Thiruveezhimizhalai Brothers-Nagaswara Vidwans of TNR period

[semmu86]

nachiyarkoil ganesan

Varsha Ji--- Thanks a bunch. Thavil was so beautiful, thought it was the Great Nachiyar Kovil Raghava Pillai till i saw your post.

[shankarank]

If there are volunteers to listen carefully , decode and give me a list of what they have played , I can upload the 275 mb track.
To give you a glimpse , I have clipped a 45 mt part here , with an unusual Viriboni ( to my ears ) and an exotic kapi narayani

https://www.mediafire.com/?094q137b90ir1ek

cheers

The SankarabaraNam song is mariyAdagAdura - here is the vocal version: https://youtu.be/lFGYURJg5d0?t=875 - food for many exams in early 90s.

Back to the Nadaswaram - Swarams @ rAgamu tAlamu rakti Bhakti Gnana - at a tantalizing 2 talli in mEl kAlam reckoning. And they do it with kArvai (elongation) than a sollu (syllable) to reach the take off!

Reminds me of the vEda Siro of Brinda Mukta in the old Hindolam posted by varsha mahOdaya

[shankarank]

https://www.mediafire.com/?094q137b90ir1ek

cheers

The kApi nArayaNi - hitavu mATalento bAga balkitivi - the bAga is taken atItam couple of times by shortening the time for "lentO" - with a long kArvai. cinnadu perisu (shorten-lengthen) on the laya to bring more ruci.

Something Sri lOkanAtha Sarma discusses here :

http://www.thehindu.com/chennai-margazh ... 735403.ece - Sarma said a singer can prolong deerga aksharas, and must not resort to meaningless splitting of words

As regards modern kutcheri being a craft and Mridangam oriented - that is lack of true sAdhakam more than anything else. Another topic for discussion.

[RaviSri]

The Tiruveezhimizhalai Bros had a younger brother Kalyanasundaram. The latter was a disciple of Kanchipuram Naina Pillai and learnt from him several Thyagaraja kritis when Brinda-Muktha and Chitoor Subramanya Pillai were also learning from Naina. Kalyanasundaram used to visit his village regularly, stay there for a few weeks and sing the songs he had learnt from Naina Pillai. That was how the Bros got their Thyagaraja repertoire. Naina Pillai once attended a marriage at a zamindar's in Thanjavur district. The Bros were engaged to play the nagaswaram for the marriage functions. Naina also had a concert there. When Naina heard the Bros playing Thyagaraja kritis one after the other, that too, in his pATAntaram, he was surprised and asked the Bros how had they come about it. The cat came out of the bag. Naina was stunned and he remarked, "What an ingenious way to learn music"!

Needamangalam Meenakshisundaram Pillai was the stock accompanist for the brothers. A must in their concerts was the kriti, 'chEtulAra sringAramu' (in bhairavi). Needamangalam used to insist on their playing this kriti as it would be very grand in the Naina Pillai tradition. After Needamangalam passed away, the Bros refused to play 'chEtulAra' forever, despite requests, saying, without Needamangalam Ayya, playing this kriti was of no use.

BTW, Nachiyarkoil Raghava Pillai was the son-in-law of Needamangalam.

[semmu86]

with an unusual Viriboni ( to my ears )

Beautifully unusual it is, rather Normally we would have the entire varnam sung in madhyama kAlam and then in proportionate mEl kAlam. Very rarely you would get to hear a tri kAlam in varnam and thisram in it these days, unless you go to concerts of some "great" musicians like Smt Seetha Narayanan.

Coming back to this, they have played it so beautifully playing the kEEzh kAlam, madhyama and mEl kAlam in one single avarthanam spontaneously. TRS Sir once told this to be the source of inspiration behind his famous pallavi "daSaratha thanayuni maravuku manasA", where all 3 kAlapramANams come one after the other. It needs repeated listenings starting from the varnam, to fathom the depth and mastery required to execute the varnam in this fashion, than in the one mentioned earlier.

[knrh05]

Purist
Thanks in advance
https://archive.org/details/Thirumegnanam3

Announcement (00:20)
Varnam-Bhairavi_Ata (13:08)
Mariyadagadura-Sankarabharanam (15:12)
Sarasasamadana-KapiNarayani (12:22)
Alapana-Thodi (04:30)
Song-Thodi (45:53)
Alapana-Kambhoji (45:49)
Thavil (46:16)
Pallavi-Kambhoji (40:57)
Kanakasaila-Punnagavarali (10:02)
Song-Kanada (11:52)
JagadishaPancha-Nadanamakriya (11:24)
Thavil (17:46)
Thavil_contd (11:19)
Vallikanavan-Senchuruti (04:00)
KavadiChindu_Magudi (08:46)
EnglishNote (01:32)

I was able to identify couple of songs in the end but the Thodi and Kanada songs are still a mystery!

