Amritha murali - dikshitar day

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Swami
Posts: 88
Joined: 21 Dec 2015, 06:47

Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by Swami »

Amritha murali - dikshitar day - 10-11-2019

Amritha murali
RK shriram kumar
Arun prakash

1. panca mAtanga mukha gaNa patinA - Malahari - rupakam ( swaras @ panca mAtanga mukha )
2. viSva nAthaM bhajEahaM satataM - Natabharanam - adi ( swaras @ Natabharanam )
3. Dharmasamvardhani tanuja - Madyamavati - rupakam ( alapana )
4. hATakESvara saMraksha mAM - bilahari ( alapana , neraval @ SrI nagara vihAra parA Sakti sahita kIrtE )
5. vEnkaTAcala patE ninu nammiti vEgamE nanu rakshiyumayyA - Karnataka kapi
6. Mamava raghuvira martya avatara madhava dhira - mahuri - Mishra chapu
7. Aryam abhayambam bhajare re - bhairavi - ata ( alapana , swaras @ AryAM abhayAmbAM , awaras @ Adi madhyAnta rahitAM Siva sahitAm )
8. Tani
9. parimaLa ranga nAthaM - hamir kalyani - rupakam2kalai
10. mAruvakAdi mAlini SUlini - Maruva - adi
11. sri kamalambike sive pahimam - sri - eka

hnbhagavan
Posts: 1655
Joined: 21 Jun 2008, 22:06

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by hnbhagavan »

YOUTUBE Recording?
Program was live Webcast except for the concert.

Swami
Posts: 88
Joined: 21 Dec 2015, 06:47

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by Swami »

Not sure sir.. I don't find it in you tube ..

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by Sachi_R »

Did Sri. Dikshitar compose in Telugu?

ajaysimha
Posts: 831
Joined: 19 Apr 2018, 18:16

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by ajaysimha »

as per list its 2,
veHNkaTAcalapatE ninnu nammiti (telUgu) - kApi/Adi
nIsATi daivamendulEdani marulukOHNTirA (telUgu) - shrIraHnjani/rUpakaM

Jigyaasa
Posts: 587
Joined: 16 May 2006, 14:04

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by Jigyaasa »

venkaTAcalapatE is in maNipravALam, not purely in telugu.

HarishankarK
Posts: 2216
Joined: 27 Oct 2007, 11:55

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by HarishankarK »

I was told by some vidwan that
nIsATi daivamendulEdani marulukOHNTirA (telUgu) - shrIraHnjani/rUpakaM
Is not Dikshitar varnam composition but a composition of some other dikshitar from Muthuswamy Dikshitar tribe/school

HarishankarK
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Joined: 27 Oct 2007, 11:55

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by HarishankarK »

Also no Guruguha mudra in that one

SrinathK
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Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by SrinathK »

This was a heavy concert of mostly unheard SSP numbers by Amrita Murali, supported by RKSK and Arun Prakash.

What they've done admirably is to preserve the original gamakas in Subbarama Dikshitar versions as far as possible while also using the modern style of presentation (e.g. modern gamakas on notes that would have otherwise been plain) so that the overall effect is contemporary retro and not baroque. When presented with a full concert team in today's format, a listener might find the numbers unfamiliar, but the music itself would sound contemporary and not alien.

They also rendered the kritis in their original talas, which meant khaNDa ATa or Eka Or jhampa or 6 beat rupaka and not their reduced chApu equivalents. No mishra chApu Or khanDa chApu sinplified versions or even 3 beat rupaka. All were heavy numbers.

The malahari kriti has been sung by others, but the slow slide on MGR was the distinctive feature. naTabharanam I heard for the first time and it was different from the sampurna nATakapriya and refreshing.

Dharmasamvardhani was the only familiar number still sung more or less the same even today - it's the only known composition of MD in madhyamAvati. The bilahari kriti was a big one and I thought that would itself make the main number. But after that came mahuri.

Venkatachalapate is a very kAnADa flavoured Dikshitar version of kApi which is quite different from Thyagaraja's old kApi and none of these rAgas sound anything like the enna thavam seidanE modern kApi that we all sing now. Truth be told, kApi is not one raga, but there's a whole cafe shop in CM (which I shall inaugurate and you will realize just how big the menu is). Although Amrita was in 2 minds whether to refer to it as karnataka kApi, this version is also very different from the raga that the sumasAyaka varnam is sung in today - sumasAyaka is actually sung today in a version that is the fusion of all versions of rudrapriya in one which now goes by the karnATaka kApi monicker. So just call venkatachalapate as "Dikshitar" kApi.

I think this rAga clearly evolved into kAnaDa later. All it needed was an emphasis on RPG and it would become kAnaDa totally, which is what must have happened over time.

Bhairavi was interesting because they went for the old lakshana of using d1 on PDNS and only using D2 for SNDN and RND. It was more apparent when RKSK played his AlApana. This does not affect the scope of bhairavi, but the difference is noticeable and it avoids the raga getting into kharaharapriya territory and that of mAnji (which is what everyone is actually singing now). AryAm abhayAmbAm is a huge kriti in ATa tAlam, for those who want to run a bhairavi marathon.

A mini tani by Arun Prakash and then it was parimala ranganAtham in hamir and it was another first for me. Then was maruvA, again a first. A very distinctive dark flavoured raga and a beautiful composition. These two kritis were sung almost exactly as per the SSP gamakas.

Sri kamalAmbikE sivE of course was what we have all heard and the obvious choice for the mangaLam.

A 2.5 hour concert coming at the tail end of a 12 hour programme on Dikshitar, we were all stretched to our limits of both our energy and musical familiarity, but it was totally worth it.

