kalakkAd seethAlakshmi@STVS samAjam on May 26th,2009

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 28 May 2009, 13:59

kalakkAd seethAlakshmi@STVS samAjam on May 26th,2009
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Accompanied by seethalakshmi's brother's "young pavAda chattai" daughter - KumAri bhuvana bhArathi
Violin - akkarai swarnalatha and mridangam - K. ParthasArathi

1.sammOdhamu ??? varnam - nAttai
2.pAli pAli gANathi pAsura moorthE - sAveri
3. narasimha mAmava (R S) - Arabi
3 mins alApanai , 2 mins violin return and 3 mins swaram

4.paripAlayamAm (S) - reetigowlai
5.sammOdham paripAlayamAm (R)- rAmapriyA
4 mins rAgam and 2 mins violin return
6. parama purusha jagadEEshwara (S)-vasantA

7. mAmava sadA jaNani (R) - kAnaDA
5 mins rAgam and 3 mins violin return
8A.sArasa subha dhala madha nEEya (R N S T) - kalyAni
7 mins alApanai of kalyANi , 4 mins violin, 3 mins neraval and 4 mins swaram
neraval in "sankara vidigAti saNNutha sArasa nAbha maNohara"
8B. tani for 3 mins

9. pAhi jagajaNani - hamsAnandi
10.smara jaNaka subha charitha - hindustAni behAg
11. Kosalendra mAmava - madhyamAvathi

Madras is just not rocking that much in CM in the month of may(we only have adityapriya, shriya and hari on a roll).On May 26th there was just 2 concerts one by sriranjani (vidyArthi's daughter)@rAgasudha on 6pm (weekday 6pm hence ruled out)and the only other was this exclusive swathi tirunAl concert. Taking that particular left after taking a right in royapettah high road in mylapore is a nightmare to reach this sabha, I was late by just 10 minutes but just on time for the concert.Even I can spot rAmapriyA from vAchaspathi rAgam, but I always miss that left and then get confused to reach this samAjam

Incidentally i was thinking who is seethalakshmi, since the name Dr was appended in the hindu I safely asssumed she is quite aged musician and she had to be one as she presented exclusive ST krithi concert . Also kalakkAd , I do know it is somewhere close to trinelveli , will kalakkAd bring a undiscovered vidushi like parassala , the hope was there but this musician was missing by a mile when compared to golden girl

The start with the first two was a nightmare ,nAttai was not charged and subsequent so worry(saveri)ing rendition was poor. With smt seethalakshmi all alone , her accompanist pAvAda chaTTai girl came to her rescue , Arabi was presented quite well with few rounds of cittaswaras were just getting towards mediocre to good .Reetigowlai was easily the best pick of the day.

I spotted rAmapriyA from vAchaspathi perhaps more by fluke and the rendition was just good . The best number was the vasantA, incidentally the young girl was taking more charge and she presented very well. KANaDa was rendered quite well with a nice spread of sowkhyam. Since kAnada was not rendered as main,the main vocalist lost a lot of stamina and handed over the main alApana to kumAri bhuvana(perils of postponing main)

kalyAni a toughest raga to impress was very impressively dealt by the young girl the alApana was fast and no repetition of saNgathis . The main vocalist took over the krithi and I liked the krithi a lot as it was rendered quite fast (more like vasudevayani and not like nidhi chALa sukhama). The nAttai and sAveri nightmare continued in the main neraval and swaras of kalyAni, very depleted and was rendered poorly.

The young girl joined again for the two tukkadas and was well presented , hamsAnandi and madhyamAvati was quite good.

Overall apart from the young supporting vocalist , the real star of the 1 hour 50 minute concert was Akkarai swarnalatha , her bowing was very uniform and had a lot of sowkhyam and her shruthi sense is very high . THe mridangist was perhaps callibrating completely on how not to drown the main vocalist and hence his play was just not there .His tani was just too short and not interesting

Overall the vidwat was perhaps there at the vidwath but the concert was a below mediocre presentation .This vidushi is daughter of yesteryear vidwan Sri kalakkAd ramanArayanan , the impressive presentation was only by the supporting vocalist and violinist.

