Vocal : Sanjay Subrahmanyan
Violin : S Varadarajan
Mrudangam : Arjun Ganesh
List:
01. nI inta mAyam (varNam) – dhanyAsi – Papanasam Sivan
02. jnAna mosaga rAdA – pUrvikalyANi – Thyagaraja ( S )
03. parvata rAjakumAri shrI pArvati pAhimAm – shrI ranjani – Deekshitar ( A )
04. jAlamEla raghupatE shrIpatE – sEnAvati – Balamuralikrishna ( A,S )
05. shrI chAmuNDEshvari pAlayamAm – bilahari – Mysore Vasudevachar ( A,N,S,T )
niraval & svara @ ‘rAkA nishAkara sannibha vadanE rAjIva lOcanE’
06. palukutE nelatalli – AbhEri/karNATaka dEvagAndhAri – Annamacharya ( O )
07. ArO ivar ArO – bhairavi – Arunachala Kavi
08. RTP – bEgaDa – chaturashra triputa x 2 , starting at +2
pallavi line ‘ oru taram shivachidambaram enru uraitAlum pOdumE’
rAgamAlika svaras in kuntaLavarALi, vasanta, AbhOgi, sindhubhairavi
09. harivAsarada upavAsada – sindhubhairavi – Purandara Dasa
10. tumbam nErkayil – dEsh – Bharatidasan
11. thillAna ( nAdru dhIm tanana tana dhiraNA) – gambhIravANi – T K Govinda Rao
12. viruttam + mAlAsai kOpam ( tirupugazh) – jOnpuri – Arunagirinathan
13. mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja
Wonderful evening it was. A phenomenal concert exploding on one side and Arsenal thrashing Leicester 5-2 on the other ( City and Chelsea dropping points to add to the good day).
Having left the Venugopala swamy temple with an incomplete feeling, this concert compensated for all that was missing there. Some exquisite selection of ragam and kritis today. Four classy alapana, an outstanding neraval for bilahari. Brilliant svarakalpana for purvikalyani, bilahari and sindhubhairavi (during pallavi). Wholesome affair closing precisely at 9:30 pm.
As the concert scene in general has been improved considerably in Bangalore over last 5-6 years, it is time to look at improving the other aspects of the concerts like hall, ambient,organisation, discipline , acoustic etc. One of the other frustrating aspect is the never ending, impromptu felicitation functions, keeping the artists seated on stage. PRobably they could have done this before summoning the artists on to the stage. We also had the photographer giving scant respect to the artists and the audience walking all over the stage taking pictures while the concert was on ( of course, with his rear side blocking the view).
All that aside, Sanjay gave a stupendous concert starting with a dhanyasi varnam, not heard often. Purvikalyani – though I hoped for a niraval at paramatmudu , which did not come – had set the whole tempo of the evening with some superbly rendered kalpana svarams. Young mrudamgam artist, seeing him for the first time with Sanjay, did come into action here which he maintained through out the evening, except during the bilahari swaras. Sriranjani alapana was crisp and the choice of kriti was again very interesting.
As he started the next alapana, I was looking at Venky indicating 2,5 or 6, indicating ratnangi, manavati or tanarupi. He soon came to our rescue with the name, which was the 7th Melakarta , sEnAvati. Varadarajan’s return was equally brilliant. Kriti with chittaswaram build in had BMK written all over it.
Bilahari alapana was one of the best I’ve heard in the recent past. From the slow , short melodious phrases of bilahari, he progressed towards higher octave fast longish phrases, having many long breathed holding or hanging on a single note. The audience seems to like this a lot and this is something Sanjay mastered and have deployed in many concerts. He did this at least 4 times during the concert, each time received well within the hall. The whole alapana was grand, so was the return. Varadarajan was in his sublime form through out, reproducing each time with his brilliant touch. I was almost sure of the kriti, and wasn’t surprised when he started Shri chamundeswari. He sang an outstanding niraval today. Last few times I heard him sing this kriti did not have an elaborated niraval. But yesterday was special. Some close mouthed humming did create some impact, but I am not a great fan of those gimmicks. Kalpana swaras were again fabulous. Some of the intrinsic laya oriented patterns were very impressive, but found the percussionist struggling to stay afloat. However, he gained the lost ground with an impressive tani avartanam, receiving wholehearted appreciation from all.
There was some confusion here with the organisers wanting to do their garland and honour, but he indicated that he is going to sing a pallavi and it can wait until then. As he started singing short abheri sketch, I was prepared for an abheri pallavi. But we had to wait for an Annamayya kriti and a bhairavi piece. Aro Ivar Aro is a favorite, especially the briga laden sangatis around ‘chandra bimba mukha malarale’ part. He started the kriti from anupallavi and cleverly brought back to the pallavi line.
Begada alapana again was master class. Many impressive low octave sancharas and a few highend scaling to upper panchamam with many typical begada phrases. Tanam was very good too. Pallavi, a ‘steal’ from the abhogi kriti was done without trikalam and was in standad adi talam. Kalpana swaras were noted for an outstanding sindhubhairavi swaras from where he continued to sing a devarnama in the same raga to conclude.
Post felicitation was short with a desh kriti and TKGs thillana in gambhiravani and a tirupugazh. He sang a short viruttam before the tirupugazh. Of late, he sings less and less viruttams as I see. He concluded the concert exactly at 9:30.
A brilliant concert, it was.
Brain Drain 