Madurai G.S.Mani

Carnatic Musicians
Post Reply
coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »

there is one aspect of gs mani that i discovered and must share here.he has such a deep conviction to convey the richness of this heritage-to the seasoned rasika and the newcomer alike..I met him only once at his residence and that was after i had heard the recordings of his concert on Tamil film music and Carnatic muisc at a friends place .

The occasion was the introduction of my friends grand daughter-a sprightly 3 year old -belting out carnatic classics with gay abandon- to GS mani and to get his blessings.
I was amazed the way he carried us all through the evening.down on the floor with her, he would exclaim at various points .He would keep saying it was such a blessing to have a natural voice and go on to explain the rigours one has to undertake to control a voice.His enthusiasm was unbelievable and he did not stop at that.
An hour into the evening , he pulled me aside and said,
"sorry i did not talk to you earler .. Kulkarni-hmmm- a strange name in these circles .."
I told him that after decades of being labelled Gulgarni, goolgarni and Gulkarni, I was still fighting my way through....
He then was very keen to know how i got interested in music, when did i first listen to him,who were my favourites ...
In response I touched upon all those wonderful souls in chennai who pampered me with their recordings , the wonderful sabhas, My great regard for the likes of balkrishna sastrigal who opened up a new world for me with his discourses on tyagaraja and this wonderful city which makes it happen so seamlessly....
my favourite tracks of his .. i referred to his outstanding amrithavarshini alapana, his muchaka brahma in madhyamavathi ,and some others i picked on AIR Bhadravathi,
That eveining ended on a wonderful note with him singing a few lines...
as I drove back home I could not help wondering whether he was underestimated ... as i was searching for the answers, i could only feel his enthusiasm..nothing else mattered.

srinidhi
Posts: 227
Joined: 09 Feb 2010, 08:59

Post by srinidhi »

Coolkarni Sir- (Since private messaging is disabled) I am back in Bangalore. Could you contact me at sujibal@yahoo.com ?
Regards,
Srinidhi

coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »


Raja Chandra
Posts: 362
Joined: 16 Oct 2005, 12:39

Post by Raja Chandra »

Here is an article which may be of some interest:

Madurai Mani Iyer (1912-1968), regarded as musician's musician, is no more, but his style is still cherished. One could see the outlines of a perfect Nritya (rhythm) in his unique and delectable neraval and swara delinations and contours. He handled all the items with immuculate perfection, loving grace, imagination and solicitude.

He was manodharma ? improvisation personified. Whether it was Ranjani, Vachaspati, Todi or Kambhoji, it was a scintillating rendition. He offered a brimful of bhava, more aesthetic, more melodious, more sensuous and caressing. Sruti Bhakti was his virtue. It is no wonder that there are Ekalvyas of Mani Iyer still even today.

One such ardent musician Vidwan Houston R. Ramakrishnan, USA, offered an opportunity to the lovers of Karnatak music of Mysore. Ramakri-shnan has been giving concerts in many places since 1991. On Dec. 17, his three-hour concert took place at the Alwar Kala Bhavan under the auspices of Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Mysore.

Ramakrishnan began his vocal concert with a charukesi varam of Lalgudi Jayaraman followed by Vallabha Nayakasya in Begade of Dikshitar with a fine Swara combination. Next, he sang Nadatanumanisam in Chittaranjani of Tyagaraja in the unique Mani Iyer style. Similarly Sarasasamadana in Kapi Narayani of Tyagaraja brought back the memories of Mani Iyer. Ma Janaki in Kambhoji was sung similarly with raga, swarakalpana followed by Tani avartanam paridanamichite of Patna Sub-rahmanya Iyer was very well presented. The ragam, tanam, pallavi was one of the major items in Shanmukhapriya and swaras were sung in Ragamalika in nine ragas like Karnatak, Hamsanandi etc.

The item Saravanabhava guruguha Shanmuka swaminathane brought out Mani Iyer before our mental eyes. The sarvalaghu swaras were unique. He sang Purandaradasa's ? Yakenirdaya nadeyo in Vijayanagari followed by Yeppavaruvaro of Gopala Krishna Bharati in raga jonepuri and Mani Iyer's favourite note swara items.

