Pallavi Darbar 2023 by Carnatica - Excerpts

[SrinathK]

Venue : Srinivasa Sastri Hall, Luz
Dates : 7th-10th July 2023

I made it to Chennai over the weekend just to attend the Pallavi Darbar, where musicians have pushed the very limits of Carnatic Music and the RTP over the years. Now I don't think I have the energy to give a live commentary for every concert, and you can watch the recordings on Carnatica's online channels, but I will summarise it as best as I can. If I really get going, it will be a full length review.

Day 2

Vid. N S Kamakshi - Vocal
Kum Gayathri Shivani - Violin
Vid. B Guru Raghavendra - Mridangam
Nerkunam Dr. S Shankar - Kanjira

The Pallavi is in kAmbhOji in Adi Tala on samam itself, but the twist is in the naDai - it's a pancha naDai pallavi, with a different naDai on every beat :

Beat 1 : Tisra naDai
Beat 2 : Chatushra naDai
Beat 3 : khanDa naDai
Beat 4 : Mishra naDai
Beat 5 : Sankeerna naDai
Beat 6 : Mishra naDai
Beat 7 : khanDa naDai
Beat 8 : Chatushra naDai

So the subbeat pattern is basically a nAdai yati pattern ascending and then descending

tt, | t,t, | t,tt | t,t,tt, || t,t,t,tt, | t,t,tt, |t,tt, | t,t, ||

Accordingly the lyrics also follow the naDai pattern ascending and descending as

Pallavi : guhA murugA shanmugA Om sharavanabhava || dayAnidhE nin pAdam tuddikkum enakkaruL sei ||

The Pallavi was composed by violinist R. Raghul

The lyrics are synced with the beats, and it's hard enough as it is to follow. N S Kamakshi did a superb job of making it look easy. Even attempted Chatushra tishram in it. It isn't nearly that easy.

The youngster Gayathri Shivani (disciple of M. Chandrashekaran) did extremely well dealing with the Pallavi in her replies in trikalam and swaras. Well done.

Ragamalika swaras : kApi, (missed), sahAna, shivaranjani. Final korvai needed a missed approach but landed on the dot the second time.

Mridangam and Kanjira never let us know the technical difficulty of the tala in their short Tani and support throughout the Pallavi.

Will fill up the gaps in these mini reviews later

[SrinathK]

Kum. Shruti Shankar Kumar - Vocal
Vid. Vaibhav Ramani - Violin
Vid. Kishore Ramesh - Mridangam

rAga alApana in purvikalyAni. Off to a good start with richly detailed phrases. Shruti has a powerful and agile voice, good weight with lots of upper octave range and perfect for brighas. Vaibhav Ramani proves his own mettle on those long brighas and wraps it up tidy.

Tanam is elegant and melodious. Going on conventional lines. No tricky stuff here, but the quality of ideas very good. Sped up a gear in the upper octave. Finished with the usual descending progression and standard ending.

Pallavi : samAnamA sabhApatE sadAshivA | sakala lOkamum unaku || sari - (samAnamA)

Tala : Chatushra jAti jhampa tAlam khanDa naDai

Eduppu : Samam + 2/5

Original Composer : T R Subramaniam. Tuned to this raga by Delhi Sundarrajan.

Announced as a swarakshara pallavi.

And there it comes -- Trikalam is being done in 4 speeds on every word one at a time across the whole tala.

Then the Trikalam on the whole pallavi. The Pallavi pattern goes into the opening swaras. Now the Pallavi and the tala have moved on to the next speed for the faster swaras. Admirable handling of the khaNDa naDai at speed.

Kishore Ramesh has been crusing through the whole exercise unobtrusively and adding that touch of direction where needed.

rAgamAlika swaras - tOdi (nice poruttam ending) with a good reply by Vaibhav. shankarAbharanam, back to pUrvikalyANi for the kuraippu. This is extremely tricky but Shruti is handling it easily. Vaibhav gets some much needed support from Kishore Ramesh. Final korvai finished to perfection. Excellent effort!

You aren't going to see Tanis in rare tAlams every day. So the patterns I'm hearing actually sound new on my ears. Good power play on the first round. Nice Mohra and kOrvai. Have to commend Shruti's tala keeping through all this - it's metronomic perfect. And that's it for this concert - very clean execution, no gimmicks. Well done!

One only wonders at the genius of one man army pallavi king that was TRS.

