Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017

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

Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017

Post by rajeshnat »

Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017
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Vocal : Sanjay Subrahmanyan
Violin : S Varadarajan
Mrudangam : Neyveli Venkatesh
Ghatam : SV Ramani

Concert Type : Nirvana - No concert to follow , Free concet
Day/Duration : Saturday/ 2 hours and 45 minutes exclusive of early 5 mins speech
Time : 6:10 to 9:00 pm
Occasion : Arun Excello - navarathri naadha vaibhavam

1. varnam - maayE mana arul - Abhogi - mayuram vishwanatha sastri???
had lines like tripura sundari .... taaaye NeeyE thiruvAi tharum
2. rE rE mAnasa bhajare (S) - nAttai - ceyOOr chengalvAraya sAstri
swaras for 6 mins

3. pAhi parvatha (R) - Arabi - ST
7 mins alapana and 5 mins violin return

4. thillai ambalathAnai govindarAjanai (R,S) - sahana - gkb
11 mins alapana and 7 mins violin return
5 mins of swaras

5. mAmavatu sree saraswati - hindOlam - MV
6. maravakavE O ManasA (N) - shyamA - patnam
neraval in paramahamsa muni mAnasa pankaja prabhAkaruDE for 5 mins

7A. kamalAmbAm bhajarE (R S T) - kalyani - MD
14 mins alapana and 10 mins violin return
swaras for 11 mins
7B. tani

8. haridAsulu - yamunakalyani - T

9A. viruththam - poothavalE - nattaikurinji +
aathalai abhirami valliyai - subhapantuvarali +
vande mataram - behag +
kalyani kamala kalpalathikam - ??
vedanta prathi - ranjani
shree chakra - sindhbhairavi
9B. mAvur valam peruga - sindhubhairavi - hmb

10A . short viruththam - akila charAchara - kamAs
10B. thiruvalar mayilaiyiN - kamAs - papanasam sivan
11. mAlAsai kopam - jonpuri - AGN thirrupugazh
12. pavamAna
Last edited by rajeshnat on 18 Sep 2017, 08:24, edited 1 time in total.

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

Re: Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017

Post by rajeshnat »

The sponsors Arun Excello are a real estate company. I attended the same sanjay wayback in 2011 in a concert in harrington road with the same sponsor. Today i understood that they are conducting as their 7th navarathri naada vaibhavam concert . For the first 15 mins from 6 pm they put their ads , i lost totally my rasika muse with the loud ads. I prayed they should not beam the concert with the big background as i heard they did for the previous concert , but i was happy they did not .We kept our eyes and ears only in the stage and did not get distracted with visuals.More power to Arun excello, not only they are conducting the pristine art festival , more importantly they are using Music Academy Main hall other than season .

After a crisp introduction dot 6 15 pm sanjay started with his usual 2 A + superstar accompaniment and ably supported by another star s v ramani . For me abhogi varnam is one my personally sought out raga varnam openers . It was not evari bodhana but a new varnam in thamizh maayE mana arul(Lji should let me know the vaggeyakkara of this rare abhogi varnam). Abhogi within me adds a personal joy and Sanjay and his team indeed gave a cracker start .

THe next was rare nattai , I once heard many years this rare cheyur chengalvaraya sastri from sudha , nice rotation with long play by varadu with really fast fingering by venkatesh gave a great start.

The fast arabi began with a tinge of maharajapuram santhanam stylish alapana with lot of brigas poured later and i loved his rendition . NIce song pahi parvata and again what can i say it was a juicy full toss for venkatesh.

Voice power with reduced aggression not to shout can be a key mantra for every concert . Well that is where this raga sahana fits in to a T. Alapana was well done with little anavsiyam in singing few pidis in sahana of an yesteryear PBS song parthen sirithen - It is a kind of sanjay vocal mannerism give that to every musician - the celestial greats also did but of late I am not liking it .Sahana song was well done again a testimony particularly to venkatesh play the contrast of faster roll and density of beats with the contrast of slow moving sangathi it is indeed joy to hear the contrast

santhanam came in quickly in mAmavatu in hindolam nothing wrong with krithi but i felt hindolam tastes better with a flash of swaras . Shyama and sanjay are born with a high degree of aesthetics and i liked his rendition . THe only neraval was done well , i thought it was short but shyama kept me intensely engaged .

The main was kalyani, the alapana was well done only in parts . Few great ideas but he struggled to flesh out the character . I was so happy when he started with kamalAmbAm bhajare , kalyani is not my favourite raga but i love when the antidote is applied with a krithi like kamalAmbAm bhajare , vasudevayani , abhayamba or needu charana . I have my share of awe when these kalyani lovable krithis are taken . He skipped neraval and went to swaras . Swaras were surely bad . Sanjay started slightly like mdr in slower extended phase, he added some thing like ma ga ri sa sA sa ri ga , and kept hovering on the same pattern sa sa SA . sruthi went ta ta with sanjay and his mannerism kept carnatic classicism low key ,the kalyani devathai completely went out with his swara rendition. A great musician had a bad second half of kalyani . Incidentally in dec 2014 he sang a great kalyani rtp where i was part of in the same academy , but this kalyani was way out of my aesthetic expectation too much of gimmicks.