Ramakrishnan deserves all praise for his dedication and devotion to relive Mani Iyer's style. He was ably assisted by Vidwan C.A. Nataraj on the violin and C.A. Gurudutt on the mridangam and Milind Ganapati on the Khanjira. One notable feature of Sri Ramakrishnan is he does not accept any payment for his concerts

abadri
Posts: 183
Joined: 08 Jun 2005, 00:04

Post by abadri »

Here are the Madurai GS Mani tracks uploaded last year

[rapidshare links deleted]

I'll upload a GS Mani - VVS - UKS concert from Coimbatore (1988) next week.

abadri
Posts: 183
Joined: 08 Jun 2005, 00:04

Post by abadri »

GS Mani - VVS - UKS @ Coimbatore, 1988

[rapidshare links deleted]

Sivaraman
Posts: 151
Joined: 17 Jan 2006, 19:10

Post by Sivaraman »

Thank you Mr.Bhadri for the melodious G.S.Mani tracks.The nee pada pankajamu track in Kalavati sounds like Valaji.What is the similarity between the two?
Sivaraman.

abadri
Posts: 183
Joined: 08 Jun 2005, 00:04

Post by abadri »

Shri Sivaraman, Kalavati is the hindustani equivalent of valaji.

coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »

Just returned from a visit to GS Manis Home .
I had accompanied a few of his close friends who were visiting him and did get a chance to request him and find out if he had any objections to my uploading his concerts or lec dems on this forum.

He did give a patient listening to the kind of discussions we hold on the forum and was quite excited by the use of rapidshare links as a tool for improving our knowledge (when accompanied with discussions , explanations , anecdotes etc)

HE GAVE ME FULL LIBERTY TO USE ALL THE RECORDED STUFF AVAILABLE WITH ME AND REMARKED-

"IT IS ALL YOURS , AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND AS A GROUP.WHATEVER I WANTED FROM THE EXPERIENCE AS A MUSICIAN GOD HAS GIVEN TO ME IN ABUNDANCE.PLEASE LIGHT AS MANY LAMPS AS POSSIBLE AND LET US KEEP HOPING THAT THIS TRADITION OF LIGHTING IS CONTINUED FURTHER ,FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE GENERATIONS . ONE OF THE FINEST END PRODUCTS IN THIS CHURNING CALLED CLASSICAL MUSIC IS A HIGHLY CULTURED RASIKA.TO SUCH A PERSON OR GROUP,WHAT I HAVE TO OFFER MAY NOT BE A LENGTHY SILK VESHTI , BUT A SMALL HANDKERCHIEF .BUT BELIEVE ME IT IS AS GENUINE A PIECE OF CLOTH AS I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WEAVE.PLEASE TAKE IT WITH MY BEST WISHES AND HOPEFULLY IN THE MONTH OF APRIL , IF YOU DECIDE TO INVITE ME , I WILL SING/DEMONSTRATE FOR YOU , SPECIFICALLY SUITED TO YOUR NEEDS.
GOD BLESS YOU ALL

Saying this , he started packing for his trip To Paris , where he will be singing on the 10th of March.

nnramya
Posts: 56
Joined: 28 Jun 2005, 11:23

Post by nnramya »

Oooooooooof! How wonderful, gracious, noble, modest......a musician!

Thanks for sharing that with us Kulkarniji.

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Post by cmlover »

BLESS him and you!

A true gentleman who deserves to be on the honour list of CM greats. Let us use his contribution to CM as the spring-board for making it simple and be understood by all. Thanks to you for getting the clearance. Also we should involve him into the forum activities after his return. Many of our questions on ragas and talas and the basics of CM will be explained with a demo quite intuitively by the maestro. The future looks bright!

coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »

Friends
I have started posting clippings from his various lec dems on the subject of Carnatic Muisc -tamil Film Music.

For convenience , I have split the tracks raga wise -from the different lectures-and on each upload I will upload all the renderings for a given raga .

Kindly note that these performances were given to private audiences and there may be occasions where he touches on issues which are highly debatable.Let us debate them as we move through all the 35 odd ragas ,without getting carried away .
I have personally gained a lot from listening to these , and hope you will find them enjoyable.

all the tracks will be short ones and at times the track name may not exactly match with the ragas discussed.This is because there is a lot of moving back and forth between ragas.


http://rapidshare.de/files/14807561/kha ... a.mp3.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/14808048/kha ... 2.mp3.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/14806717/kha ... 3.mp3.html

mantra
Posts: 89
Joined: 27 Nov 2005, 07:17

Post by mantra »

Coolkarni Sir,
Thanks for the Kharaharapriya, excellent breakdown from GSMani sir. I also like the three different occasions and the slight variation in his presentation of the raaga
Looking forward to some more raagas
Thanks
Shyam

Your contribution is priceless!!! We all owe a lot to you for your service


coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »

A priceless two minute clip of hamir kalyani

http://rapidshare.de/files/15210056/hamir_Kalyani.mp3



Sivaraman
Posts: 151
Joined: 17 Jan 2006, 19:10

Post by Sivaraman »

A giant boquet of thanks to the maestro G.S. Mani for his extreme generosity in allowing us to use his lecdem tracks to widen our knowledge of the nuances of CM.
And Bless you for your unstinted efforts in providing these tracks for us rasikas.

coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »


meena
Posts: 3326
Joined: 21 May 2005, 13:57

Post by meena »

