Spurred by the suggestion that the recent MD krithis concerts might be uploaded by Guruguahamrutha, I googled and hit upon this blog:
http://guruguha.org/wp/?cat=4
It contains a wealth of information on Chozha history, MD krithis, Narayani raga, a link to the rendering of the kriti, etc.
Excerpts:
• Philadelphia Museum of Art second floor houses its South Asian collection of art, the most eye catching would be the Hall reassembled on site from remnants of the Madana Gopala Swamy Temple, Madurai which was shipped out of India circa 1912 AD, by a wealthy Philadelphian Ms Adeline Pepper Gibson. It includes an icon of Goddess Durga or ‘nisumbhasUdanI’ or the Slayer of the demon Nishumbha. It is a 10th Century granite bas relief, albeit a little damaged, but nevertheless a masterpiece from the times of the medieval Cholas.
• It was during a sojourn of Dikshitar to Thanjavur at the request of the Quartet, he commenced the project of investing a composition in every one of the 72 mela ragas of the compendium of Muddu Venkatamakhin.
• Dikshithar has composed ‘MahiSha-asura-mardinIM’ in raga NArAyanI on this deity. This raga is different from what Thyagaraja has handled. It takes the notes of Mela 29 /Sankarabharanam. It has considerable melodic overlap with modern day Bilahari. Bilahari is a much newer raga in comparison to Narayani.
• Thyagaraja never assigned names to his ragas and it was only much after his life time, his lineage of disciples, publishers of his compositions and authors who compiled ragas, assigned raga names post 1850 AD, to his kritis. This misnaming of the melodies of Tyagaraja’s compositions using the older raga names and established identities such as Sarasvati Manohari, Narayani etc has resulted in confusion.
Miscellany
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sukumar
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- Joined: 27 Dec 2012, 11:28