Vocal : T N Seshagopalan
Violin : M Chandrasekharan
Mrudangam : Guruvayur Dorai
Ghatam : Dayanand Mohite
Songlist :
01 viribONi ( varNam) - bhairavi -Pachimiriam Adiappa ( S )
02 nitya rUpa - darbAr - Thyagaraja ( A,S )
03 mOkshamu galadA - sAramati - Thyagaraja ( started at sAkshAtkAra)
04 ShubhapantuvarALi alapana
shAnthAkAram bhujagashayanam ( slOkam) - shubhapantuvarALi
srI satyanArAyaNAm - shubhapantuvarALi - Muthuswami Dikshitar ( A )
05 paridAnamichitE - bilahari - Patnam Subramanya Iyer ( A,N,S,T )
neraval & swara @ ‘ rokkamichutakunE mukkaNTi chelikAnu’
tani Avartanam
06 RTP - surutti, dEsh - khanda triputa , 2 kaLai
pallavi line ‘ mOhamAkudE shyAmakumAra un suruttiya kuzhal kaNDu’
tAnam and swaras in surutti and dEsh
07 krishna nAm rasnA - bhAgEshri ? - Surdas
08 mangaLam - saurAshtram - Thyagaraja
srIyay kAnthAya - Sri
Fantastic concert. I will leave it to Rajeev ( Rajeevsid ) to comment.
TNS Gokulashtami Concert Unnati , 3rd Aug
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rajeevsid
- Posts: 92
- Joined: 03 Jun 2005, 08:55
Hmmm.. Obliging to Jayan , I comment on this excellent concert. Although, in all fairness, we should probably just say thank you to Seshagopalan Sir for a lovely evening and leave it at that. Nevertheless , a review would be much desired by all ; So here goes.
First of all, the Unnati center has to be best hall in terms of acoustics and comfort, so no complaints there.
TNS started in his inimitable way a brief alapana before the bhairavi concert in which he experimented with the two octaves to see how his voice would be supporting him that day. And support him it did rather well through out the concert. It has been a long time since I heard anyone sing kalpana swaras in the Varnam piece and it was refreshing to hear TNS do it in Viriboni.
M. Chandrashekar, as we audiences were later to find out, was in supreme form matching TNS's virtuoso every step of the way.
Until darbar, his voice was just co-operating, with minor slips here and there. A very ordinary darbar in my opinion.
Post darbar , he started from ' sAkshatkAra' in saramati, and we could all hear his full throated voice coming out beautifully. Whether it was the coffee in the flask or some divine motivation only God knows, but TNS came into his own in mokshamu galada , which was sung in vilamba kala. The very mood of the song was very unlike any other rendition of the krithi I have heard. It brought out the pleading tone of the krithi admist some magnificient briga oriented singing.
Then came the Dikshitar krithi in shubapantuvarali for which there was an wonderful raga alapana scanning two octaves , but, to my amazement, no neraval or swaras. I was half expecting a neraval at 'matsya kurma' !!!
Then came the solitaire on the ring , or so I thought then, the brilliant bilahari alapana. He reminded me of the 90's with his crisp unbounded imagination of the raga. Transcending 2 1/2 octaves, he produced one of the best bilahari 's I have heard in recent times. The krithi and neraval were good. His kalpana swaras were again amazing. Why? It is difficult to explain but I will try. In the kalapana swaras TNS chose to rest at D ( for eg. G P D S N D , S R G P D, S S.. N D and so on.) Amazingly he was chosing unique gamakas for each time he stayed at D. It was almost as if he was demonstrating as to how many ways the D could be sung in bilahari. Amazing.. I bow down to such greatness!!!
Guruvayoor Durai played a remarkable tani ... Laya intricacy experts have to chip in here.. I know it was much better than most Tanis I have heard.
After the thani the artists were felicitated and rightfully so. Following that was a brief social awareness talk which made most restless.. the total exercise took around 10 mins ..
TNS then started a surutti alapana which was sung in an innovative fashion albeit sampradhayically ( we need to make this a word!!!) . Then out of the blue after Chandrashekars surutti violin, confusing all of us , he sang a Desh alapana. M. Chandrashedkars reply to that Desh was astounding. Wonderful playing at his age, I thought. Post that he continued the alapana uniquely singing each line in alternate ragas. The thanam continued in the same fashion, amazingly. At this point, all of us were bedazzled by the brilliance of this man mesmerizing us with his almost tangential creativity. He then mesmerized us further with the pallavi line - ‘ mOhamAkudE shyAmakumAra un suruttiya kuzhal kaNDu’ !!! Both desh (dE- from mOhamAkudE sh- from shyAmakumAra) and surutti in the pallavi line... beautiful..
Well then he sang what I thought was Rageshri- experts may clarify.
and magalam ..and then well... the concert ended..
