TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

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

TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by rajeshnat »

TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018
-------------------------------------------------
Vocal: TM Krishna
Violin : Akkarai Subhalakshmi
Mrudangam : B Sivaraman
kanjira : Anirudh Athrya

Concert Type : Nirvana - No concert to follow
Day/Duration : Saturday/ 2 hours and 20 mins
Concert Type: Free Concert
Hall : Vani Mahal Main hall
Occassion : Thyagaraja Aradhana weekly homage


01. sujana jeevana(RS N S) - kamas
2 mins of raga sketch
neraval in Taraya Raghuvara Nirmala Tyagarajasannuta for 8 mins
swaras in 3 mins

02.bhuvini dAsudE(Ragasketch, Taanam, Krithi and Swaras) -shreeranjani
1 min of alapana
2 mins taanam
7 mins swaras

03. dhyanamE varamaina (R N) - dhanyAsi
4 mins alapana with violin only
neraval in O manasA rAmA gangA snanamu for 6 mins
04A. vAchamagocharamE - kaikavAsi
04B. tani for 5 mins

05A. kanakanaruchi (R,N,tani) - varAli
14 mins alapana with no violin return
neraval in kAminci prEmamIra karamula nIdu pAda kamalamula baTTukonu vADu sAkSi rAma nAma rasikuDu for 6 mins
05B. tani for 17 mins

06.lavanya rAmA (ragasketch) - poornashadjam
07. dinamani vamsa (ragasketch) - harikAmbOdhi
08. medlay of short raga alapanas had madhyamavai + keeravani + kapi + ???
The END

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

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by rajeshnat »

Feb in chennai is the start of dry period of cm concerts . There were atleast 3 choices yesterday Trichur brothers in adayar , Dr Ganesh in Mudhra and TMK in Vanimahal . I and about 80 to 90% rasikas in vanimahal grabbed the concert as it is quite difficult to hear TMK as he has decided not to perform during overpour december season.

He is known to shuffle his numbers and incidentally his shuffle was restricted to the flagship vageyyakara Thyagaraja as the concert was part of yearly vanimahal Feb homage to sadguru. There were quite a few things I certainly liked about the concert and definitely few things i did not like about the concert

TMK started bit more sedately the kamas raga, the alapana was bit more sedate it was not falling in line with seethapathE but as he continued with the rare sujana jeevana I felt he sang the alapana bit in line with the emotive gestalt of sujana jeevana . The neraval in sujana jeevana is not something i have heard before and I certainly liked his neraval .The swaras just started well and before my appetite kickstarted and yearned for more , he brought the swara prastara to a sudden closure.

Another brief alapana started and I was glad that I disambiguated sreeranjani with its cousin abhogi . He started a bit on the higher octave with the anupallavi line and then moved on to the pallavi bhuvinidasudanE , it was not sung that fast with brigas but he was in the zone of atleast singing as a fast krithi. The swaras in shree ranjani had a lot of creative pidis but it was more equally extended by akkarai. The taanam in shree ranjani was like hotel saravana bhavan chutney served in that proportion.

TMK asked akkarai to play something is my best guess . Akkarai played dhanyasi violin alapana and she was bit circular more concentrating of the diferential notes to disambiguate the todi trespass. TMK has sung few great dhanyasi numbers but i felt it was a bit mixed bag in this dhanyasi krithi. Towards the end he kind of continued with the pallavi line and sang a neraval , at times the blur of whether he is singing neraval or if he is singing the same line with a bit more repitition set in at dhanyasi

He attempted to change the tempo in kaikavasi with vachamO but I can only say he attempted not that much gel with the rhythm and layam there . The days best was indeed varali. TMK asset is his masculine voice and he makes a little longer attempt to sing in mandara sthAyi is perhaps his newest USP. varAli contours in alapana start was hovering on the crossroad of undecided todi and undecided varali for few minutes , but the fog settled well and varAli came out with flying colors . I was particularly liking his continouos singing without a touch of hanging around with violin return and few sangathis where he moved from madhyama kala to mandara sthayi was really superb. His voice was demonstrating very distinctly the octave shift and with no violin hangup of completion of fag end of any sangathi i thought for that 14 mins tmk was singing unadulterated non violinist alapana. Infact TMK gave a brief talk saying you will always hear violin alapana without any vocal touch but vocal alapana you will not hear without violin return . All said at that moment i and TMK got connected with aesthetics . THe longish krithi kanakana ruchi ra was sung well and towards the last phrase of ending kanakana ruchi ra in the lines - kAminci prEmamIra karamula nIdu pAda kamalamula he converted it as neraval . The neraval had few lovely pidis of mandara sthayi his voice and lower to mid octave neraval kept me intensely engaged .THis part was extremely delightful.