[SrinathK]

Vid. Sunil Gargyan - Vocal
Vid. Chidambaram Badrinath - Violin
Vid. N C Bharadwaj - Mridangam

There's a first time for everything and I'm hearing Sunil live for the first time today.

mArgazhi thingaL (tiruppAvAi) - nATa - Adi 3/4 eDuppu - Andal

Kutcheri begins with a tiruppAvAi in off season. The Pallavi theme is based on tiruppAVAi. It's a big one - it's going to have 30 ragas. The concept and pallavi was created by Vid. Shashikiran himself with some unique interpretations Let's see how it goes.

Ragas in alApana - kuntalavarALi, hamirkalyANi (nice switchover), violinist plays them in reverse. kuntalavarALi is now getting the works. Back to hamirkalyANi. After getting some powerful brighas, we are back in kuntalavarALi. Any more ragas coming? The alApana keeps weaving between the two ragas, before a gnarly descent down to the lower S and back up to finish it. The violinist has some great reflexes to play back some of those brighas. And now it's his turn at the 2 raga alApana - showing many original phrases here. He has some serious skill alright dealing with a twisty raga like hamirkalyANi with this mastery. Back and forth it goes with the two ragas swapping single phrases towards the end before finishing it up.

Maybe the tanam will deal with a different set of ragas? Fingers crossed. Ok first up, nATa. Sunil putting his heavy powerful voice to good use. Superb reply by Badrinath.

Next gauLa. Ok I see where this seems to be going. Arabhi unfurls elegantly. What an effort by both vocalist and violinist! varALi of course follows. Slipping seamlessly into Sri. And then back in reverse and ending in hamirkalyANi and kuntalavarALi. Long long time since I have heard such an elaborate tanam live which truly satisfied me, since in regular concerts it doesn't ever get this much time.

We are already at 40 min, nearly half way. 7 ragas down, 23 to go. What's serving for the Pallavi?

Tala : khanDa jAti tripuTA talam, Chatushra naDai, 2 kalai. +1/2 eDuppu. Some other solutions are expected down the road.

Pallavi : mArgazhi thingaL oozhi pADi maghizhavE | kOdai pughazh ninaikkavE

First part is in one raga, the second part in another. First between hamirkalyANi and kuntalavarALi.

The Trikalam - first speed in shankarAbharanam, second speed dhanyAsi & tOdi. I heard aTana and missed the next few (my ears are getting rusty!) The raga changes on every half of the pallavi. In the final speed, it changes too rapidly for me to keep up, but it ended in kAmbhOji. Must refer that tiruppAvai ragas list and watch the video to fill the gaps.

Ok Trikalam mostly in the first 2 ragas. Now here comes the next rounds of several minutes of extensive neravaL in -- bEgaDa. Then mOhanam. kAlyANi. sAvEri. NC Bharadwaj is keeping up the energy in the neraval across rounds and more rounds. Next sahAnA. Then we get into swaras.

So it seems the remaining ragas are going to be covered in the swaras. kuntalavarALi returns again. Then hamirkalyANi. Then senchuruTTi, in madhyama Sruthi. nAdanAmakriya is next. For those who have never heard the exact swaras in these ragas, this is quite an opportunity. NC Bharadwaj is doing some delicate stuff in the thOppi for the slower swaras. Badrinath is ready with a reply for every raga. Overall, the teamwork and coordination is just perfect.

yamunA kalyANi. Then the faster swaras - bilahari - now we are in the kurappi, and it seems every raga is getting a kOrvai. Now sindhubhairavi. behAg. kAmbhOji, madhyamAvati, suruTTi. And then just like that we are back to hamirkalyANi for the final kOrvai. Final korvai in kuntalavarALi lands on the dot. Heroic effort!

Tani Avartanam off to a thunderous start. naDai switch briefly. Some serious farans. Ending in a kOrvai to tie in to the pallavi's underlying rhythmic pattern. On to the next round. High precision strokes. Amazing clarity in the farans. Boutique complex mohra and 2 Avartanam monster kOrvai for this tAla.

And so a final round of vilomam, anulomam and pratilomam, with the tala brought to 1 kalai for the 3rd speed, ends a superb RTP that was melody first with the focus all on expansive manodharma. Bravo!

[SrinathK]

Vid. Amrutha Venkatesh - Vocal
Vid. L Ramakrishnan - Violin
Vid. Arjun Ganesh - Mridangam
Vid. Dr. S Karthik - Ghatam

Started with some exquisite phrases in shanmugapriya. What a range in mandara sthAyi. Shanmugapriya has a long history of expansive elaboration and limitless ideas. Here's another one for those books. This is seriously, seriously good. All out effort. L Ramakrishnan is also going for quite a performance in his turn. Exquisite phrasing.