THe next was yamunakalyani and the quick pass haridasulu was well done , thank god yamunakalyani was not as polluted as her mother ganga kalyani. Sanjay excellence returned with the lovely viruththam , he detailed out with his most favourite viruththam poothavale , starting with the arresting nattaikurinji and subhapantuvarali with both being very detailed, I loved it .He moved on to another viruththam vande mataram , the first two ragas was way too short , i think the first there was behag , second it was too short but i failed to identify and then ranjani in its very famous line vedanta and also line having ranjani phrase was well done with a little more dwelling in ranjani gave me joy unlike the previous 2 . Sindhu bhairavi was touched with one line of short viruththam and a rare HMB krithi in thamizh popped up. sivan krithi tiruvalar mayilai was peppy with a very short viruththam before and he closed with a nice thirruppugazh jonpuri - for a change it was not way too many words in thirruppugazh. The intermediate kamas he performed with a rare sivan krithi.

Varadu is an A plus artist . his essays were crisp and he gives also the right lung space to the main artist , possibly he portrayed kalyani little longer to give more charge time to sanjay in main. But his tone was slightly metallic kind of atleast comparing many of his concerts before i heard not the usual superb sunaada violin tone. I am stating this because varadu is my perennial favourite -I have 3 violinist of today in my mind where i have regsitered as great acccompanist and in there varadu is always there .

I have not heard UKS or Sankaran sir in 1960s as I was not even born. Neyveli venkatesh is one of those sparkling stereotypes of that era play . What a charge, he is possibly the fastest player of mrudangam he is the real bolt there with his superb dexterity in fingering speed. HE also provides considerable cushion effect in his play and his left O my god what a left thoppi style he has got with charge and no overbanging effect . Cnncert thookindu paittar neyveli venkatesh. i did not pay that much attention to his tani , but I was hearing lot of great controlled aggression also from sv ramani who did not have much role play before.

Sanjay's ideas kept considerably pouring that too with the A Plus team of accompaniment . WIth only a brief neraval and with a RST Main it is a usual feature to allocate time for RTP.But unfortunately there was no RTP.

Overall an excellent concert for 2 hours and 50 mins inclusive of 5 mins speech

vijay.siddharth
Posts: 358
Joined: 14 May 2017, 13:08

Re: Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017

Post by vijay.siddharth »

The varnam is a composition of Mayuram Vishwanatha Shastri. A lovely varnam; was trying to teach it to myself the day of the concert (tak of coincidence!) and it had some lovely abhogi pidis that aren't usually seen in other compositions.

I think even Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar used to sing Re Re Manasa Bhajare. A song suited for Sanjay's temperament.

Sounds like a lovely sanjay concert with the usual ingredients for success thrown in (rare varnam, tamil krithi, therinja main, like that). I felt Sanjay was not especially suited for kalyani or even ragams like Saveri - ragams like Thodi, Bhairavi, Shankarabharanam, Kambhoji, are more suited to his temperament and his nagaswaram style of singing.

One question though - did singing Yamuna Kalyani after kalyani sound grating? or did he manage to pull it off?

CRama
Posts: 2939
Joined: 18 Nov 2009, 16:58

Re: Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017

Post by CRama »

Rajesh, Nice review as usual. I agree with you regarding the latter half of the swarams for Kalyani.
Tillai ambalathanai- Sahana-. I have heard this in Suruti in many Sivarathri concerts- TNS, Mani Krishnaswamy, Aruna Sairam, Nithyasree etc. First time heard this in Sahana.
Yamuna Kalyani after Kalyani- I left before this song. But because it came after the tani, it must have been okay.

CRama
Posts: 2939
Joined: 18 Nov 2009, 16:58

Re: Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017

Post by CRama »

Neraval for Maravagave- was too good- very much Musiri style. Because, he will not be doing Neraval for the main song, just for the sake of neraval, he took that song. That needs to be appreciated. And he did full justice to the neraval.

grsastrigal
Posts: 861
Joined: 27 Dec 2006, 10:52

Re: Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017

Post by grsastrigal »

Few thoughts as I attended the concert till KalyAni ragam.

1) The video clip before the concert, where Actor Madhavan soliciting Lanco's housing products, there was one video, wherein one lady was singing "chinnanchiru kiliyE". Don't know who selected that lady and it was the worst video, I had seen in my life. I thought of the word "ரௌத்ரம் பழகு"
after seeing the video.

2) Sanjay's sahana song- He took swaram in Thillai ambalathaanai-swaram-Govindarajanai-swaram- tharisithu..... It was a difficult. Sanjay managed it.
3 Sahana and maravakave- I observed Ramnad Krishnan's pudis in few places.

After a long time, sanjay was singing in Chennai. An almost full MA. Crowd welcoming Sanjay like welcoming Dhoni in yesteray's one day. here.

Lakshman
Posts: 14019
Joined: 10 Feb 2010, 18:52

Re: Sanjay Subrahmanyan@Music Academy on Sept 16th,2017

Post by Lakshman »

The AbhOgi varNa is mAyE manam uvandaruL by Vishvanatha Shastri.

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