AS Murali@guruguhaamrta on Nov 10th,2018

[rajeshnat]

AS Murali@guruguhaamrta on Nov 10th,2018
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Vocal: AS Murali - disciple of PSN
Vocal support behind the main artist : Srivatsan
Violin : Kumbakonam M R Gopinath
Mrudangam : BS Sundar Kumar
Kanjira : Anirudh Athreya

Concert Type : Non Nirvana - concert to follow after mini prize distribution
Day/Duration : Saturday/ 1 hours and 50 minutes concert .
Concert Type : Free concert in mylapore
Sabha/Hall : Guruguhaamrta / Ragasudha hall
Occassion : guruguhaamrta , dedicated to the propagation of Muthuswami Dikshitar

All krithis as expected was from muthuswami dikshitar

1A. om namah pranavarthAya - same signature tune that ms amma sang
1B. thayagarAjam pAlayasumAm (RS, S) - gowlai
swaras for 7 mins

2. mahalakshmi karunA rasa - madhavamanOhari
3. narasimha agaccha (R,S) - mohanam
7 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return
5 mins swaras

4. santhana rAmaswaminam - hindolavasantham
5. shree ramam ravi kula(S) - narayanagowlai
swaras for 3 mins

6A.mAmava meenakshi (R N S T)- varali
8 mins alapana and 4 mins violin return
6 mins neraval in shyamE shankari digvijaya prathApani
5 mins swaras
6B. tani for 7 mins

7. ramachandarEna samrakshitoham - mAnji

Guruguhaamrta is primarily championed by vidwan G Ravikiran (disciple of RK Shrikantan and TM Krishna). Apart from G Ravikiran I also see sbopanna who writes in our forum .I forgot now his name he also conducts an yearly dikshitar akandam . Certainly they are doing these one day festivals with utmost devotion to Muthuswami Dikshitar. This concert was advertised from 4 to 6 pm.

As I entered around 4 pm I did hear the last 15 to 20 minutes of lecdem by violinist Dr Hemalatha. I have never seen/heard this vidushi speaking , but i was too impressed as much as her sunaada violin tone . She was kind of covering few ragas like kamas etal where the usage of few notes like kakali nishadam, antara gandharam etc were touched upon in the way dikshitar handled. Hemalatha appeared to speak to the point and had a sure conviction. At the end of it few in the audience asked question and one of them was given a prize.

The concert of AS Murali who is one of the leading senior disciples of Guru in General PSN came up next . Incidentallly PSN mama also came and heard for an hour, he at-last has really grown old .

There is a fairly remarkable difference in the delivery methods of supernova Semmangudi and PSN . The very little that I heard of PSN he was kind of breakneck speed master . The contours of PSN and Semmangudi gets overlapped with numbers but the tempo style is significantly different . If you map from PSN to AS Murali i only get a faint touch of Semmangudi in just numbers but AS Murali is more of a Ramnad krishnan disciple to me.

AS murali started with the signature tune of ms amma, obesiance was strictly to shruthi maatha and it stayed and moved to the gowla krithi thyagaraja palayasumam. 15 years back i got hooked with this lovely gowlai after hearing the one and only semmangudi. As murali concentrated bit more steadily to get a well rounded gamakam- one can say Ramnad krishnan way. Lovely swaras more in madhyamakAlam was well done , a certain mel sthayi shoots was missed but still gowlai kalaikattufied.

Semmangudi came in there in madhavamanohari . Dikshitar krithis is usually manifested in slow gait ragas but there are few extraordinary exceptions where possibly musicians with their performance brought a new flair to dikshitar . Two cases in point is subramanyena rakshitoham in suddadhanyasi which was not sung and the other is mahalakshmi karunA rasA, karunA rasa is not there but it is little more charged rasa.It was a great #2 just like semmangudi who kind of needlessly workshipped his musical periya Anna ariyakudi. #2 was just plain madhava manohari krithi with no hangover of swaras or neraval.

Sholingur narasimha was touched next with a nice alapana in mohanam. I wish i could have written that as a very nice alapana , i found mohanam was just touched like a typical isaignani illayaraja song, bit heavy and certainly light .I would have preferred a bit light and certainly heavy alapana in mohanam.the krithi rendition was clean with lovely volley of swaras, hey it is just 2 hour concert.

The next in hindolavasantham was superb , a great raga , dikshitar is most analytical vaggeyakkara to me , what a lovely composition . By way of repeated acclimitization i do know that the raga is hindolavasantham , but the way MD reveals the facet of raga swaroopam of hindolavasantham he makes you think what an analytical genius was MD.

Narayanagowlai is not kedaragowlai .Thanks to T and MD , this shree ramam is semmangudi blockbuster, and I found his rendition and the gamaka exactly sitting within the contours of words of MD . What a lovely presentation of narayanagowlai.

Varali was main . nyasa and abrasive rasa was missing a bit in alapana. I dont like that softspoken varAli but he gave more of that in alapana of varali. Lovely krithi and the first neraval that came impressed me,time was not in his side and he had to wrap.Swaras in varali were quite well done not very elaborate but it is thematic concert so i have no right to complain.

The way we get acclimitized manji raga in songs like varugalamO is more close to the greatest big 5 raga bhairavi . But the same Manji in asampoorna mela of MD is more closer to the cutest medium 100 raga huseni. Lovely closure AS murali showed his class in md's manji as much as narayanagowlai

Violinist MRG is always underrated in circuit , bit slow but suits the nidanam kalapramanam of Murali. Murali's nephew Sundar kumar is a kanjira superstar but his touch in mrudangam is not giving yet the same excellence . Anirudh could have played less and gone to his basic lessson of sprinkling more water and just thadavifying the kanjira. I felt anirudh overplay bit robbed the concert. Young srivatsan gave a great support, few years back i heard srivatsan and abilash pairing with AS murali in a tambaram temple concert.Certainly srivatsan is going to be a great disciple from SSI-PSN-Asmurali paramapara.

All said AS Murali is taking a bit of shape with the gamaka perfect Ramnad krishnan .
Overall a very good to excellent concert for 1 hour and 50 mins.

[hnbhagavan]

A S Murali a very promising Vidwan has excellent Concert delivery capability.Here is a great concert by Vidwan;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b10bfGDBNZ

[ram1999]

A S Murali a very promising Vidwan has excellent Concert delivery capability.Here is a great concert by Vidwan;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b10bfGDBNZ

the link is not working.

[hnbhagavan]

Pl try this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b10bfGDBNZk&t=3588s

[rajeshnat]

The review of the concert published in The Hindu dated Nov 16,2018
https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/ ... 506019.ece