Tanam begins in the lower octave. Very creative effort by both Amrutha and LR. Well, if you want to know what you're missing, check it out online. The first round ended with a small applause. The second round climbs up to the P. This tanam has enough musicality to be studied for a long, long time. Each round is so elaborate it would be a full fledged tanam effort in a regular concert. What an effort from Amrutha and LR!

Amrutha's tanam sounds like she's turned her vocal cords into an actual Veena. We've climbed to the upper S now. Quite some heavy jharus and big jumps to far away notes.

Sastri Hall is finally up to full capacity and those who've joined are sitting up front on the floor.

The mridangam and ghatam now join in. This is going to be Navaratri mandapam style from here. God it's freestyle raga with rhythm but not bound by a tala. Why don't more musicians do this? LR's reply gets accompanied starting with the softest of touches, and is now a proper dialogue between violin and percussion. At the heart of it, tanam, neraval and kalpanaswarams use the same swara skill set in different ways, which can be seen when the percussion accompanies. Any way there's the end of a magnificent tanam....

I wonder what kind of pallavi theme is going to be featured in this one.

Ok. Tala exotica. And how....

The talam is chosen from the 72 tAla system and the tala name is also Shanmugapriya.

Plutam + Laghu + Dhrutam + Dhruta sekhara viramam (Dhrutam + 1 extra beat) + Laghu + Dhrutam = 27 beats!

shanmugA murugA guhA | kandA kA vA|| - the tala is going to be quick given the pallavi line is so short.

The raga Malika swarams are in a panchamukhi talam and then in tisra jAthi jhampa in a reverse panchamukhi. Need to see the video 3x to understand the tala structure. Some other tala solutions are already there, but mercifully, Amrutha sticks to only these 3.

Eduppu is samam. Thank goodness. Overall the pallavi structure is spaced out enough for expansive neraval.

The Pallavi gets off to a commanding start with a tala speed that is like 1/2 kalai. LR has no issues replying expertly to such a tricky beat pattern either. The beauty of laya is that even the most difficult stuff should look normal, and man, they're so relaxed they're doing brighas without a bother. Going on to fast neraval.

Trikalam. Slow. Chatushra tishram (phew!!) Normal speed. Tisra naDai. 3rd speed. 4th speed! Yeah. What tala control!! Wait, is LR is going to actually reply to this?? YES! All 4 speeds and the 4th speed blitz too!!! Wowowow! The audience is delighted.

Swaras begin. Hard to review while also trying to keep up putting such a complicated best, but I've succeeded after watching it a few times. The slow speed ends with a change to a fast ending td,gnt pattern. The trick to this pallavi is that the ending is actually easier than it looks.

Now rAgamAlika. And the tala changes to khanDa tripuTa, with the twist that beats 1,6 and 8 (first beat of every angam) have a khaNDa naDai subbeat pattern while the others are normal beats. nATakurinji is up first. Now the reverse panchamukhi, which I haven't got, though some of the kids around me who're Amrutha's students can do it perfectly...

A turbocharged hamsAnandi follows. That's it, LR is the Lalgudi Jayaraman of the modern age, I conclude. Next kApi, in khaNDA tripuTa tAlam tisra naDai. Note, all 3 talas adds to a count of 27 beats.

Percussion has been following Amrutha and LR like a true shadow. LR is making kApi dance to tisra naDai. How does he do his magic?

Back to hamsAnandi and nATakurinji and Shanmugapriya. We are back to the Shanmugapriya talam too. Amrutha Nailed the complex korvai and is totally not distracted by our largely massively incorrect attempts to keep tala with her. Amazing.

A 12+4+2+3+4+2 structure is going to be quite the puzzle for Arjun Ganesh and Karthik to solve and let's see how they go about it in the Tani. Ooh an exclusive toppi round too! Eventually it was quite a nerve wracking finish for the mridangam. Now Ghatam. He goes for the Pallavi pattern itself as the korvai, but as the tala speed accelerates and slows as it does in a Tani, it's nearly impossible to keep the beat up. How is Amrutha doing it? Oh yeah, the finish was tricky. That last 4+2, especially the last 2 beat ending, is proving to be a challenge even to the percussion. It seems to squeeze them into a corner with little wiggle room.

The biggest challenge is the speed of the tala itself, it's essentially in 1/2 kalai, so it's going at 2x the regular speed, in excess of 200 bpm. So you have only a split second to get it right, or not. In neraval and swaras they managed by using the last 4+2 fully to plan the ending, but the Tani patterns and endings are usually played at 2x the singing speed and demands more complex math work, so the Tani is far more of a formidable challenge.

