Sanjay at Thyaga Brahma Gana Sabha on 21 Dec 2008

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 22 Dec 2008, 00:21

Vocal: Sanjay Subrahmanyan
Violin: Mysore Nagaraj
Mrudangam: Guruvayur Dorai
Ghatam: TV Vasan

Approximate Songlist:

01. ninnE kOri (varNam) - mALavi? - Adi
02. darisittaLavil mukti peralAm (S @ pallavi ) - lathAngi - mishra jhampa
03. sObillu sapthaswara (R, N @ dhararE sAmadulalO varagAyathri, S) - jaganmOhini - rUpakam
04. kOri sEvimparArE (R, N @ pallavi, S, T) - kharaharapriya - Adi
05. kAyArOhanEsam - dEvagAndAram - rUpakam
06. RTP - chArukEsi - Adi (eduppu on little finger)
Pallavi: karuNai varumO kandhA nammai kAtharuLa un (karuNai...)
+ Ragamaliga swaras in: shubhapanthuvarALi, durgA, shudh sArang, surutti.
07. mODi jEse - khamAs - Adi
08. ADum mayilAi urubEtru (viruttam) - bEhAg
karpagAmbikE - bEhAg - rUpakam
09. pavamAna (mangaLam) - sowrashtram - Adi

I am rendered speechless with amazement by Sanjay's concert at Vani Mahal this evening, but nonetheless will make an effort to translate the wordlessness into words.

Sanjay's concert had a most melodious start with a varnam I've never heard before, probably in mALavi ragam (which I know mostly as the one that sounds sort of similar to sahAna, kAnada, and pUrNachandrika, but is not any of them), but SS could probably have slowed down the rendition from the charanam onwards to at least give us time to better appreciate the nuances of the varnam. The following krithi in lathAngi is another composition I have not heard before, and it was quite nice. JaganmOhini ragam was elaborated thoroughly, bringing out the melodic beauty of a ragam I have long considered rather mundane, and was an illuminating experience for me. The krithi, much like the preceding alapanai, was injected with a good dose of brighas running up and down the the octaves, and the rendition was as sprightly as the composition itself (am I sounding too much like Hindu reviewers?). I thought SS would immediately progress to kalpana swaras and was pleasantly surprised by a lovely neraval at dhararE sAmadulalO, which was followed by a good swaraprastharam.

The imaginative neraval in Sobillu was only a very weak indicator to the massive outpouring of manOdharmam for the rest of the concert. To my immense pleasure, Sanjay took up Kharaharapriya ragam, which I hear so rarely nowadays (and with Sanjay, chances are it's NOT chakkani rAja) . SS's alapanai was very thorough and got increasingly creative, yet never compromising the raga's character. SS, as he did in the special kAmbOji in San Diego a few months ago, was sure to intersperse classical phrases with the more creative ones in order to maintain the form of the raga. There were some Hindusthani phrases at the end of the alapanai, seemingly mere passing remarks about the potential of the raga (and its conveyor), which really struck a very appreciative audience. Kori sEvimparA was rendered way too hurriedly, and was disappointingly no more than a bookend separating the alapanai from the neraval, but the concert picked up once again as soon as the neraval started. The choice of the pallavi for neraval seemed a bit dubious to me when he started, but he exonerated himself completely with a top-class effort that highlighted the bhavam of the raga splendidly. Sanjay really took his time with the neraval (about 10-12 minutes), pausing at the right notes, highlighting the importance of the rishabam, and one sublime halt at the tAra shadjam drew plenty of appreciative nods at the climax of the neraval. While the neraval was classical and bhava-laden, SS returned to creativity in the swaras, using dhattu sequences like SR, SG, SM, SP to highlight the gamakas of the rishabam and gandharam, and also made good use of janta sequences like SSGGMM, SSMMPP, SSPPDD, etc. The swaras climaxed around DND phrases, as expected, and included a lovely swoop from the mandra panchamam to tara panchamam. The swara finale, with the sublime accompaniment of Mysore Nagaraj who was cut-bowing in tandem with the swaras, and the percussionists' brilliant anticipation of the korvai structure, was just extraordinary.