He moved to a quick lavanya rama , I have heard him sing better and this was just ok. Then he ended with a dinamani vamsa in the second half of dinamani he consciously brought in a bit of hurykalmbodi speed and got few phrases of illustrious semmangudi lineage in dinamani vamsa . The last number had a medlay of short raga alapanas in many ragas and he wrapped at 9 pm

Akkarai played very well and her shruthi adherence was nice . Her returns were all great she was mostly in line to give more exposure to TMK. The percussionist B Sivaraman played with a clear antha kalathu TK murthy vasippu , I wish he builds bit more muscle . Aniruddh had a limited role and he certainly teamed up well . Tani was well done.

Few things that were bit perplexing
-----------------------------------
1. Tempo change of fast and slow krithis was not that consciously followed . Barring shree ranjani krithi for most part he could not keep me that engaged with change in tempo . Even for few sangathis in varali pancharatna krithi I missed a certain rhythmmic connnect . He hardly puts taalam for most time and there is a bit of laya blur that sets in too often and stays in that fog zone for quite a few times during the course of the concert.

2. Towards the begining of poornashadjam or hariKambodhi he taking a big book and was scrolling and quickly running the pages like moving say from 200th to 50th page and he did not even look at the book fully. THen he kept some kind of bookmark and without looking at the book he closed the book and sang the next two krithis . In general I find some kind of anavsiya showmanship there , if he had decided to sing say lavanya rama and dinamani vamsa what was the point in just rolling few 100 pages . I used to do that before my 5 mins start of school board exams or semester exams , there I was ok to do that as I was clueless as what was the question that would be asked 5 mins later in the question paper . But I am at a loss why is TMK doing that and I hope some one educates me quite honestly if he really did see anything in that less than 1 second any thing from that book . It kind of shows unfocussed kutcheri Pandal adharmam (lack of focus in stage)to me

3. He kind of ended dinamani vamsa and did a kumudu a longer version indicating completion of concert . Then he started singing an alapana sketch of madhyamavati then he went to few ragas after that to Keeravani and kapi i registered only that two and he suddenly ended the alapana and put a bigger kumudu. What is the point there, it only shows his poor stagecraft . Certainly concerts are like examination in the sense you have to prepare well and more importantly think logically and continue with a nice sustained course and keep rasikas engaged in muse and sequence . His muddled thoughts that comes fairly recurrently in writing is also getting exhibited in his concert sequence.

Personally for me I seek a certain subliminal experience with vocalist in the stage . There can be incidentaly aberrations like voice issues , kalapramana vottam , non blending of accompanist ,but all that is somewhat ok. But when TMK sings without a wholesome planning and leaving many knots untied here and there, singing few suggestive tanam or swara phrases ,it certainly shows the TMK of today is not aesthetically clean and prepared for the concert. I dont care a damn about sequence and I am worried the completeness of each step in the sequence.

There was a great varali ,shreeranjani and kamas subsegments that I cherished with his deep throated vocal honesty but I missed Thyagaraja depth of CM in this TMK concert.

Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours and 20 mins.

ram1999
Posts: 534
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 17:20

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by ram1999 »

rajeshnat wrote: 18 Feb 2018, 13:24

Few things that were bit perplexing
-----------------------------------
1. Tempo change of fast and slow krithis was not that consciously followed . Barring shree ranjani krithi for most part he could not keep me that engaged with change in tempo . Even for few sangathis in varali pancharatna krithi I missed a certain rhythmmic connnect . He hardly puts taalam for most time and there is a bit of laya blur that sets in too often and stays in that fog zone for quite a few times during the course of the concert.

2. Towards the begining of poornashadjam or hariKambodhi he taking a big book and was scrolling and quickly running the pages like moving say from 200th to 50th page and he did not even look at the book fully. THen he kept some kind of bookmark and without looking at the book he closed the book and sang the next two krithis . In general I find some kind of anavsiya showmanship there , if he had decided to sing say lavanya rama and dinamani vamsa what was the point in just rolling few 100 pages . I used to do that before my 5 mins start of school board exams or semester exams , there I was ok to do that as I was clueless as what was the question that would be asked 5 mins later in the question paper . But I am at a loss why is TMK doing that and I hope some one educates me quite honestly if he really did see anything in that less than 1 second any thing from that book . It kind of shows unfocussed kutcheri Pandal adharmam (lack of focus in stage)to me

3. He kind of ended dinamani vamsa and did a kumudu a longer version indicating completion of concert . Then he started singing an alapana sketch of madhyamavati then he went to few ragas after that to Keeravani and kapi i registered only that two and he suddenly ended the alapana and put a bigger kumudu. What is the point there, it only shows his poor stagecraft . Certainly concerts are like examination in the sense you have to prepare well and more importantly think logically and continue with a nice sustained course and keep rasikas engaged in muse and sequence . His muddled thoughts that comes fairly recurrently in writing is also getting exhibited in his concert sequence.

