Sanjay Subrahmanyan @ Sree Venugopala Krishnaswamy Temple, Malleswaram 20 Jan 2019

Vocal : Sanjay Subrahmanyan

Violin : S Varadarajan

Mrudangam : Neyveli Venkatesh

Ganjira : Alathur Rajaganesh

List:

01 entO prEmatO nE (varNam) – suruTTi – Adi – Thiruvottiyur Thyagayya

02 ee vasudhA nI vaNTi deivamu – sahAna – Adi – Thyagaraja ( S )

03 shrI krSNam bhajarE – rUpavati – Roopakam – Dikshitar

04 enduNDi veDalitivO – darbAr – mishrachAp – Thyagaraja ( A )

05 dEva dEva jagadIshvara – pUrvikalyANi – Adi – Swathi Thirunal ( N )

neraval @ ‘ dArida magadha mahIpa yadUttama ‘

06 mA ramaNan umA ramaNan – hindOLam – Roopakam – Papanasam Sivan ( A,S )

07 eduTa nilicitE – shankarAbharaNam – Adi x 2 – Thyagaraja ( A,S,T )

08 hE gOvind hE gOpAl – paTdIp – Roopakam – Surdas

09 harivAsarada upavAsada – sindhubhairavi – Adi – Purandara Dasa

10 viruttam ( tIrtHa karayinilE ) – bhAgEshrI

ninnaiyE ratiyenru – bhAgEshrI – Roopakam -Subramanya Bharathi

11 viruttam ( UraNi manOnmaNi ) – kAmbOji,bhImplAs?, behAg, SaNmukhapriya?,madhyamAvati

karpagamE – madhyamAvati – Adi – Papanasam Sivan

12 nI nAma rUpamulaku ( mangaLam) – saurAStram – Adi – Thyagaraja

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*This was the concert ‘postponed’ from September.

*As usual another classy concert. Very interesting set of compositions.

* No pallavi, hence I would have preferred another neraval today. Neraval for Poorvikalyani was awesome.

*Brilliant alapana of Darbar, hindolam ( Varadarajan was fabulous) and Shankarabharanam.

*Lovely sahana swaras and the shankarabharanam.

*Expected ( hoped) him to sing ‘yArE ranganA yArE krSNana’ for hindOlam, for the occasion and the location 🙂

*Brilliant tani avartanam, especially from Venkatesh.

 

Sanjay Subrahmanyan @ Venugopala Krishnaswamy Temple Malleswaram , 11th Sept 2015

Vocal : Sanjay Subrahmanyan

Violin : S Varadarajan

Mrudangam : Neyveli Venkatesh

Ganjira : Alathur Rajaganesh

List:

01.  madirAkshi nI pai (varNam) – mukhAri- Thiruvottiyur Thyagayya

02. marachEdi nyAyamA – hamsadhwani – Patnam Subramanya Iyer

——

03.  paripAlayamAm – rItigauLa – Swathi Thirunal  ( A )

04.  buddhi rAdu buddhirAdu – shankarAbharaNam – Thyagaraja ( A,S )

05.  shLOkam ( katilAlaka samyuktam)

jaya jaya gOkula bAla – rAgamAlika ( bhairavi,aThANa, kmbOji,kalyANi,surutti) – Narayana Theertha

06.  shrI rAjagOpAla – sAvEri – Dikshitar ( A,N,S,T )

neraval & svara @ dhIrAgragaNya  dIna sharaNya ‘

07. shrI mAdhava vAsudEva – behAg – Papanasam Sivan

08.  viruttam ( UrilE kANiyillai? ) – kApi

ADugirAn ennuL pADugirAn kaNNan – kApi – Shuddhananda Bharati

09.  kAkkai chirakinilE – dEsh – Subramanya Bharati

10.  mangaLam

Attending concerts at Malleswarm on a weekday gives jitters to me. One has to leave early from office and brave the traffic across innumerable traffic blocks hoping to reach in time. It is also a nightmare to find a place to park your vehicle in the vicinity of the temple. Friday evening wasn’t an easy drive, but having reached there 15 mins behind the stipulated time, luck favouring the brave in finding a place to squeeze in your car to park, we rushed in to the hall. We were welcomed with a beauty of reetigaula alapana finding its way  through the overflowing crowd thronged outside the hall.

Reetigaula is a perennial favourite and we could settle in before he started paripalayamam. I was told he sang a mukhari varnam ( hardly heard before) and a hamsadhwani kriti before we could make it. Soon a decent shankarabharanam alapana came in. It was good, but I heard him sing better. Buddhi radu was a good  choice. I’ve heard him sing this before and an inspiring BMK rendition remain my all time favorite. Kalpana swaras were impressive.

Narayana Theertha’s jaya jaya gokula bala was apt and he preceded it with a beautiful shlokam. To me this was the high point of the concert. This was brilliantly sung shifting from bhairavi to athana smoothly. Even the chittasvaras ( not sure if it was his own addition) was superb.

Now that all the major ragams are already ‘used’, the main had to be something different. As I was discussing between saveri and mohanam as possible choices, he started of with an awesome saveri alapana. The first half , largely sung at the higher octave was outstanding. Through out the day his voice was in super form and he made some good use of it during the saveri alapana. Varadarajan’s return was sublime as always and at few places it even bettered the lead singer. There was no surprise on the choice of kriti here. He sang an incredible neraval at dheeragraganya, each time starting on a different pattern to some great effect. Kalpana swara started in typical slow speed. He did dwell into some intricate laya patterns as TNS, in a very playful mood. While Varadarajan was accurate in reproducing the same, percussion team was struggling a bit to match up. He concluded the swaras with some thunderous affair. Awesome feat in saveri.