After a sweet kAyArOhanEsam, Sanjay took up ChArukEsi ragam, and I was immediately hopeful of an RTP. Charukesi is one of my favourite ragas (it is, after all, a "Singapore" raga!), and I've heard every single RTP by SS in this raga that's on Sangeethapriya (mostly from 2-3 years ago). With his sheer explosion on Hindusthani ragas in the last year, I was curious to see whether Sanjay's Charukesi has taken a new shape, and boy has it! It would not be an exaggeration for me to say that Sanjay's RTP this evening was one of the most imaginative pieces of music I have heard in my admittedly short life. Nearly everything about today's Charukesi ragam was different or new, and I could count with my fingers the number of classical phrases used. It started off with a curious stop at the mandra nishadam, where most beginning phrases of the raga go down from the madhyamam to dhaivatham. As the alapanai progressed, I realised that the classical "character" of the raga really was not being borne by Sanjay, yet the use of gamakas was in line with classical thought. Sanjay introduced variety with a range of brigha phrases running helter skelter between notes far from each other, yet he would throw in a soft touch often, for instance in the phrase PDNS.....NDP, with a delicate slide to the tara shadjam and back which had many heads nodding including mine. Even the raga's character was often reinvented by Sanjay, he still kept a focus on the madhyamam, which in my opinion is the very melodic soul of Charukesi, and he demonstrated this with a brilliant stop at the tara madhyamam which drew applause. Other ma-oriented phrases included MGRSRGM,,,,,,,,,,,,,,(GRS), with a delectable glide back from the tara ma to the tara sa. Progressing from the tara ma, SS sang SRGMGM,,,,,,,,,,P with another delicate swoop to the tara panchamam this time. After the magnificent ragam, SS was clearly in the mood for a lot more, and took up an elaborate thAnam which borrowed from Mysore Nagaraj's brilliant alapanai reply and included excellent play with sa and pa phrases like SPS R,,, SNDPM; SPS G,,,,,, RSNDPM, etc. The thanam also had generous amounts of dattu sequences and was an extraordinary continuation of the ragam. After 35 minutes of ragam and thanam, a crisp pallavi rendition followed, with a rather elaborate neraval at the pallavi line, followed by kalpana swaras which once again drew from the sa-pa well of phrases. The ragamaliga swaras were really well done as the RTP ran in excess of an hour. The concert came to a really melodious close with Behag.

Mysore Nagaraj on the violin was just in a class of his own this evening, rising to every occasion, reproducing Sanjay's sangathis precisely (and given the immense creativity SS displayed this evening, this was no mean feat), complementing well in the lower octave, bowing smoothly, and he showed he had just as much creativity as Sanjay in his Kharaharapriya and Charukesi ragas, especially the latter where he threw in so many Hindusthani touches, but also so many Western touches with plain notes, it was just sheer... dare I say it- genius. This man really took the concert to new heights tonight.

Guruvayur Dorai played excellently tonight, with almost perfect anticipation, but maybe due to the audio system, his usually clear strokes sounded metallic and jarring on some occasions. He shared a very nice thani with TV Vasan, who provided solid support on the ghatam and accompanied the violinist in his returns very well and with good azhuttham.

The concert lasted 3 hours and 15 minutes and the audience was clapping away for much of the last 2 hours. It was just extraordinary music. In fact, I have thought carefully and have decided that if push comes to shove, I will give up my right leg to have a recording of this concert. It is one for posterity.

After nearly a week of listening to exciting current generation artistes, I will retreat now for a couple of days for my annual soul-enrichment sessions with TNK's concerts.

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 22 Dec 2008, 07:36

Lovely review bilahari. A fine effort much like the concert must have been!

A question: was the 2nd piece darisittaLavil mukti peralAm? IIRC Sanjay sings it in latAngi...

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 22 Dec 2008, 08:38

It was the latAngi krithi, Prashant. I've corrected the error- thanks!

s_hari · Post by **s_hari** » 22 Dec 2008, 08:57

Bilahari - that's great review of what seems like a great concert!!

=hari

sridrect · Post by **sridrect** » 22 Dec 2008, 09:30

Another concert that had some out-of-the-ordinary moments by the MASTER. Before going into the details, one of the key highlights of this concert was the violin accompaniment of Mysore Nagaraj. It was like Sehwag upstaging Tendulkar!!! His performance was a real stunner. He was able to reproduce and on many occasions exceed what was rendered by the MASTER. Truly a class performace by Mysore Nagaraj.

# 2: Derisittalavil - Latangi - Misra Jampa - Muttutandavar
# 3. sObillu sapthaswara - Thyagaraja
# 4. kOri sEvimparArE - Thyagarajai
# 5. kAyArOhanEsam - Dikshitar
# 8. ADum mayilAi uruveduthu (viruttam) - bEhAg
karpagAmbikE - bEhAg - Papanasam Sivan

At times the concert appeared a bit laboured and the MASTER's voice had some initial trouble. The audio arrangement also irritated the MASTER when he had to gesture by "thalaiyil adithu"

Just as the concert appeared to be a bit laboured came something from out-of-the-ordinary. The Jaganmohini piece was brilliant and the stage was set for something extra-ordinary later.