So all-in-all a wonderful concert.. Nothing much to say really.. It was one of those lucky days for me and for a lot of other people....
First of all, the Unnati center has to be best hall in terms of acoustics and comfort, so no complaints there.
TNS started in his inimitable way a brief alapana before the bhairavi concert in which he experimented with the two octaves to see how his voice would be supporting him that day. And support him it did rather well through out the concert. It has been a long time since I heard anyone sing kalpana swaras in the Varnam piece and it was refreshing to hear TNS do it in Viriboni.
M. Chandrashekar, as we audiences were later to find out, was in supreme form matching TNS's virtuoso every step of the way.
Until darbar, his voice was just co-operating, with minor slips here and there. A very ordinary darbar in my opinion.
Post darbar , he started from ' sAkshatkAra' in saramati, and we could all hear his full throated voice coming out beautifully. Whether it was the coffee in the flask or some divine motivation only God knows, but TNS came into his own in mokshamu galada , which was sung in vilamba kala. The very mood of the song was very unlike any other rendition of the krithi I have heard. It brought out the pleading tone of the krithi admist some magnificient briga oriented singing.
Then came the Dikshitar krithi in shubapantuvarali for which there was an wonderful raga alapana scanning two octaves , but, to my amazement, no neraval or swaras. I was half expecting a neraval at 'matsya kurma' !!!
Then came the solitaire on the ring , or so I thought then, the brilliant bilahari alapana. He reminded me of the 90's with his crisp unbounded imagination of the raga. Transcending 2 1/2 octaves, he produced one of the best bilahari 's I have heard in recent times. The krithi and neraval were good. His kalpana swaras were again amazing. Why? It is difficult to explain but I will try. In the kalapana swaras TNS chose to rest at D ( for eg. G P D S N D , S R G P D, S S.. N D and so on.) Amazingly he was chosing unique gamakas for each time he stayed at D. It was almost as if he was demonstrating as to how many ways the D could be sung in bilahari. Amazing.. I bow down to such greatness!!!
Guruvayoor Durai played a remarkable tani ... Laya intricacy experts have to chip in here.. I know it was much better than most Tanis I have heard.
After the thani the artists were felicitated and rightfully so. Following that was a brief social awareness talk which made most restless.. the total exercise took around 10 mins ..
TNS then started a surutti alapana which was sung in an innovative fashion albeit sampradhayically ( we need to make this a word!!!) . Then out of the blue after Chandrashekars surutti violin, confusing all of us , he sang a Desh alapana. M. Chandrashedkars reply to that Desh was astounding. Wonderful playing at his age, I thought. Post that he continued the alapana uniquely singing each line in alternate ragas. The thanam continued in the same fashion, amazingly. At this point, all of us were bedazzled by the brilliance of this man mesmerizing us with his almost tangential creativity. He then mesmerized us further with the pallavi line - ‘ mOhamAkudE shyAmakumAra un suruttiya kuzhal kaNDu’ !!! Both desh (dE- from mOhamAkudE sh- from shyAmakumAra) and surutti in the pallavi line... beautiful..
Well then he sang what I thought was Rageshri- experts may clarify.
and magalam ..and then well... the concert ended..
So all-in-all a wonderful concert.. Nothing much to say really.. It was one of those lucky days for me and for a lot of other people....
Last edited by rajeevsid on 04 Aug 2009, 14:11, edited 1 time in total.
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cheens
- Posts: 15
- Joined: 06 Jul 2007, 13:55
As usual, TNS's concert in SGBS Gokulashtami series is special. Sadly, I missed it. It reminds me of another great concert of him. Guruvayoor Dorai was being felicitated that day for his 60th year in concert circuit. Ofcourse, the concert was part of Gokulashtami series in Odukathur Mutt. There was brilliant Dwijavanti (Chetashri), Madhyamavathi (Aadadhu Asangadhu) and Ritigowlai (RTP - Vennai Thinra... was the pallavi line) that day.
- Cheenu
- Cheenu
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arasi
- Posts: 16873
- Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30
Such a nice review Rajeev (the correspondent from afar)!
'Sampradayically' is a new one to the music lexicon!
What is going round in Bengaluru? Hope Hari will be able to attend the other concerts and give us reviews.
Thank you Jayan! Please give us the lists for all the concerts.
Haven't yet been to a concert at Unnati.
'Sampradayically' is a new one to the music lexicon!
What is going round in Bengaluru? Hope Hari will be able to attend the other concerts and give us reviews.
Thank you Jayan! Please give us the lists for all the concerts.
Haven't yet been to a concert at Unnati.