But in the second round they've figured it out and are raising the adrenaline with some proper faran fireworks. Dear God, for the first time ever, I've seen a tala that made the percussion sweat bullets before they got to the end of it. Anyway they're on to the Mohra and kOrvai. A nail biting 2 Avartanam threading the needle effort, but they land on the dot 3 times in a row to a standing ovation!

If there was ever a time where even the laya specialists thanked the Lord with gratitude for having sailed through in one piece, this was it.

The audience is on their feet! STANDING OVATION! The applause goes on and on. The concert of my year maybe! Take a bow! What an effort by the team! Brilliant! Speechless! Stunning! This is what Pallavi Darbar is about folks! This is the pinnacle of Carnatic Music! Vidwath doesn't get better! Amrutha Venkatesh, future Sangeetha Kalanidhi confirmed!

[SrinathK]

Vid. Ramana Balachandran - Veena & Vocal
Vid. Sumesh Narayan - Mridangam
Vid. Chandrashekara Sharma - Ghatam

It's a new personal best. Five concerts reviewed in one day!

Ramana's humming kalyANi for sound check. It seems to me he'll be singing and playing. He will definitely have to sing the pallavi while demoing it. Looking back Sastri Hall is absolutely full. I would have to be the literal fly on the wall or Spiderman just to get any chance of listening had I arrived now rather than in the afternoon.

Finally, after a lot of checks, he begins with a sketch of nATakurinji. The nATakurinji varnam it is. With his control over the Veena, he has become fond of the brighas in recent years. I'm so high from the last concert I need to settle down and pay attention now, as another round of fine tuning between numbers goes on.

Now Ramana starts an introspective essay of ranjani. He goes on to elaborate deep in the Mandara sthAyi on the lower 2 strings. Some string bending and mind bending dynamic phrases and some deeply introspective, almost Hindustani sitar esque moments too. An incredible mastery of the gamakas of the Veena in and out and peerless agility in the heavy fast phrases. Overall though, with the tambura in the background, the ranjani is meditative. Lots of moving touches. Finally he finishes a majestic essay pulling not just the Veena strings, but also the audience's heart strings in line.

Veena is the mother of tanam. Tanam on the Veena is always going to be something else and Ramana promises he's going to do an elaborate one with the Shruti strings for added harmony. Let's see how it goes. My is it some serious power. After a long run demanding tremendous energy, he just so slyly slips into varALi. And then into heart melting sAma.

Now he starts a slow round of tanam in
... sarasAngi. Yes, that one raga you might have never heard because everyone ignores her. That sarasAngi. Lots of P skipping phrases. And then we're suddenly in hamir kalyANi. And with a small gamaka on the G1, back into ranjani. Full throttle. What energy in his playing! He's one of those prodigies who I considered as a fully formed musician even as a kid. And with a big jharu he concludes a magnificent tanam.

Ramana takes the Mike to explain some aspects of Trikalam in the pallavi and the challenges of playing Trikalam on the Veena with both hands engaged (as a former violinist I know exactly what that's like). He will be singing the trikAlam parts along with playing

Talam : Adi 2 kalai -1/4 eDuppu. (2 quarter notes before start of beat).

Lyrics : mAdavan marugA guhA ennai vandu kA ramaNaN vaDivil vanda (mAdavan)

After a few rounds of pallavi and several rounds of neraval, Ramana goes on to do Trikalam, starting from the 2nd half of the pallavi with the speed changes. He then goes on to split the words in different speeds and sings the trikAlam in tisra naDai, khanDa naDai, and now Mishra naDai. Now a 5+11 naDai split - one beat in khaNDa naDai and the next beat in an unheard 11 note per beat naDai. Well I will need to watch the video several times to get it, but at least we have someone who explains the tricks of his trade. Ramana's making it a very informal affair. The speed of the singing doesn't change, but the tala beat duration stretches and shrinks to fit the number of notes. The point of the speed change is the mid point of the Adi Tala, the arudhi location.

And then even in this variable naDai jungle, he does Trikalam on the melody too. Now he keeps the speed of the tala beats constant, but changes the naDai speed on the melody. First tishram, chatushram and then khanDam, then in 2x speed. Now he's doing it on the Veena too.

Back to the pallavi, now he's moved on to the swaras. The rhythmic fancies go into the kanakku now. He's attempting some very tricky stuff the details of which are better watched than said - the -1/4 eDuppu in 2 kalai is the tricky but - you need to land 2 notes before the start of the beat. A change to rAga sAma comes as a breath of fresh air. Then on to varALi. And then sarasAngi. Finally he comes to sarasAngi. And back to ranjani.