[varsha]

knrh05 , RaviSri , Semmu , Shankarank and all the rest.
Thanks So much.

[RaviSri]

On December 12th 1956 Rajaratnam Pillai died. He had very much coveted the Sangita Kalanidhi title, but the first Nagaswara vidvan to preside over the MA conference and receive SK was Tiruveezhimizhalai Subramanya Pillai and that too in 1956. The shadow of that temperamental genius's passing over to the other shore hung over the MA. In his presidential speech Tiruvweezhimiozhilai paid an unusual tribute to Rajaratam. He said, "Rajaratnam vAdyathiula mezhukkaDachu vAshichArnA, matravargaL adai sheidAl sariyAga varAdu" (Rajaratnam used to plug the Nagaswaram holes with wax. That does not mean anyone can do it). To produce the correct swaras and minutest anuswaras, the genius used to plug wax in the instrument's holes.

[Purist]

@knrh05 - thanks for the list, a job I was in the process of doing.Got stumped at Thodi spent time in trying to figure
out and Kanada too was puzzling.

@varsha - what a veritable treat it was listening Thzm Bros, mind boggling, amazed at their absolute control
over the instrument. A style (of their own)I am coming accross for the first time. Thanks a TON

[shankarank]

I was able to identify couple of songs in the end but the Thodi and Kanada songs are still a mystery!

Could the Todi be kOti nadulu danushkODi ? The sahitya and tala meTTu matches! could this be a different kanchipuram? version? . Nice try eh? Don't know of any Adi tyAgaraja at this pace!

If that is right, they seem to play pongucu Sri raghunAthuni in lower sthayi and shift to higher sthayi for pogadE tyAgaraju. And swarams guess at rangani kAvEri (lot of makudam as they entered that second lane of caraNam)

[varsha]

thanks Purist . Will treat you to just one more concert

[sankark]

@varsha - what a veritable treat it was listening Thzm Bros, mind boggling, amazed at their absolute control
over the instrument. A style (of their own)I am coming accross for the first time. Thanks a TON

Amen to that. Just been listenting to that viribOni repeatedly and haven't moved on. The one avartana tavil between opening viribOni phrase and the full fledged viribOni itself is so good.

--deleted text--

[Purist]

@ varsha. " thanks Purist . Will treat you to just one more concert

I know am asking for too much, yet most welcome.

[knrh05]

Song-Kanada (11:52)
JagadishaPancha-Nadanamakriya (11:24)

The Nadanamakriya song is likely the Kshetagnar padam, Paiyyada rather than Jagadisha pancha. The tune is the same but the gait fits Paiyyada much better. Also, according to youtube, the Kanada song is Sree Shanmugha. I still cannot place the Thodi song but am not yet ready to buy into the alternate kotinadulu tune

[K Nagarajan]

I have heard Sri.Tirumeignanam Natarajasundaram Pillai's music is full of laya intricacies.

By the way, Sri.Tirumeignanam Natarajasundaram Pillai and
Sri.Tiruveezhimizhalai Natarajasundaram Pillai of the Tiruveezhimizhalai brothers
are one and the same person?

I have this doubt for many years.

[semmu86]

Even I have this doubt for, geographically, Tirumeignanam is near Thirukkadaiyur (Nagapattinam district) in the Sirkazhi- Mayavaram belt, while Tiruveezhimizhalai is near "KodavAsal", when you go from Kumbakonam towards Nachiyar Koil- Thirucherai road. So I presume both are different.

[varsha]

https://archive.org/details/Thirumegnanam4
RaviSri wrote

A must in their concerts was the kriti, 'chEtulAra sringAramu' (in bhairavi). Needamangalam used to insist on their playing this kriti as it would be very grand in the Naina Pillai tradition. After Needamangalam passed away, the Bros refused to play 'chEtulAra' forever, despite requests, saying, without Needamangalam Ayya, playing this kriti was of no use.

second krithi in this concert

[shankarank]

As regards mariyAda gAtura in SankarAbaranam in the first concert posted Thirumegnanam3 - I forgot to mention that their entry into mariyAda goes beyond arudhi the first two times - establishing majesty via musical verve ( when they pick kAdura from somewhere in the middle).

This gets me through the daily slow commute with traffic jams.

[rshankar]

gAturA - should be k(g)AdurA.

[K Nagarajan]

Refer post #23

https://archive.org/details/Thirumegnanam3

In the announcement, the artist is identified as TirumeignAnam TP NatarAjasundaram (Pillai)
who may be a different person than one of the Tiruveezhimizhalai brothers having the same name.

[rajeshnat]

Lovely writeup in The Hindu dated March 19,2020 . The imagery of mayavaram - mayuranathaswamy where nagaswaram musicians play for 3 to 4 hours is so good each taking a melam for an utsav. I wish i was born 50 years before , I would have got all the raga bhava in each of the utsavams

https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/ ... 107092.ece