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bilahari
- Posts: 2631
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:02
Rajeev, that was a really good review. Thanks! SuruTTi and dES are pretty close ragas scale-wise, so TNS must've had a lot of audacity to try this dwi-raga pallavi, and of course, he pulled it off. Did anyone sense any cross-contamination in the RTP? I mean, the ragas are melodically distinct but technically quite similar, so I wonder if there was any confusion or ambiguity. I have never heard bilahari from TNS--would've been nice to hear that as well.
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braindrain
- Posts: 587
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 09:25
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rajeshnat
- Posts: 10121
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04
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rajeevsid
- Posts: 92
- Joined: 03 Jun 2005, 08:55
Sorry guys for the late reply.. was extremely busy with work and home to login .. !!!
Rajeshnat - According to me there was no overlap in the ragas at all. Nevertheless there are two points to note-
1) TNS sang the sangathis alternately without fail. So for eg.. if he sang a line in Desh we would all know that the next line would be Surutti.. So psychologically we were prepared for that particular raga. So the question remains - Had he sung each raga randomly, would the clear distinction between the two have remained? I would say "Yes" and thats because even when he sang just N S in both ragas he was distinctly different. Again it was like a lec-dem
2) Though technically similar both these ragas differ almost completely in their gamaka styles, and in my opinion TNS used that wonderfully to his advantage.
My Verdict - No cross-contamination at all.
Thanks you guys/gals for all your kind words about the review..
Regards
!!!Rajeshnat - According to me there was no overlap in the ragas at all. Nevertheless there are two points to note-
1) TNS sang the sangathis alternately without fail. So for eg.. if he sang a line in Desh we would all know that the next line would be Surutti.. So psychologically we were prepared for that particular raga. So the question remains - Had he sung each raga randomly, would the clear distinction between the two have remained? I would say "Yes" and thats because even when he sang just N S in both ragas he was distinctly different. Again it was like a lec-dem
2) Though technically similar both these ragas differ almost completely in their gamaka styles, and in my opinion TNS used that wonderfully to his advantage.
My Verdict - No cross-contamination at all.
Thanks you guys/gals for all your kind words about the review..
Regards
Last edited by rajeevsid on 07 Aug 2009, 13:41, edited 1 time in total.
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Anantraman
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 20 Mar 2009, 17:31
Rajeev has given a wonderful review of the program by TNS at Unnati Centre. Thanks.
I would, however, like to comment on one comment he has made about his becoming restless when there was talk by and about the organisers. In fairness, we should be more tolerant.
When we watch a serial in TV, in the 30 minutes duration of a serial, almost 15 minutes are taken away by advertisements. No doubt we do not like it.
Here is one program arranged totally FREE for us by the organisers and they are using the opportunity to address the audience for ten minutes (out of a total of 180 minutes) to bring about an awareness of the wonderful work they are doing. We should not only be tolerant and receptive but we should also do all that we can to help such an organisation.
The least we can do, if nothing else, is not to pass poor comments.
Rajeev, no offence meant. Pl bear with me.
Anantraman
I would, however, like to comment on one comment he has made about his becoming restless when there was talk by and about the organisers. In fairness, we should be more tolerant.
When we watch a serial in TV, in the 30 minutes duration of a serial, almost 15 minutes are taken away by advertisements. No doubt we do not like it.
Here is one program arranged totally FREE for us by the organisers and they are using the opportunity to address the audience for ten minutes (out of a total of 180 minutes) to bring about an awareness of the wonderful work they are doing. We should not only be tolerant and receptive but we should also do all that we can to help such an organisation.
The least we can do, if nothing else, is not to pass poor comments.
Rajeev, no offence meant. Pl bear with me.
Anantraman
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rajaglan
- Posts: 709
- Joined: 29 Dec 2006, 21:34
We can use all our intelligence to argue against what you said. But at the end, what you say is 100% correct.Anantraman wrote:Rajeev has given a wonderful review of the program by TNS at Unnati Centre. Thanks.
I would, however, like to comment on one comment he has made about his becoming restless when there was talk by and about the organisers. In fairness, we should be more tolerant.
When we watch a serial in TV, in the 30 minutes duration of a serial, almost 15 minutes are taken away by advertisements. No doubt we do not like it.
Here is one program arranged totally FREE for us by the organisers and they are using the opportunity to address the audience for ten minutes (out of a total of 180 minutes) to bring about an awareness of the wonderful work they are doing. We should not only be tolerant and receptive but we should also do all that we can to help such an organisation.
The least we can do, if nothing else, is not to pass poor comments.
Rajeev, no offence meant. Pl bear with me.
Anantraman
Except Sanjay once clearly mentioned that his voice is just ready for a RTP performance after the main/thani
and the long break spoils it. I think it is best left to organiser+artists convenience.