Sumesh Narayan and Chandrashekara Sharma have been supporting Ramana the past 90 minutes through all these rhythmic pyrotechnical drills without batting an eyelid. Sumesh's heavy beats matched by Sharma's metallic strokes and heavy ghumkis. They're always communicating by looks - it's taking both of them to take turns accompanying and playing solo for all the arithmetic that Ramana keeps working out. It's a three way Veena, mridangam and ghaTam exposition at this point, so it sounds like Veena and the Tani have merged into one now. In pushing the very limits of the Veena and his own hands, Ramana does commit the rare odd unforced error. But the combinatrics machine never stops churning out some new food for thought for the percussion to reply to.

Ok looks like he's finally going to wrap it up. Running back through the ragas, Ramana goes for a burst of acceleration for some top speed swaras. After what seems like forever, The kOrvai arrives, the finale buried under a huge burst of power packed percussion.

Honestly, watching 5 concerts in a row is also very taxing on the energy reserves. Not sure if I have the energy left to listen to a Tani after Ramana pretty much made it nearly redundant, but true to principle, I'll stay. So for round 1 Sumesh unleash some thunderous beats and lilting patterns, a few tisra naDai slow and fast passages, finally culminating in some fireworks ending on the 5th beat ala the pallavi, but maybe he wants to try that again? Second round. Intricate patterns on patterns Yeah this time he gets it on that eDuppu point. Chandrashekara Sharma goes for the ghaTam fireworks. Whoa! He nailed that final korvai.

Second round goes through sankeerNa naDai. Sumesh, intricately complex passages his forte, is writing his own masters thesis in combinatorics theory with his variations of one theme. This is turning out to be one of the longest Tanis I've been in. Sumesh ends a kOrvai so complex only God himself knows what he did there, with a massive Kaboomshki. Chandrashekara Sharma goes for tisram and more arithmetic (my brain switched off out of exhaustion here). He ends with the beat pattern of the pallavi without a massive explosion.

Ok they rejoined for the final round. Farans rising to a crescendo. Mohra at -1/2 eDuppu. kOrvai adjusted on round 3 to land on the eDuppu. Savage effort. Absolutely running a complete marathon. The audience is so mind blown some people even howl. Good thing I chose to stay. Insane stuff! Sheesh!

And so concludes Day 2 of Pallavi Darbar. I should be there for most of Day 3 before I need to go back. A change of schedule. Akkarai Sisters are on the 10th, hence Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna is on tomorrow at 5:30 pm.

Ramana isn't done yet. A meerA Bhajan, chalO man gangA yamunA, in rAga maru behAg follows, tuned by Sriram Parthasarathy. arunAchala Shiva concludes a 2 1/2 hour marathon, the longest concert of the day.

[Sachi_R]

Srinath, Take a bow, mate. You are now the star among Rasikas!

Would you kindly share the links to the videos?
I crave to listen....

[cienu]

Surely K Srinath is one of the most knowledgeable amongst us and he is extremely passionate and erudite too. Loved reading his reviews which gave us a ring side view of the Pallavi Durbar.

[SrinathK]

@RSachi and @cienu, The real reason these live reviews began was because I have almost no time to write anything on music except the time in the concert hall itself!! Have to multitask.

The links at on Carnatica Archival Centre's FB page. Note, the concerts will not be streamed live, but will be shared after a day.

https://www.facebook.com/carnatica.arch ... tid=ZbWKwL

Here are yesterday's concerts:

Kruthi Bhat : https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... tid=Nif5oz

Rithvik Raja

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... tid=RUbZ1f

Spotted a lot of young kids in the audience - Charulatha Chandrashekar, Spoorthi Rao. Several Musicians turned up - Kruthi Bhat and Vittal Rangan, Bharat Sundar, Ramakrishnan Murthy and many others who might have been behind me, but I didn't realise were there.

The first concert was at 2 pm and Ramana finished by 10 pm. So I had 8 hours of time to text and text and text. Man it was punishing, partially because I'd travelled a rough sleepless night by sleeper bus from Dharmapuri on Friday night, but totally worth every second of it. A good night's rest and meditation should restore my energy levels.

When I work 11-12 hours or even more on my day job as a banker, it's important that music too gets that level of dedication on the days where I can devote some time to it. Anyone wanting to come up to this level and succeed in music would should study and practice and listen to the same level of commitment that our full time jobs and families demand.

Kudos to Shashikiran for keeping the Pallavi Darbar going and archiving all the great ideas and apex level performances for posterity. There are no so many times where you see musicians push the limits and possibilities of Carnatic Music itself. This is one of those times.