Personally for me I seek a certain subliminal experience with vocalist in the stage . There can be incidentaly aberrations like voice issues , kalapramana vottam , non blending of accompanist ,but all that is somewhat ok. But when TMK sings without a wholesome planning and leaving many knots untied here and there, singing few suggestive tanam or swara phrases ,it certainly shows the TMK of today is not aesthetically clean and prepared for the concert. I dont care a damn about sequence and I am worried the completeness of each step in the sequence.

There was a great varali ,shreeranjani and kamas subsegments that I cherished with his deep throated vocal honesty but I missed Thyagaraja depth of CM in this TMK concert.

Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours and 20 mins.
1. May be it was not his day yesterday. what do you mean tempo not consciously followed ??
2. Referring to a book - what is the big deal. He could have referred for any reason unknown. I doubt it was anavasiya showmanship :roll:
3. What is kumudu ???

I doubt if the review has been objective enough than making some broad macro level comments ..... for the sake of critiquing the concert / artist :lol:

sureshvv
Posts: 5523
Joined: 05 Jul 2007, 18:17

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by sureshvv »

rajeshnat wrote: 18 Feb 2018, 13:24 Few things that were bit perplexing
<snip>
Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours and 20 mins.
What I find perplexing is the rather generous summation at the end with quite a bit of complaining in the middle (that I have snipped out). Looks like it has not impacted your enjoyment of the concert. Wish I could be that detached! :D

arasi
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Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by arasi »

Rajesh in a generous mood, perhaps? Also, parts of the concerts were extremely pleasing??

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

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by CRama »

I attended the concert and it was overall good. Regarding some of the observations made by Rajesh and my own two cents.

The Neraval for Sujana jeevana was at Taraya Raghuvara Nirmala Tyagrajasannuta. Swaras were at a tricky edam- sannuta the last word of that line.

Bhuvinidasudane-He started from anupallavi. Swarams were sung at Nee padamulegati- Nee as swaraksharam.

Changing the tempo in Kaikavasi. For TMK, Ksheerasagara sayana and Nenarunchinanu both will have same tempo. You cannot expect tempo variation in his concert. The entire concert till the Charanam of Dinamanivamsa was in the vilamba kalam only. Dinamanivamsa- the last song came close to the padantharam of his Guru-SSI. But the charanam he made it faster- exactly the SSI tempo and that was indeed very good.

Varali- He made good use of his voice felicity. The alapana was elaborate and well done. Good that Kanakanaruchira was chosen and I had my prayers that he should sing all the charanams. He sang a long neraval at the charanam lines Kaminchi premameera….. While doing neraval, his sojourn into the extremes of tara sthayi and mandra sthayi showed us many unknown faces of Varali. He did not sing any swaram. He did not sing the final charanam Satatamu premapurithudaku.

Turning the pages in the book- I think he was searching for some song. But could not get it. He never comes prepared with any list of songs to be presented.

Kumudu- what Rajesh has mentioned- it is Kumbidu- Namaskaram. After Dinamanivamsa- TMK did a Namaskaram to indicate that the concert is over. But people did not understand and nobody moved. Then he sang a small sketch of Madhyamavathy. But his inner voice yelled- you should not end with Madhyamavathy-that is for ordinary singers. So from Madhyamavathy he made a medley of about 10 ragams –each of a few seconds-again landed at Madhyamavathy-again the inner voice shouted-wrong landing-again went to unknown territories and landed somewhere.

Sivaramakrishnan
Posts: 1582
Joined: 02 Jan 2010, 08:29

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by Sivaramakrishnan »

CRama wrote: 19 Feb 2018, 12:48
He did not sing the final charanam Satatamu premapurithudaku.....


......Then he sang a small sketch of Madhyamavathy. But his inner voice yelled- you should not end with Madhyamavathy-that is for ordinary singers. So from Madhyamavathy he made a medley of about 10 ragams –each of a few seconds-again landed at Madhyamavathy- again the inner voice shouted-wrong landing-again went to unknown territories and landed somewhere.
Candid observations.

vasanthakokilam
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by vasanthakokilam »

I thought Rajesh's review is well written and enjoyed reading it. 'emotive gestalt of sujana jeevana' Nice!

I also do not think referring and thumbing through the book is showmanship. As CRama observed, it is part of his process of not completely planning out the concert.