Kji

kanada is incomplete, will u be u/l the rest? thanks






n_anush
Posts: 88
Joined: 28 Jun 2006, 22:50

Post by n_anush »

coolkarni sir,

can u please again upload the lec demo on ragas by gs mani.

i joined this music forum nearly about 15 days ago.
so iam very late herre.
can u please upload it once again for me. the links are not active'

thanks in advance
anusha


coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »

:)
Thanks pinkchry
You removed a big load off my chest _since i was working on the GNB Composition Tracks

I remember we had cut short this upload on this set too.
Will work on this later

Thanks

sriucl
Posts: 65
Joined: 12 Nov 2005, 16:52

Post by sriucl »

Coolji,

Could you post the madhyamavathi Muchchada Brahma sometime..The old link has lsot the file..

Thanks

Srivathsan

n_anush
Posts: 88
Joined: 28 Jun 2006, 22:50

Post by n_anush »

thanks pinkchry,

thanks a lot.

anusha

abadri
Posts: 183
Joined: 08 Jun 2005, 00:04

Post by abadri »

Could you post the madhyamavathi Muchchada Brahma sometime..The old link has lsot the file..
http://rapidshare.de/files/25489214/MGS ... i.mp3.html

sriucl
Posts: 65
Joined: 12 Nov 2005, 16:52

Post by sriucl »

Thanks, abadri..

Sri

pinkchry
Posts: 29
Joined: 21 Nov 2005, 01:57

Post by pinkchry »

We just spent a marvellous hour listening to gs.mani. Coolkarni sir, can I impose on you to upload more of the lectures if you have them available? Thanks!

sramaswamy
Posts: 366
Joined: 24 May 2006, 22:29

Post by sramaswamy »

I have been busy for the past few months. I came across this the lec demo on ragas. Looks very interesting to learn especially for a novice like me. But to my disappointment the links are not active any more. Would it be too much to ask for the links to be posted again.

Thanks in advance.

coolkarni

Post by coolkarni »

well ,, I will organise myself again , and start probably next week.
may be with a totally different set of tracks !1

meena
Posts: 3326
Joined: 21 May 2005, 13:57

Post by meena »

Deleted
Last edited by meena on 06 May 2008, 04:54, edited 1 time in total.

rshankar
Posts: 13754
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26

Post by rshankar »


rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Post by rajeshnat »

If madurai mani is a diamond standard musician whom I missed to hear as I was not born then, this gold standard madurai GS mani is not very far behind .

Atleast few points that I recollect

# His concerts are really wonderful , he has a deep manly voice which is a rare find , he connects with many rare rAgas and takes that as submain/main. Incidentally I have heard in two occassions where he had taken suddha sArang as submain/main, he sings atleast 30% of his own compositions.

# I heard thru grapevine that lot of ms vishwanAthan- rAmamurthy melody numbers were tuned by madurai gs mani. Incidentally my periappA told me few years back that the movie karnan in thamizh many numbers were tuned by madurai gs mani.

# His explanations on CM-HM are very lucid , extremely well articulated with no ambiguities. Incidentally in our rasikas concert I asked him who is his guru he said that Ishwara pointing to the ceiling, here is a small lecdem part of his concert where he is connecting mAyamAlavagowlai and muslim prayer.

http://rapidshare.com/files/193874947/0 ... i.mp3.html

Would love to hear more from any of you about gold standard madurai GS mani
Last edited by rajeshnat on 04 Feb 2009, 22:52, edited 1 time in total.

rshankar
Posts: 13754
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26

Post by rshankar »

IIRC, in one of his lec-dems, he has identified a particular nAgasvaram vidvAn (the name escapes me) as his 'guru' - in that he used to listen to him play, and with his god-given talent of placing the svarams for any sound that is made, he 'learnt' music. In addition to everything else you've said, he seems to be a very humble man - he never claims credit for his film music - he always said 'we composed this' in his demos!!

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Post by rajeshnat »

rshankar wrote:IIRC, in one of his lec-dems, he has identified a particular nAgasvaram vidvAn (the name escapes me) as his 'guru' - in that he used to listen to him play, and with his god-given talent of placing the svarams for any sound that is made, he 'learnt' music. In addition to everything else you've said, he seems to be a very humble man - he never claims credit for his film music - he always said 'we composed this' in his demos!!
Ravi, the nAdaswaram vidwan is venu.It is mentioned in the url that you posted #62 . He is certainly a very humble man, never claims much credit

pgaiyar
Posts: 113
Joined: 27 Jan 2007, 07:59

Post by pgaiyar »

To : Rajeshnat

The clip is very good sir. Can you please upload the full version/presentation if available?. God bless you.