It was great to see Karaharapriya as the main piece. More than the alapana and the pallavi, the neraval and kalpanaswaram of this main KP piece was stunning. It brought the concert back to its magical spell. After the Devagandharam piece the time was 8:28pm.

I was left wondering whether there would be a RTP, which is what all of us expect in a MASTER concert. As mentioned by Bilahari, the Ragam and Tanam was definitely different, but retaining some of the "sampradhaya" phrases of Charukesi. But then came the stunner.

It was one such concert. As you just feel a bit restless, came something out of the blue. The ragamalika pallavi pieces in Durga and Shrudd Saarang were truly unbelivable. It was a 14-minute piece that produced goose-bumps.

I thought the first ragamalika piece in the RTP pallavi was Subha-Pantuvarali. There was also a "magudi" piece. After listening to Mysore Nagaraj violin piece, Sanjay remarked "Nagarajar" meaning Snake-king and then was uncontrollably smiling for around 15 - 20 seconds. Then he added "Visham Kidaiyadhu" meaning no-poison. The entire hall erupted.

With just about better time management he could have sneaked in another song for the Post-RTP session, but had to hurriedly finish the beautiful Behag of Sivan.

A concert that had more than its share of pure magic.

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 22 Dec 2008, 09:41

Oh, ya, forgot the Magudi part for the first set of swaras. I was carried away by this stage! Sanjay was clearly distracted by lights over the stage going on and off in the middle of the concert and I was distracted by the gaudy and overdone stage, which would be more appropriate for a beauty pageant than a CM concert.

anandabhairavi · Post by **anandabhairavi** » 22 Dec 2008, 10:15

Can some one give me the full verse of the viruttam which Sanjay sang before "Oho Kaalame " in jaya tv MArghazi mahotsavam.
It was " Oorellaam toonginum unakkena tookam" thanks ina dvance for giving the full viruttam .Also if the author is known.

sridrect · Post by **sridrect** » 22 Dec 2008, 10:29

The Viruttam:

Oorellam Thoonginum Unnakillai Thookam
Oyamal Oduvaai Unnakundo Thekkam
Yaar Kettal Unnakenna Ariyai Nee Nokkam
Adhiga Vaddigal Kodupavarkku UnMel Yekkam

This viruttam is actually a Charanam from the song "Oho Kalame..." composed by the great Mayuram Vedanayakam Pillai

anandabhairavi · Post by **anandabhairavi** » 22 Dec 2008, 10:58

Thanks a million Sridrect sir!!

grappelli · Post by **grappelli** » 22 Dec 2008, 12:08

There was certainly some problem with the sound for the mridangam. As a result, during the krithi renditions the percussion accompaniment did not give the customary lift to the songs. Luckily, Sanjay and Nagaraj were both in great "form" and had good chemistry, the tendulkar-sehwag analogy was quite apt! Sanjay's kharaharapriya just felt complete, his durga in the ragamalika swaras was exquisite with beautiful folkish touches. Nagaraj played really well, reproducing all of sanjays brigas effortlessly, his charukesi alapana stood out. In fact his play reminded me of sri MSG. The first ragam in the ragamalika section was subhapantuvarali in which both artists played the magudi using the swaras GRSN and sanjay's pun on Nagaraj's name was pretty funny!

mahesh_narayan · Post by **mahesh_narayan** » 22 Dec 2008, 12:19

Hi bilahari,
darisittalavil is in Jhampa tala right (misra jhampa - laghu with 7 beats, anudhrtam, dhrtam)??.

raslkan · Post by **raslkan** » 22 Dec 2008, 14:39

Truely unforgettable concert. Sanjay's karaharapriya and charukesi were out of the world. Everytime we hear sanjay's concert,it is differenrt and refreshing. He is truely a "Maha vidwan"

sakthi.balan · Post by **sakthi.balan** » 22 Dec 2008, 15:52

Bilahari...excellent review!

When I read it I could just think of what has happened in the concert......

Would really love to hear Charukesi in sanjay's voice....!

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 22 Dec 2008, 16:02

Mahesh, yes, it was misra jhampa. I miscalculated the raga and tala for this one quite badly! Thanks to you and sridrect for pointing it out.

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 22 Dec 2008, 16:05

grappelli, thanks for pointing out that it was shubhapanthuvarali. I'm bad at all prati ma ragas. Ya, Nagaraj was all MSG last night. It was a treat.