sramaswamy · Post by **sramaswamy** » 28 May 2009, 22:05

Good to Excellent review

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 29 May 2009, 00:33

No, no, Rajesh's system is:
below mediocre to mediocre to good to very good to excellent to outstanding. So it's a very good to excellent review

sramaswamy · Post by **sramaswamy** » 29 May 2009, 00:53

Looks like I am just mediocre to good in rajeshnatings

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 29 May 2009, 07:13

What I like about Rajesh's reviews are the numbers on "violin return"s. Like a tennis match, serve and volley atmosphere! Some enthusiasm to actually note down those times.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 29 May 2009, 07:33

His observations run the gamut of sports: time keeping being part of it. At times, it is worth watching this reviewer's stance, throw and unexpected jumps of joy, frustration, umpiring and applause. Above all, I like his being candid, and of course, his enthusiasm and loving care for CM...

srinivasrgvn · Post by **srinivasrgvn** » 29 May 2009, 07:35

Well rajeshnat,
I think it is easy to identify you in concerts! I am sure you will be looking at a stop clock/watch! =)
It is really a good practice to record the duration of each piece. It determines the level of handling ragas. Good going! Nice review, although the concert was below mediocre!

rain_of_nectar · Post by **rain_of_nectar** » 29 May 2009, 08:49

rajeshnat wrote: 1.sammOdhamu ??? varnam - nAttai
2.pAli pAli gANathi pAsura moorthE - sAveri
5.sammOdham paripAlayamAm (R)- rAmapriyA
8A.sArasa subha dhala madha nEEya (R N S T) - kalyAni

I am assuming those would ACTUALLY be:
1) samukhamu - calanATTai - aTa - Tanjore Vadivelu
2) paripAhi gaNAdhipa bhAsuramURtte - sAvEri
5) sAmOdam paripAlaya - rAmapriya
8) sArasa suvadana mahanIya carita - kalyANi

Rajesh, it would be nice if a prolific poster such as you invests in a set of references such as the TKG compilations, or at least check with Googleswara before hitting the 'Submit' button! Also, I maybe going against popular sentiment here, but I am not too amused with the prolific use of the word "mediocre" to describe many musicians, especially veterans like TKG, whose concert was "reviewed" a few days back.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 29 May 2009, 09:33

rain_of_nectar
There are at times practical difficulties in searching for the lyrics. For me in my work most of the sites are blocked so hitting search and then finding it is difficult , it will consume more time and really searching the right starting lines will be too much of trial and error as in first place I cannot the text correctly. Usually we all put a ?? at the end of the krithi to indicate if we are not sure , I did that for the first but not for few other numbers(that is a slip I stand corrected).

With respect to chala nAttai- nAttai, I went to the musician at the end of the concert and asked her if it is nAttai, she said it is , possibly I should have asked an open ended question , may be then she may have said chAla nAttai instead of nAttai . I am still not sure if it is nAttai or chAlanAttai, shri TK govindA raO will know that for sure

, I dont know yet?

There is a review of the same concert in the hindu
http://www.hindu.com/fr/2009/05/29/stor ... 400400.htm. The reviewer there also has not mentioned about the first nAttai-chAlanAttai(that no was indeed very very difficult to catch ).

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 29 May 2009, 09:59

rain_of_netar wrote:Also, I maybe going against popular sentiment here, but I am not too amused with the prolific use of the word "mediocre" to describe many musicians, especially veterans like TKG, whose concert was "reviewed" a few days back.

Really? Did anyone call a concert of TKG's mediocre?

srinivasrgvn · Post by **srinivasrgvn** » 29 May 2009, 10:08

Regarding the Naattai/Chalanaattai varnam, was it this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLA58vT-FI0
It is!
It was composed by vadivElu(of Tanjore Quartet) in praise of Swathi Thirunal. It is in nAttai. But, you can see the shatshruthi dhaivatham usage. In Dikshithar school, the nAttai did contain this dhaivatham. Hence, this varnam qualifies as 'nAttai' in Dikshithar school. It is no wonder as the composer is Vadivelu.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 29 May 2009, 17:03

rain_of_nectar wrote: but I am not too amused with the prolific use of the word "mediocre" to describe many musicians, especially veterans like TKG, whose concert was "reviewed" a few days back.

amrutavarsham (rain_of_nectar) - these are subjective reviews, but, most of our reviewers have forgotten more live concerts than I for one have attended, so there is a degree of comparison and a sort of objective judging to a standard that seems to be going on - you may disagree with their categorization as 'mediocre' (Rajesh for one never passes a high handed value judgement - he gives ample reasons that lead him to that conclusion), but then you'll have to agree to disagree when they say a concert was very good to excellent as well! And many musicians do have off days when the normally 'very good' become 'mediocre' and probably the 'merely 'good' become just 'fair'!