Regards

Guru

shripathi_g
Posts: 356
Joined: 30 Mar 2005, 08:25

Post by shripathi_g »

There's a concert of his with MSG where he sings a beautiful Kalavathi (Nee pada pankajame, his own composition I believe) and a sublime Charukesi, Kripaya palaya. Also, I love his rendition of Kamalambdikula in Brindavana Saranga.

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Post by rajeshnat »

pgaiyar wrote:To : Rajeshnat

The clip is very good sir. Can you please upload the full version/presentation if available?. God bless you.

Regards

Guru
This concert is there in this long post

http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php? ... te-p2.html

I spent my whole morning to search this thread ,It took me a long time to search as it is there in general discussions instead of kutcheri reviews section.

I am assuming upload links are still active ;)

pgaiyar
Posts: 113
Joined: 27 Jan 2007, 07:59

Post by pgaiyar »

Thanks a lot sir. However the links are not there to listen/download unfortunately. Can you please upload this concert and the lec/dem of kathanakuthookalam?.

God bless you. Some pink??? has given links earlier.

Regards

Guru

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Post by rajeshnat »

pgaiyer
Here I am uploading the first 5 numbers as part 1 as one zip, rest will follow after few days back

02-Varnam-Intha Chalamu Jesite-Begada-Adi-Veenai Kuppier.mp3
03-Varaguna Gambhira-Kanada-Adi-GSMani.mp3
04-Tarunamidamma-Nasikabhushani-Adi-GSMani.mp3
05-Mayamalavagaula and Muslim Prayer Call by Sri GSMani.mp3
06-Raave Karuna Samudramu Neeve-Mayamalava Gaula-Adi-GSMani.mp3

1. Download Link: Click here to download file
http://rapidshare.com/files/194966195/M ... 1.zip.html

pgaiyar
Posts: 113
Joined: 27 Jan 2007, 07:59

Post by pgaiyar »

To:Rajeshnat

Many thanks. I once again request you to look into the lec/dem of Kathanakuthookalam. God bless you.

Regards

Guru

thenpaanan
Posts: 635
Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 19:45

Post by thenpaanan »

rajeshnat wrote:pgaiyer
Here I am uploading the first 5 numbers as part 1 as one zip, rest will follow after few days back

1. Download Link: Click here to download file
http://rapidshare.com/files/194966195/M ... 1.zip.html

The rapidshare link says that the file can be downloaded only ten times. Is this a new rule from rapidshare? :-(

-Then Paanan

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Post by rajeshnat »

pgaiyer
I dont have the lecdem of kathAnakuthu hulam. In due course I will upload the remaining 2 parts of the concert, hopefully you will be within the first ten to download.


Thenpaanan
You are right, Now when I click the link it gives the download limit of 10

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Post by rajeshnat »

shripathi_g wrote: Also, I love his rendition of Kamalambdikula in Brindavana Saranga.
shripathi_g,
kamalApta kula a brindavana saranga by thyagarAja is one krithi which I believe was perhaps not in concert circulation say from 1900 to 1950. I have not heard that krithi sung by the perennial big 4 ariyakudi, gnb,mmi and ssi or any of their sishyas , to me these 4 artists have the largest shishya parampara .

However only self taught musicians have taken these kind of krithis and interpreted thyagarAja's krithi in brindavana sAranga which is traditionally a more dikshitar's rAga. I have only heard madurai gs mani and manakkAl rangarAjan's rendition of kamalApta kula krithi , not heard from any artist who are in their era or in the previous golden period era.

Hats off to manakkAl and gsmani .To me it requires a lot of confidence to sing a rare legacy krithi and these kind of experiments can only be done by self taught musicians.
Last edited by rajeshnat on 14 Feb 2009, 18:21, edited 1 time in total.

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Post by arasi »

Rajesh,
G.S. Mani is a class act. I had not heard his name until several years ago. Someone said we should hear him, and we went to his MA morning concert that year. I was also told about his film connection. Several filmy looking folks sitting around me did not prepare me for the classical fare that unfolded that morning. What a voice, what energy and delivery! It was that way all through, and in several of his concerts we have been to since. His 'nALai varum enRu nambalAmA?' is one of my favorites. His handling of the rAgAs the names of which I cannot even pronounce, is amazing. You may think it is odd that I put it this way. Listening to him is like going on a fun filled sight-seeing trip of rAgAs and songs you don't normally hear. K and I spent New Year's morning at Petachi for the nAmasnkIrtanam which he was hosting and he sang a few songs too. UmayAlpuram, Udayalur and others took part as well. GSM is a gentleman and is humble. His musical knowledge is vast and rich. His stage manners are becoming. Interesting--must run in the family. I was sitting near his sister (I came to know that when someone who spoke to her told me this). Such a nice lady...
Last edited by arasi on 14 Feb 2009, 20:39, edited 1 time in total.

Post Reply