kutcheri format

[venkat1926]

In radio the duration of the Kutcheri is only one hour or so. In such a time what should be the best and satisfying format. I agree there may be many views on this subject. A couple of days back I heard Sanjay Subramanian's concert in AIR (I remember in FM Gold). He rendered only three items -Poorvikalyani, Todi and a ragamalika virutham . It was quite satisfying because he had time to delineate all the three pieces. Is it time at least on some occasions we come out of the Ariyakudi format. Ariyakudi format had its use and purpose -with 48rpm records, coming up of sabhas etc. I wonder whether expert members of this newsgroup would like to discuss this. . This will be helpful for the younger singers who have only one and half or two hours in season's concerts to decide on their format.

[radha bhaskar]

This is a very interesting topic.Though the conventional method of packing a one and half hour concert is to have a varnam, a sub-main and one main item ( of course here the main item itself has to get over by half an hour to maintain a balance), I think it is the artist's ability that decides how a concert should be framed. For example, two years back, T.M.Krishna sang One raga-One kriti concert for Mudhra where he presented just one piece in Harikamboji for 2 1/2 hours, keeping the audience spell bound all through. Last year, the theme was RTP and so he presented just pallavis for 3 hours! Some years back, T.N.Seshagopalan sang in the same concept , raga Kamboji for 2 1/2 hours to a hall packed audience and this concert is still etched in the mind of rasikas even today. How many musicians can do that is worth pondering.
Wwhether you sing one piece or ten pieces in a concert - what ultimately matters is the quality and content of the presentation.

[munirao2001]

Listening to the Great Maestros one hour Radio concerts will give clarity. Musicians challenge is to deliver the satisfaction of listening experience of regular/major concert, within the time allocated. Aim, objective, practice and perfection makes it possible. First twenty minutes to be with items enabling to win the attention of the listners and giving the clear idea of expectation of quality of music to follow and raising the expectation levels. Next 30 minutes is for showcasing the talent and offering max.satisfaction, containing not more than two compositions. Final ten minutes for selecting compositions and offering listening pleasure, which makes the listener to seek more of their music/musical experience.

[venkat1926]

we must remember that this is not age old convention. This is the convention of only 60 to 70 years old. Can somebody tell us what was the fromat during Thyagaraja days or even in 19the century.

This is similar to somebody telling that Saree is the age old conventional dress for the ladies of Tamilnadu. How long? What was the dress of ladies dueing Chola period or duirng Kannagi period; Does Sangam poetry give us any idea of men's and women's dresses during that period?

[arasi]

In my view, the Ariyakkudi concert format still works in normal circumstances.
Whether it is a one hour, two hour or a three (or more) hours concert, concert planning according to the time on hand, a finely balanced list of songs and the ability to deliver one's best in the given time without letting the concert sag, are all vital. Adherence to a strict concert format would not work if you are robbed of time (by delay, a long speech or if another musician's performance follows). If you still want to sing that RTP you had planned, you will do no justice to your own merit or to the RTP you may have to hurry through. That's why singers need to make snap decisions on how to present their best in curtailed time by quickly revising their list to suit the moment.

[Suji Ram]

This last weekend I attended a concert. It consisted of a starter kriti with swarakalpana, elaborate second kriti with alapana and swarakalpana. The main with alapana, neraval, swarakalpana and tani. A Dikshitar kriti. Then followed by RTP(1 h 20 mins) with second tani. Total concert time 3 h for such a short list of songs! Was a wonderful treat, completely manodharma-packed!

[arasi]

Hello, hello Suji!
Glad to hear from you and to know you heard a great concert. Wonder whose it was. Why no review?

[VK RAMAN]

probably one hour concerts similar to AIR are catching up similar to 1 day cricket 60 overs each side

[munirao2001]

Venkat1926
Eventhough we do not have written text clearly giving us the kutcheri format existed pre-Thyagaraja period for Karnatic Music, Great Maestros have given us the idea of the concert format. Concerts were held at King's palaces and at temples. Rarely at resourceful landlords houses. While the temple concerts were open for public, other concerts were only for the invitees. The temple concerts were of duration of 6hours(mostly, night concerts). Concerts at King's palace were for 6-8 hours and also depending upon the king's time availability.
Only few krithis were sung. Manodharma sangita was quintessential. Elaborate raga alapana, RTP and prabandha were the main items handled. Occasionally, virutham, padam and javali were also sung. There were visiting Musicians, who challenged the court musicians to compete. On such occasions, visiting musician would set the format and the court musicians had to sing and win over the visiting and challenging musician.

[arasi]

Munirao,
Your post says it all about the history of a CM concert format. Until the advent of AIR, a one hour concert was inconcievable--also the short duration of today's sabha concerts.