Anyone else attending the concerts that Rajesh or others have reviewed is certainly encouraged to post his/her dissenting views and argue (with examples) for their case.

rain_of_nectar · Post by **rain_of_nectar** » 30 May 2009, 10:52

rshankar, yours is a well-meaning post (though I confess it took me a while to make out what you actually meant, through that cloud of equivocation!) :p

However, I'm afraid you missed my point entirely. I did not question anyone's right to make subjective opinions and I certainly get that bit about "agree to disagree blah blah...". That is a fact of life, especially on democratic forums. My beef was with the disrespectful tone of the "reviews". In fact AFTER I made the previous post I did a simple search of the forum with the keyword "mediocre" and author "rajeshnat". Try it for yourself: you will be amazed at the number and range of artistes (just in the last six months) who have been subjected to that adjective at some point in his posts. By the way, Merriam-Webster defines 'mediocre' as: "of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance, ordinary, so-so". Going by the content of his posts, I haven't seen any evidence of *musical* vidwat that would make him qualified to describe, say, TKG's 'rAmanAtham bhajEham' as mediocre. Contrast that with someone like 'bilahari' who says in a recent concert report: "I was personally not impressed by SD Sridhar's performance on the violin last evening..." which is a much more polished approach.

To those of you (I know there will be many) who think that a storm is being kicked up over a trifle, I can only remind you of that "long term vision" thingy that Coolkarni talks about. Many years down the line a clueless music student might be searching for historical snippets and chance upon this forum. He/she will be seeing just the words written here, without any idea about the context in which they were written or about the competence of the reviewer. So, let's all agree on being respectful towards artistes, the people who have that special something in them that makes our spending time on this forum worthwhile

[A friendly suggestion to rajeshnat: junk that stopwatch the next time you go to a concert. You will be a better rasika the day you stop being obsessed with how many minutes the "violin return" lasted, trust me. For a true music lover, a 20-second akshiptika holds as much value as a 1 hour elaboration (or belaboration, as the case maybe!) :p ...]

srinivasrgvn · Post by **srinivasrgvn** » 30 May 2009, 11:19

Well, rain_of_nectar, I do understand what you are explaining. But don't you think a review is very much an analysis that is based on personal likes/dislikes? I mean, who writes a review for the artistes/public? A review is not written to extol/diminish an artiste. It is not written to show the reviewer's expertise either. A review is(should be) a careful analysis of an artiste's performance. And each reviewer has his/her own yardsticks. Similarly, each reviewer has his/her unique analysis methods. One may think that the duration of the alapana will determine the performance. Another may have certain specific expectations like briga, jAru, etc. You can never notice unity/uniformity in reviews. Each reviewer is different. So, you cannot say that a review is neat only if it has words like 'personally'! Every review is personal. Nobody writes for the crowd. They write only what they like. Also, you say that TKG's 'rAmanAtham' should not be described as mediocre. Well, to be truthful, I think 99% of the members here will say that Ariyakkudi's 'Sri Subrahmanyaya' is the best version and his rendition was unparalleled. I totally disagree. I find a popular present artiste's version much better. I never comment on ARI's vidhwath. He was the best artiste in the world. I agree! But, in comparison, I would prefer the present artiste's version. I think every negative comment made by a sensible and experienced[does not refer to age but musical knowledge] reviewer is a comparison. If the reviewer does not like a version and finds some other version to be 10 times better, I don't think there is anything wrong in describing that version as 'mediocre'. Describing such a version as 'mediocre' does not degrade the artiste's vidhwath. After all, each artiste has his/her own pAtAntharam and differences. =)

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 30 May 2009, 15:04

rain_of_nectar wrote:My beef was with the disrespectful tone of the "reviews". In fact AFTER I made the previous post I did a simple search of the forum with the keyword "mediocre" and author "rajeshnat". Try it for yourself: you will be amazed at the number and range of artistes (just in the last six months) who have been subjected to that adjective at some point in his posts. By the way, Merriam-Webster defines 'mediocre' as: "of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance, ordinary, so-so". Going by the content of his posts, I haven't seen any evidence of *musical* vidwat that would make him qualified to describe, say, TKG's 'rAmanAtham bhajEham' as mediocre.

I dont see any trace of disrespectful tone, if the word mediocre (I meant it as only moderate instead of low quality)is considered that way by you, I just cannot help you.