Dikshitar's compositions are magnificent edifices of rAga, lyric, intellect and bhAva and when polished and rendered can thrill the hearts of the listeners with the depth of detail, gamaka, the madhyamakala, the lyrical genius, rAga bhAva and the amount of musicality packed into his kritis. Any doubts I had as to how the original ragas and kritis of Dikshitar would fare in today's style and concert platform totally evaporated and I know now that the world will realize the greatness of the Dikshitar tradition. And there was no shortage of bhava, neither in the lec dems, nor in all the concerts of the day - how many rasikas next to me were thrilled at key phrases. Plenty of rasikas stayed for the whole day even.

The CM world has to be eternally grateful to Subbarama Dikshitar, a true Su-Ra whose relentless work preserved this much of our old tradition. Otherwise this treasure would have been lost forever. CM today has become enriched by his efforts in ways that people will not yet understand or appreciate now, but down the road they will see. One only wonders what he could have done if he had lived long enough to complete his goals of archiving Shyaama Sastri and Thyagaraja's compositions also.

Some people might have preferred more of the familiar, but on days like these, it's not the day for your usual concert. It's time these numbers and ragas see the light of the day.

Kudos to G Ravikiran for a magnificent programme overall with great concerts and lec dems and great upcoming talent too and hope he had enough energy in the tank to drive home. :lol:

Swami
Posts: 88
Joined: 21 Dec 2015, 06:47

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by Swami »

Thanks for the detailed writeup. As u said Malahari , Madymavathi n sri was the familiar one from the whole concert :)

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by Sachi_R »

Image

Srinath, give me the links. I will start a Kapi d'Karnatique shop with you!

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by SrinathK »

You'll have to be patient. K is a while away and I'm stuck on the same spot for like a month and a half now, but I actually welcome the extra time.

This Carnatic kApi day project is a real challenge, every day some new revelation comes out - this is an almighty family tree of ragas and their allies and it almost looks like a raga anthropology research project. Putting the whole menu card together and coming up with some exotically witty descriptions for each item and the links is quite a job. :mrgreen:

venkatpv
Posts: 373
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:23

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by venkatpv »

Coming up with complex explanations about the gamaka symbols used in the SSP and how they sound very different from high-fidelity oral tradition versions of MD (say dhanammal and tiruppamburam) seems to not lead us anywhere.

It might be worth our while to examine another authentic source of MD kriti notations, namely the Dikshitar Kirtana Prakashika (DKP) published in 1936, which contains 50 kritis of MD (49 of which are in the SSP). This could be the basis for understanding whether the gamakas were really so different back then. Based on my admittedly limited perusal of SSP and DKP, the notations looks remarkably similar.

Now there are two possibilities:

1. Tiruppamburam Natarajasundaram Pillai notated it one way but sang it another way.

2. He notated as best as he could what he sang.

We do know how his son, Swaminatha Pillai, played and sang - because we have his disciples, like T. Viswa and SRJ, for reference. Shouldn't we pause to consider why the oral traditions is so at odds with this reconstructed version?

We may probably conclude that the gamakas were notated to the extent possible... it's up to us to read in between the lines, keeping the oral tradition as a reference.

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Amritha murali - dikshitar day

Post by SrinathK »

DKP's notations are simpler to read than SSP's, but it's more or less the same story. I also thought it was a case of notation limitation, but after examining over a 100 of them including old versions of Thyagaraja's kritis, and the recordings from early 1900s on, I see a clear evolutionary pattern to the music. There is a method behind it. I can even see a slight increase in gamakas and sangatis from Ramasvami Dikshitar to Subbarama Dikshitar and MD often did things quite differently with more nonnlinear passages. SD was a genius and very academic, he preserved these differences on paper and his own compositions are extraordinary. He has for one composed a ragAnga rAgamAlika in all 72 asampoorna melas. No one has sung it yet.

The old ragas do not all use gamakas exactly the same way (true even today). Some are plainer, some heavier. Old ghanTa is much heavier than old Abheri, which actually sounds better plain. They use the same notes. Old ghanTa never used plain N2. Abheri does.

In today's madhyamakala music some gamakas like nokku, jhAru, kampitam and janTa, glissandos, brighas and others involving glancing blows at a note rather than hitting it straight have increased.

One reason is also the way they've gone about recording the songs for the jnanarnava project. TMK as far as I've observed is in fact singing it even plainer than notated in that one- this is not concert performance. In his commercial albums and live concerts of his school, these kritis and ragas do not actually sound odd. Try listening to his concert rendition of bAlAmbikE in manOranjani if you can find it. Doesn't sound odd in an actual concert environment. Neither does ishAnAdi shivAkara etc.

The gamaka level has been increasing considerably over the last 150 years. You can see this by comparing early 20th century recordings to mid 20th century and beyond - the difference is considerable. All musicians, with no exceptions, have become much heavier. The Dikshitar school uses purely veena gamakas, go by the book and they go note by note, deciding what gamaka to use or not. Thyagaraja's style was different from this - there is a flow to his songs.

In those days various schools and banis had dramatic differences. Dhanammal was already known in her time for being gamaka heavy, but there was an old school charm in them. Brinda and Mukta's vocals are noticeably heavier than Dhanammal's veena playing.

Also we have so many madhyamakala sangatis in compositions that originally did not have them. This has kind of homogenized many composers individual styles. Now a days musicians use their own sangatis to differentiate themselves from each other.

But these days things are very different. The gamakas from nagaswaram and violin have also influenced vocal music considerably. Veena technique has also changed. All this means we need a major overhaul and updating of the old theories of gamakas.

And which tradition people like and which they'd prefer to dismiss is quite subjective (since some people keep telling me this). Your or my personal preferences in our comfort zones means little in these topics.

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