[rajaglan]

Hi,

I have a recording of a MMI radio concert with announcement.
Meenakshi memudam - (7R5, 7N, 9S) + 4 minute krithi rendition = 27 min
Thaarini telisukonte - (5R3, 3S, 9T) + 7 minute krithi rendition = 27 minutes

See the time lines above for
this one hour concert. It has 2 great songs, good neraval (N) , good amount of swara (S) and
a 9 minute thani too. He didnot even try a tukkada section or a varnam or a lord vinayaka starter. But in
MSS and Semmankudi's radio concerts, I find those.

Notes : 7R5 - 7 minutes alapana followed by 5 minutes of Violin return.
9T means 9 minutes of thani aavarthanam.

This more or less comes close to what venkat described in a Sanjay concert.

[gobilalitha]

A gentleman not knowledgable about kutcheri pattern attended a kutcheri buying a ticket for Rs 100. The artist sang about 8 songs including RTP The gentleman got angry and asked the secretary' I have paid Rs 100, but the Bhagavathar sang only 8 songs The secretary retorted ' DIid you think he would sing 100 songs :@ gobilalitha

[arasi]

GBL,
Then the gentleman answered: no, I'm not that greedy. I thought he could have sung at least ten songs at the rate of ten rupees per song. I don't count that long RTP as value for money because to me it is a waste of my time :@

[ksrimech]

He didnot even try a tukkada section or a varnam or a lord vinayaka starter. But in
MSS and Semmankudi's radio concerts, I find those.

Rajaglan, The recording which you are referring to is actually a part of a 1.75/2 hour AIR sangeeth sammelan concert of MMI from the 1950s. He starts the concert with vAtApi gaNapathim (hamsadhwani) followed by rAmabhakthi sAmrAjyam (SuddhabangALA). He sings swarams for both kRitis. There is/are one or 2 more kRitis which doesn't come to my head right now. This was one of the earliest recordings I have heard from the grandfather's collection. It would be difficult to judge the presentation/format of a concert from a 1 hour clipping from AIR. These are mostly chopped of stuff from original recordings from the 1950s and 1960s. I'm talking only about past masters like ARI, MMI, SSI, GNB, MSS, DKP, MLV, etc.

[VK RAMAN]

If you look at all those private for profit TV broadcast such as Sun, Surya, Aditya, KiraLi and so on they do not host any concerts at all. Moreover all they do is to encourage a 15 minute early morning kirtanam on auspicious days such as diwAli, pongal, etc. Why?

[rajaglan]

Rajaglan, The recording which you are referring to is actually a part of a 1.75/2 hour AIR sangeeth sammelan concert of MMI from the 1950s. He starts the concert with vAtApi gaNapathim (hamsadhwani) followed by rAmabhakthi sAmrAjyam (SuddhabangALA). He sings swarams for both kRitis. There is/are one or 2 more kRitis which doesn't come to my head right now. This was one of the earliest recordings I have heard from the grandfather's collection. It would be difficult to judge the presentation/format of a concert from a 1 hour clipping from AIR. These are mostly chopped of stuff from original recordings from the 1950s and 1960s. I'm talking only about past masters like ARI, MMI, SSI, GNB, MSS, DKP, MLV, etc.

Ok . I was not aware of it.

[munirao2001]

vkraman
Low TRP's for Karnatic Music concerts, due to rasikas not viewing the concerts is the main reason. If rasikas make it a mission to view the concerts and the programmes receive enough TRP's and also attract advertisers, all channels will telecast Karnatic music concerts. If the corporate sponsors come forward to sponsor Karnatic music concerts, like they do for light music programmes, all the channels will telecast karnatic music concerts. Event managers/TOP ranking popular artists or artists associations can also get the required resources and support to buy telecast timings. With the highly successful and immensely popular case of Smt Subhashree Thanikachalam and Jaya TV collaboration as a case study, Music Academy and other resourceful Sabhas should try for similar collaboration and help the cause of Karnatci music.

[1920veeyens]

I think the uniqueness of Carnatic music is the freedom it gives the artist.s I still remember a concert by Sri Lalgudi jayaraman in Ragamalika ,a sort of chamber concert with limited audience, back in 1960s when he enthralled with us five or six songs, all in Bairavi Of course he made an announcement at the commencement that it would be a special concert to bring out the beauty of that Raga

[narayara000]

This is my favorite concert format:

1. Varnam
2. Ganapathi Krithi with swarams
3. Submain with A N S
4. Slow filler
5. Fast filler with rapid fire swarams
6. Main with A N S
7. RTP with Thani
8. Virutham followed by tamil krithi
9. Krithi of annamacharya, PD, jayadeva, sadasiva brahmendrar etc.
10. Thillana
11. Mangalam

[sridhar]

why should the artist pack alapana, neraval and swarams all in one main item. I would focus on each of these in three separate krithis. There was a concert of Sanjay where he sang an elaborate abhogi alapana and then sang a delightful manasu nilpa when the song was over when I was expecting swarams he just wrapped it up. I think in the same concert he started singing darini telusu konti (suddha saveri) without any alapana but sang very elaborate swarams at the end (amazingly good rendition as good as GNB's) and then the tani followed - now that is class