[SrinathK]

Day 3 and we have an interactive Pallavi Session by the winners of the Pallavi Competition :

Kum. Dharnini Veeraraghavan - Vocal
Kum. Swarathmika Srikanth - Vocal
Smt. Radhika Kannan - Vocal
Sri. Amrith Narayan - Vocal
Kum. Gayathri Shivani - Violin
Kum. Charulatha Chandrashekar - Veena
Sri. Kaushik Sridhar - Mridagam

For the first segment, they're covering several pallavis they will be presenting composed by many past pallavi giants, and discussing some of their lyrical, melodical and technical features. Since they're only singing them for a minute or so, I don't have time to write about them. If they go for a detailed elaboration of each of them, I will cover them.

But like the pallavi jam session a few years back, it gives you a great idea of the sheer variety of possibilities in RTP. Also all the instrumentalists are good singers themselves, with great command on even difficult tala cycles and rhythmic intricacies.

The second segment is for the audience to guess. Amrith sings a pallavi as a riddle - raga, tala and lyrics. The other was a connection between 4 composers - as it turns out all of them were 72 melakarta raga composers. As it turns out it does have a connection to pranatArthihara and the 72 rAgamAlika of mahA vaidyanatha Iyer.

The pallavi will feature all 72 mela ragas. Only tODi and kalyANi will be taken up for raga elaboration. Dharini begins with a short sowkhyam filled tODi - she has a very melodious, shruti aligned voice with great agility in the brighas. Amrit takes over from the upper S - something about his singing reminds me of Semmangudi mama. Of course, singing in a lady's key in the lower octave is not exactly optimal, his mandara sthAyi is going to complain by the end of the session, but his tone still comes off well.

Radhika elaborates kalyANi. She has a powerful voice. Apologies that I forgot to mention, she played the tambura for Amrutha Venkatesh yesterday. Swarathmika takes over in the Mel sthAyi and finishes the alapana. Good heavy brighas and good range.

It's been a while since those days where Charu was such a tiny tot she seemed buried behind the giant looking Veena which she played so well already at that age. Now she's well on her way to becoming an extremely accomplished vainika. She takes up a brisk tAnam in tODi and ends with a change to kalyANi, which is then elaborated by Gayathri Shivani. Nice staccatto on the tanam. A superbly mobile left hand let's her play anything she wants. Good imagination. Finishes with a final phrase in tODi. Charulata takes over. What a clean mettu and superb phrasing! Back to kalyANi on the violin, a thrilling climb to the ati Tara shadjam and back down. Todi - Veena. kAlyANi - violin. And so it concludes. Every kid is a prodigy folks.

The Pallavi idea is Shashikiran's. Lyrics : mela rAgamAlika kAraka prabho | vaidyanAtha shivAya nAmaha ||

Tala : khaNDa tripuTa 2 kalai +1/2 eDuppu. 9 x 4 x 2 = 72 notes per cycle. Rhythmic pun intended.

First part is in tOdi and 2nd part is in kalyANi. After a few rounds, it's now inverted.

Multiple speeds - slow, Chatushra tisram, normal, 2x. On each word. Why do they call it Trikalam? It's mostly a chatur kalam these days.

Now swarams. They are going through all the 72 melakarta ragas but not in order. Changing ragas every few seconds, so unable to keep up.
After slow speed, it's tisra naDai. Now the next speed. The pallavi line toes the speed of the swaras. Good coordination between all 7 of them. It's getting busy in the kuraippu section - 1 Avartanam, then 1/2 an Avartanam and on and on. A river of swaras flows on and on. Kaushik Sridhar is supporting the 6 others on his mridangam with great sensitivity, keeping the tempo going and guiding them in the more arithmetic areas. Finally, a kOrvai with a huge yati progression and an ending pattern. I hope they know where they're going. Yes! Perfect landing!

They also demonstrate the pallavi in other talas - a panchamukhi, in Adi Tala sankeerNa naDai. Any tala in any kalai or naDai with 72 notes per cycle can fit the pallavi without changing its tune. An RTP always has multiple tala solutions. And so it is also possible to sing a pallavi in 2 different talas in 2 different naDais, but the arudhi point has to sync in both the talas. Even a full Anga talam (using all the talangas angas A,D,L,G,P,K)and even a viramam is shown. As long as it adds to 72, anything is possible.

Over to the mini Tani - faran, mohra and kOrvai only.

In the last segment, a few other thematic pallavis are going to be shown composed by the artistes themselves. Let's see what's for dessert.

Dharini - trees. Sriranjani ragam - khaNda jAthi tripuTa +1 eDuppu - has swaraksharam too.

Radhika - patriotism. Desh ragam - tisra tripuTa tisra naDai.