My mindset with attending TMK concert is that it will not fit any standard pattern. If one relishes some newness and some extemporaneousness rather than totally planned out concert, his concerts would have achieved that purpose, but at the cost of some rough edges like the ones Rajesh observed.

BTW, what is interesting is, as a rasika community in general, we sometimes adore such non-conformists and off kilter personalities. Mali comes to mind. But TMK, given his generally abrasive ethos, getting into other's business one too many times, having an opinion on everything and his politics ( I suppose ), does not get that benefit. Just observing. May be that is too much to expect out of us.

pperumal
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Joined: 15 Oct 2013, 00:13

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by pperumal »

vasanthakokilam wrote: 19 Feb 2018, 22:02
BTW, what is interesting is, as a rasika community in general, we sometimes adore such non-conformists and off kilter personalities. Mali comes to mind. But TMK, given his generally abrasive ethos, getting into other's business one too many times, having an opinion on everything and his politics ( I suppose ), does not get that benefit. Just observing. May be that is too much to expect out of us.
Couldn't agree more.
Unfortunately, only after such artists move on from this mortal world do people start respecting their so called "idiosyncrasies".
I remember walking into a concert hall in the mid 70s and finding 20-30 audience members in an MDR concert.
Cut to 30 years later, I walk into a friend's house in Trivandrum who had 300+ concerts of MDR and realised there is a generation of listeners now who worship MDR.

Strange are the ways of the world.

- PP.

kvchellappa
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Joined: 04 Aug 2011, 13:54

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by kvchellappa »

TMK has far greater audience than MDR ever had, and is fabulously rewarded monetarily even for his maverick music. Any comparison with a pious and modest MDR is out of place. He is trying to carve out a greater image and place in society than CM would ever confer on him. He is blessed in all ways from birth. There is nothing to feel pity for him or a sense of contemporary non-recognition. It will be a water shed if really he takes music to new frontiers. So far there is no sign that it is happening. The same niche audience attend his non-concerts.
Last edited by kvchellappa on 20 Feb 2018, 11:04, edited 1 time in total.

shankarank
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Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by shankarank »

You mean, in all those new places he sings what they want to hear, not something he is taking himself ;)

kvchellappa
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Joined: 04 Aug 2011, 13:54

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by kvchellappa »

That is a tamasha. It has not created new CM aficionados as yet.

sureshvv
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Joined: 05 Jul 2007, 18:17

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by sureshvv »

pperumal wrote: 19 Feb 2018, 23:52 Couldn't agree more.
Unfortunately, only after such artists move on from this mortal world do people start respecting their so called "idiosyncrasies".
I don't think Mali is being respected for his "idiosyncrasies". He may have been a maverick but that wasn't his motivation.
Strange are the ways of the world.
Not really in this case.

Ramam
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Joined: 26 Nov 2007, 11:43

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by Ramam »

Mali brought in Innovation in the playing style of flute.
I have heard him. Yes he had certain "styles and habits".
Yet, music was new and that make flute "sing" instead of hitting the swaras as it was earlier to him (Palladam)

Even a pause and gaps were fulfilling.
Semmangudi remarked that Ariyakudi and Mali were the two he considers as gifted.
Keep that genius aside, please.

TMK song list could have been from any upcoming artists in Chennai circuit.
There is more a show off than Music
Two years ago he rendered an alapana that was sketchy and doubtful for himself, perhaps. He announced it as
Sriranjini.

A lady besides me said, why to announce sriranjini as though it was some rare one.
I felt that the violinist of the day got the lead thenon and "lead" him to the track the raga - which TMK was incidentally "not in form" - as usual
You announce jankaradwani or yagapriya after keeping the listeners following the swaras and place "allied" ragas. Feel the swaras. That is a good move.

TMK once gave a concert on MD as in SSP, he announced that the book says 2 times sangathi and No more. Then he played to the book.
Now he is looking into the book for what, to know he is saturated in Music and has no new sangathis to offer, perhaps.

hnbhagavan
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Joined: 21 Jun 2008, 22:06

Re: TM Krishna@Vanimahal on Feb 17th,2018

Post by hnbhagavan »

MDR had greater following in Mumbai in late 70's.I attended his concerts in Shanmukananda hall and in a sabha at Ghatkopar.????It would be surprising to note that Shanmukananda Sabha had so many members that the same artists were repeated on 2nd Sat and Sunday.I do not know whether it is so now.Comparing TMK and MDR is not proper akin to comparing Apples and Oranges.
MDR sang in Vilamba Kala effortlessly and Silence,pauses ,looking at Co artists came naturally with him.Those who were his Rasikas did not ever mind his mannerisms.
Yes When required he could sing sangatis in fast tempo also.

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