You searched my id with the keyword "mediocre" selecting kutcheri reviews checkbox, I did the same I got 33 hits , I also tried with the keyword "excellent",with the same filter I got 177. Did you notice in the same TKG's concert, I have praised his neerajAkshi in hindOlam .

[A friendly suggestion to rajeshnat: junk that stopwatch the next time you go to a concert. You will be a better rasika the day you stop being obsessed with how many minutes the "violin return" lasted, trust me. For a true music lover, a 20-second akshiptika holds as much value as a 1 hour elaboration (or belaboration, as the case maybe!) :p ...]

I dont take stop clock , for me the timings give a sense of completeness (infact the first to do that was some mahesh or mahesh3 ?? from newjersey I liked that and I started following his style from there), 20 second askshiptika is a miracle it will happen only once in 5 decades. By me putting timelines does not mean I am not enjoying the music there, it has just become kind of involuntary for me.

Here is one bit of friendly suggestion. I see that you have only reviewed one artist that too 5 times , why dont you take more artists and review more concerts.

rajumds · Post by **rajumds** » 30 May 2009, 15:52

rain_of_nectar

Rajesh is a rasika who listens to a wide spectrum of artists - from super stars to veterans to upcoming younsters to unknown pearls from places far off. He just reviews a concert and never compares artists or passes judgments about the vidwat. If fhe eels a renedition is poor , he says so without beating around the bush.

If TKG's performance was not upto the mark on particular day, nothing wrong in saying so. It is not a comment on the artist but on his performance on that day

rajumds · Post by **rajumds** » 30 May 2009, 15:53

-duplicate post deleted --

cienu · Post by **cienu** » 30 May 2009, 17:51

rain_of_nectar

I appreciate your views and can see what you have in your mind

Rajeshnat is a prolific reviewer.

There is a subjective element in every review. However in the case of Rajesh (and I may add Bilahari & Bharat too) their "criticism" is backed by substantial reasoning (as Ravi has mentioned in his earlier post).

What I appreciate is the total lack of bias (for or against the artists) and no hidden agendas while doing their work.

Notwithstanding the above, it is possible that their views may be "wrong". Just like artists, a reviewer may also have an "off day".

Other rasikas who did attend the concert or the artist can use the same forum to put forth their points of view if they choose to do so.

And CM inclined internet buffs 100 years down the line, will factor the explosion of information, speed & freedom of speech that has prevailed and continues to do so in this era.

An artiste of TKG's stature is assured of his place in the history of CM and this will not be effected by a review in our forum.

srikant1987 · Post by **srikant1987** » 30 May 2009, 20:41

@ rain_of_nectar

Yes, rshankar is right. rajeshnat is careful in talking only about the performance on a certain day, not about the artist itself. Though 'mediocre' might is still harsh.

---
@ cienu

I've never come across criticism by rbharath, actually.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 30 May 2009, 21:44

Rain_of_Nectar,
While your observations apply in general for responsible reviewing, Rajesh is a different kettle of fish altogether. All the above posts spell out Rajesh's role as a reviewer. If only I had the zeal he has for CM! He nurtures music, lives intensely in it and cares deeply for it. To see youngsters like him so involved in CM is really heartening. There are no hidden agendas in his case. If he cares to write about say, Suryaprakash's concerts among many others, it is because he cares about vidvAns too who do not get the exposure they deserve. There is no favoritism there. Surya or Chandra, Rajesh would point out the minuses in a concert too. It is all about that particular concert and nothing more.
No, Rajesh does not have a stop watch! I have watched him jot down notes in his book without in any way getting distracted from the music. His immediate reactions to even a particular piDi cannot escape you. In a pout, 'wish he had sung it better!' would be evident. It was interesting to see a relative of a performer who sat near us in a concert. Rajesh's intense expressions of--wish this particular phrase could have been better' here and there made her feel edgy, seeing that he was writing things down in a notebook! A critic? She must have felt relieved and happy, had she read the review the next day!
Rajesh calls a spade a spade and he is intense. He is unique in his style of writing, and we like him for that

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 31 May 2009, 00:23

srikant1987 wrote:I've never come across criticism by rbharath, actually.

He must have heard you - this is from his review of Rajani Hebbar's performance!

rbharath wrote: The violinst was good in parts. He gave some good replies to the main artist. His sAvEri AlApanai was a tad too short.
bharath