alapana was in two phases. I thought he ended the alapana rather abruptly and started of the kriti from anupallavi. It was interesting in a way and one could sense the surprise even from the accompaying artists. On the same way, I thought even swara was ended very differently handing over the proceeding to Arjunkumar. Tani avartanam was loud ( the percussion in general was loud through out) and exciting (!).
There was hope for a pallavi, but was disappointment on that count. The organiser, announced that he will end th concert with a devarnama. Notable in the post main was an intersting raga sketch of pUrvi before the thilana. The chain of mangalam and slokams followed closing a great concert in the evening.
Brain Drain 