Tani avartanam was riotous. Both Venkatesh and Rajaganesh brought up a high decibel high octane fare. Last Sunday I was witnessed to a ‘Double ( dual) tAyambaka’  by Porur Unnikrishnan and Udayan Namboodiri, both stalwarts at their field. One could see the raise in tempo and the reaction in the body language of the listeners at the ECA hall, shaking their heads and hands along with the ‘Chenda beats’, increasing the speed and displacement as the duo reached the crescendo. I can draw simile here. Many youngsters seated in front of the stage was going through a similar motion as if in trance. It seemed to have gone well with them, as the response at the end of the tani avartanam was huge.   To his credit, Venkatesh’s first phase of the solo was brilliant, before he got carried away a bit in the second part. Alathur Rajaganesh was again a sound machine, but his case too, the first part of the solo was very impressive, for the patterns if not for the ‘nAdam’. They would have stopped their long solo affair after the first part, but Sanjay insisted ( probably from the response of the first part) Venkatesh to continue.

There was no pallavi. I am not sure why he decided against. It cant be the extended tani avartanam. He seems to be in a mood to conclude. Having decided not to sing a pallavi, he should have done a better planning with the post main. There was a very short viruttam before the kapi kriti. But, all that he sang after main was very good, especially the desh version of kakkai chirakinile, on the Subramanya Bharati remembrance day.

Despite listening to an awesome saveri and the brilliant ragamalika composition, the concert remain a bit incomplete to me for Sanjay’s standard, lasting around two and half hours. Of course, his listeners will have more chance to listen to him in Bangalore during the next 2 months, as he is scheduled to sing another 4 concert ( if I am not wrong) here before November end.

 

Sanjay Subrahmanyan @ Venugopalaswamy Temple, Malleswaram, 27,Aug 2011

Vocal:  Sanjay Subrahmanyan

Violin : M R Gopinath

Mrudangam : Patri Satishkumar

Ganjira : Guruprasanna

Songlist:

01 sarasijanAbha ( varNam) – kAmbOji – Swathi Thirunal

02 paralOka sAdhanamE – pUrvi kalyANi – Thyagaraja ( S )

03 ini oru kaNam – srI ranjini – Papanasam Sivan ( A )

04 paridAnamichitE – bilahari – Patnam Subramanya Iyer ( A,N,S )

      neraval & Swara @ ‘ rokkamichutakunE mukkaNTi chelikAnu’

05 gAngEya vasana dhara – hamIr kalyANi – Swathi Thirunal ( A )

06 srI rAjagOpAlam – sAvEri – Dikshitar ( A,S, T )

       ragamalika swaras in sAvEri, sahAna, varALi, yadukula kAmbOji, dhanyAsi, kharaharapriya, SankarAbharaNam, hamsAnandi, sudha dhanyAsi, amrutavarshiNi ?, —————-, shivaranjini, surutti.  ( couldn’t note the missing two )
06 b   tani Avartanam

07 dAsara nindisa bEDa – rAgEshri – Purandara Dasa

08 viruttam ( bhUrtavaLE bhuvanangal patinAngu?? ) – darbAri kAnaDa

       shlOkam ( jAnAdi ) – mAND

       rAmanai bhajitAl – mAND – Papanasam Sivan

       ArumO Aval  – mAND – Kannan Iyengar ?

09 kaLilO harismarana – kApi – Harikeshanallur Muthaiah bhagavathar  ( O )

10 mangaLam – saurAshtram – Thyagaraja

Fantastic concert yesterday by Sanjay Subrahmanyan and team at Sri Venogopalaswamy Temple. At this venue, he seems to excel every time.  Therre are so many high points of the concert hence it is difficult yo pick a few that stood out. But if I haveto, I will go for the one of its kind sAvEri alapana, the soulful hamir kalyani, beautiful sree ranjini, the brilliant swara for bilahari and a cracking tani avartanam.  See, it covers the entire concert.

Varnam was sung in 3 speed. However, the ‘bhava’ seems to be lost at the 3rd speed, the lyrics weren’t clear as well.  Purvi kalyani had a set of swaras sung very well.  Detailed Sreeranjini and bilahari alapana were brilliant. So was the shortish alapana for hamir kalyani. The violin retun for all the alapana , I thought, was shorter than usual.  Bilahari neraval was pretty decent so was the swara. The mrudangam accompaniment was at best during hamir kalyani. Sanjay presented the kriti in a slow mellifluous way.

Saveri alapana was one of the best I’ve heard in last few years. Outstanding the way he managed to take the audience through the contours of the raga providing many ‘aha’ moments. As usual, there was no neraval for the main, but the swara singing was fabulous. After the first kala saveri swaras, Sanjay went on a ragamalika swara singing through a chain of ragas. M R Gopinath had his highlights during this swara singing. 

Tani Avrtanam was all exhilerating and loud. The stage as wel as the audience seems to be on the verge of an ecstasy. Guruprasanna matching the show stealing Ptri Satishkumar.  The percussion from then on were too loud and in the melee, we could hardly hear the already subdued violin.

Post Tani speeches went on for a while possibly eating away from a possible Pallavi. Pallavi was not there, but his post main Mand and kapi were good enough to close the show. Another brilliant concert by Sanjay.