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rajeevsid
- Posts: 92
- Joined: 03 Jun 2005, 08:55
Anantaraman Sir - I agree with you totally. We should all be be much more tolerant and do all we can to support a wonderful organisation such as Unnati. The concert is an opportunity for them to spread the message, in a manner of speaking. And with that I am in total agreement. It is a commercial fact with which we all live with.
However, I was merely reporting - What I said was entirely true, it did make people restless. Lot of people were talking amongst themselves referring to when the speech will end. In fact, being seated in one of the front rows, I even saw TNS Sir calling one of the organizers and asking them ' ida apparama vechukalame ?'.
I stand by my comment Sir, I wish I could have said that people were encouraged by the speech, but in my humble opinion they weren't. They wanted to concert to commence asap.
I however apologize for making that remark since it never was my intention to hurt you or anyone else of the same opinion.
Regards
However, I was merely reporting - What I said was entirely true, it did make people restless. Lot of people were talking amongst themselves referring to when the speech will end. In fact, being seated in one of the front rows, I even saw TNS Sir calling one of the organizers and asking them ' ida apparama vechukalame ?'.
I stand by my comment Sir, I wish I could have said that people were encouraged by the speech, but in my humble opinion they weren't. They wanted to concert to commence asap.
I however apologize for making that remark since it never was my intention to hurt you or anyone else of the same opinion.
Regards
Last edited by rajeevsid on 08 Aug 2009, 09:47, edited 1 time in total.
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arasi
- Posts: 16873
- Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30
Good causes need to be spoken about. In concerts too, where I'm sure listening to the concert is foremost on the minds of the audience. So, if a speech (not many!) is given, it better be short, very short. A paragraph about the good work can be spoken about in a couple of minutes. That way, people would pay attention too.
To be sensitive to the performer's need to continue without an interruption means that it better be carried out at tukkaDA time. Even better is not to interrupt at all but to say a few words at the very start while welcoming the artistes.
I don't think a free concert means that the audience has to be subjected to long speeches. RasikAs are happy to hear free music but do they need to end up 'paying a price'? I would happily pay extra money on a ticket if that assures us uninterrupted listening without long speeches.
Wonder if Cutcheri Buzz would take a poll about 'speeches in a concert' this season which would only reveal audience apathy for them. I have no poblem about short and to-the-point utterings of organizers. Unfortunately, such a happening is a rarity.
Good causes need support. The public has to be informed about them. To think that it can be achieved by endless speeches (which leave the listeners utterly bored or annoyed ) is not the way to go about it.
To let the performer lose momentum, being stopped when he is on a roll, is again insensitive and alienates and shortchanges the audience too.
I have seen even very patient people lose their cool over this. I am sure Nick is somewhere there, not too far away
To be sensitive to the performer's need to continue without an interruption means that it better be carried out at tukkaDA time. Even better is not to interrupt at all but to say a few words at the very start while welcoming the artistes.
I don't think a free concert means that the audience has to be subjected to long speeches. RasikAs are happy to hear free music but do they need to end up 'paying a price'? I would happily pay extra money on a ticket if that assures us uninterrupted listening without long speeches.
Wonder if Cutcheri Buzz would take a poll about 'speeches in a concert' this season which would only reveal audience apathy for them. I have no poblem about short and to-the-point utterings of organizers. Unfortunately, such a happening is a rarity.
Good causes need support. The public has to be informed about them. To think that it can be achieved by endless speeches (which leave the listeners utterly bored or annoyed ) is not the way to go about it.
To let the performer lose momentum, being stopped when he is on a roll, is again insensitive and alienates and shortchanges the audience too.
I have seen even very patient people lose their cool over this. I am sure Nick is somewhere there, not too far away
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Anantraman
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 20 Mar 2009, 17:31
I fully appreciate the replies of Rajeev and Arasi on my views.
Yes, the speeches have to be short and sweet and should definitely not be such as to be viewed as a punishment to the listener. However, it cannot be in the beginning or in the end for obvious reasons.
At the end of the day, it is the end that justifies the means. Don't you all think so?
Thanks
Yes, the speeches have to be short and sweet and should definitely not be such as to be viewed as a punishment to the listener. However, it cannot be in the beginning or in the end for obvious reasons.
At the end of the day, it is the end that justifies the means. Don't you all think so?
Thanks
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rajeshnat
- Posts: 10121
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04
I cant say how the speech as I was not there. One thing I appreciate is TNS sir coming out with a RTP immediately after the speech. Usually many a times after speech the list will taper to kurai onrum illai and a thiruppugazh and thillana and surely pavamA nAN had to walk out with the last number pavamAna.
This act of artist showing more forbearance in speech and giving more music by Shri TNS is a best practice that other musicians have to take it.
This act of artist showing more forbearance in speech and giving more music by Shri TNS is a best practice that other musicians have to take it.
Last edited by rajeshnat on 08 Aug 2009, 13:12, edited 1 time in total.