Gayathri - music and languages. Raga kannaDa. khaNDa tripuTa khanDa naDai - 1 eDuppu

Swarathmika - tiruppugazh. Raga tilAng. sankeerNa tripuTa tisra naDai + 3 2/3 eDuppu.

Amrith - Today's date (09/07/2023) adding to 59. So he found 2 tAlams that fit this odd number. Hamsadhwani ragam. And the lyrics are in English on RTP. Another pallavi with lyrics on Pallavi Darbar itself. He seems to have been asked to work this out today morning. So he's still grinding gears in his head. God he is a master of puns and multi layered interpretations to his lyrics -- so no matter how serious the music, one also needs a sense of humor.

Charulatha - on Pallavi Darbar + Parthasarathy Swami sabha + Shashikiran + Narasimhan. --- Jaya talam (36 counts from the 108 tala system - 2 kalai. To make 36x2 = 72 beats). LOL!

Amrith finally nails his pallavi with English lyrics on the RTP itself.

These young guns are great lyricists too.

And that's launched the social media pallavi challenge. Tag #pallavidarbar and share all old and new pallavis for archiving by Carnatica for the future.

PS : It seems there was a method behind the madness for the order of the ragas sung in this pallavi. Todi has all flat notes and kalyANi has all sharps. The order of melas was :
1,11,21,31,41,51,61,71,2,12,22,32,42,52,62,72,3,13,23,33,43,53,63,4,14,24,34,44,54,64,5,15,25,35,45,55,65,6,16,26,36,46,56,66,7,17,27,37,47,57,67,8,18,28,38,48,58,68,9,19,29,39,49,59,69,10,20,30,40,50,60,70.

The whole pallavi was worked out in less than 2 days by the team as a challenge. You see the level of these youngsters? CM is not just in safe hands, it's going to new heights even now.

[SrinathK]

Vocal - Vids. Anahita & Apoorva Ravindran
Violin - Vid. Sayee Rakshith
Mridangam - Vid. N C Bharadwaj
Kanjira - Vid. Nerkunam Dr. S. Shankar

As I need to drive back to where I stay tonight, this will be the last concert I will review live. We can see the rest on video. Missing KBMK live who is up at 5:30 and Suryaprakash at 7 pm is going to be a bummer, but oh well, that's life. At least the video will come up soon.

Concert begins with vallabha nAyakasya of Muthuswami Dikshitar in bEgaDa. Volume of the mics could be a bit lower. Commanding rendition. Mic Volume finally where it should be.

The next raga for the day is hEmavati. Commencing with a serene exploration in the lower octaves by Anahita. After coming up to the mid P, Apoorva takes over and takes it up to the upper R2. Back to Anahita for the upper octave flights. Excellent brigha control to the upper D2. Finally return to earth. Apoorva finishes the final part of the alApana. Sayee Rakshith goes for a very sowkhyam filled essay, mostly using the lower strings to avoid shriller tones. Finishes a tidy meditative essay.

And then to tAnam - soft and delicate. The articulation of the tAnam - anaMta syllables is very important to shape the structure of the tanam and the sisters are taking special care for this. Sayee Rakshith is playing his tanam soaked in melody. Tanam is getting more elaborate and vigorous now. Sayee Rakshith adds sparkles of brilliance in his playing to deserved claps. We're 45 min at the half way point and the tanam is going superb with a grahabedham to kOsalam on the G1. Now Apoorva changes track and varALi appears. Sayee Rakshith springs a surprise with a blissful bilahari. Now cycling backwards, through varALi, kOsalam and hEmavati. Masterclass in tAnam!

The pallavi is in a yati based tALam in khaNDa tripuTa, but each beat has a different naDai subbeat pattern - 1,3,5,7,9,7,5,3,1 -- the naDai counts are the progression. This creates a tala where the last and first beats are super short and the 5th beat is super long. The end and the beginning of the tALa are the hardest parts to manage since they suddenly fly by. Eduppu is at +1 & 2/3 (the 2nd beat is in tisra naDai and it begins after 2 notes from the start of that beat).

Lyrics : aruLvAi vElavA mAl marugA vaLLi manav ala | vaDivEl azhagA kumarA enak (aruLvAi)

The pallavi and the neraval are handled with aplomb by the sisters who handle the variable tAlA without batting an eyelid with good replies from the violinist. NC Bharadwaj and Nerkunam Sankar follow them ably keeping a hawks eye on the talam. trikAlam is dispatched with a certain nonchalance even. Then trikAlam splitting the words. My mind is flummoxed I tell ya... and this is just the latest in a series of them.... Let me try keeping this talam instead...Oh God....

And we are on to the swaras already. Sayee Rakshith does a fantastic job of nailing such a tricky eDuppu, which is just after the fastest part of the tAlA and is so easy to miss. The sisters are actually enjoying themselves effortlessly in this mind twisting exercising doing all kinds of calculations to a fitting finale of swaras in hEmavati.

Next hamirkalyANi. What swarakalpana! The twists and turns of this raga are no challenge to these 2. Followed by mUkhAri. Apoorva gets a tricky landing right, I saw it but am still not sure how that happened . Sayee Rakshith finally gets his due and goes for janaranjani. He totally commands the landing. Brilliant stuff.

Back to hEmavati, the final kOrvai has a yati and another complex pattern in 2nd half. Perfection! Bravo! Bravo!

How are they going to do the Tani for this monster? Each beat is basically a different chApu tala. It is going to be a challenge to find out how to end, really need to have thought this through. But anyway NCB takes up round 1 like any other Tani. He plays the subbeat pattern of every naDai at one spot too. He gets it and plays back the laya pattern of the pallavi to end his turn! Now Shankar's turn. He's going for a lot of strokework. Well I am at this point not sure if they're able to make the eDuppu. If anyone tells you that pallavis aren't just as challenging for the percussion as they are for the vocalists and violinists, don't believe them. It's more challenging actually.

For kuraippu they've decided to stop at samam and Arudhi. And now going to to the farans. Well they've gone for an Adi Tala Mohra calculated for this particular tala. kOrvai is kept 1 Avartanam and hits the Bulls eye on the eDuppu each time.

A brilliantly executed pallavi. They made it far easier than it was. I never quite managed to get it right reliably.

Well done again A&A and team!

[SrinathK]

Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna - Vocal
Akkarai Subhalakshmi - Violin
Sumesh Narayan - Mridangam
Chandrashekara Sharma - ghaTam

I will be here for just a few minutes. Want to see what raga they start in. And then I have a 6 hour drive back to my place of posting. Will review the rest when the video comes up tomorrow. Sastri Hall is full now. There are more people on the floor than on the chairs! Plenty of musicians - Akkarai Swaminathan, Sornalatha, Rithvik, Bharat Sundar, etc.etc.

And in quirks and bizarre moments of rasikas, one lady next to me takes her seat right behind the video camera and then is complaining loudly that the video cameras are in front of her.... Hopefully no one bumps against those cameras.

I had to leave at this point. As I left I thought I heard sketches of sAramati. But that's for another day...

[Sachi_R]

I can't find anywhere a link to the Pallavi Darbar 2023 recital of Vid. Amrutha Venkatesh. Can someone please share it here? Thanks

[rajeshnat]

Thank you Srinathk for your review , i read all of this in one go certain lines were dense . I could not attend even one of them as i was outside chennai. Kudos to Sashikiran and carnatica team , he is holding the event with such sincerity ,his passion as an organizer is unmatched .

[SrinathK]

I wonder if everyone had a secret bet to sing hameer kalyANi though.

[SrinathK]

I can't find anywhere a link to the Pallavi Darbar 2023 recital of Vid. Amrutha Venkatesh. Can someone please share it here? Thanks

Here you go. All the pallavi darbar concert videos are up here. The channel is interestingly named IMPL - International Music Premier League.

https://youtube.com/@impl-internationalmusicpre5680

While the cameras capture the artistes and the renditions and explanations just fine, they simply don't convey the live experience - the audience in a full hall, with more people on the floor than the chairs, all the musicians and kids and gurus who attended, how exhilarated we were with the kind of vidwath on offer and just the very live atmosphere of a concert or meeting your stars off stage. That is priceless.

What they do ensure is that the mysteries and depths of the RTP with all their technicalities and challenges are archived for posterity, which goes a long way to help improving the understanding of the RTP art form.

A request to admin - why not have one section on this forum specifically for RTPs? Maybe just beneath the tAla and laya section, on the main page itself. Each RTP rendition or lec dem gets one thread, one thread per recording, and those who know can discuss it. RTP only concerts can also be reviewed there, but I insist that this RTP sub should be different from the concert reviews section. That way we can become a large repository of readily accessible links to RTP renditions.

[rajeshnat]

better idea is post allways in concert review and have a seperate thread called rtp whixh is a sticky thread where you point a link to each of the post. the rtp link thread can be made sticky. bottom line all concerts inclusive of rtp stays only in concert review. do you recollect one thread I called 4 raga rtp.

there is a chance if you have rtp as a section some one will post non rtp concert review.Also some one will post actual concert on rtp . that way all things agin gets mixed up..