Student Performances and Nadhaswaram- San Diego - 27 Mar '10

[bilahari]

A. Student Performance

After a wretched evening (described elsewhere on this forum), I was desperately in need of some good music this morning and was duly satiated by the student performances. Dr. C.M. Venkatachalam's students presented a series of ragamaligas for an hour, commencing with the ganEsha pancharathnam. This was prefaced by a viruttam-type rendition of the pallavi of rAgarathnamAligachE in rItigowLa and hamsadhwani. This was followed by a swara rAgamAliga composition of Dr. CMV in the ragas malayamArutam, mandAri, naLinakAnti, hamsAnandi, lalita, vijayanAgari, srIranjani, gurjAri tODi, and maNirangu. The swara rAgamAliga was a very interesting composition for its choice of ragas and the students sang it very well (especially the naLinakAnti segment), but I must admit I was rather weary after all the swara compositions from last evening. The students continued with LGJ's sindhu bhairavi jatIswaram and then his navarasa padavarNam. The impeccably synchronised and rather well emoted rendition of LGJ's padavarNam was my highlight of the performance (and not merely because the composition starts with bilahari). The concert continued with ArabhimAnam, which was rendered well but I felt a few artistic flourishes to further flesh out the ragas that comprise this piece would have further enhanced the presentation. GNB's sonnadai sEidiDa was sung next, and the consistent pronunciation of the pallavi as "shonnadai shediDa" somewhat irked me (just a trivial personal irritation, so you can ignore this), as did the students' pronunciation of the phrase "maNNum ponnum" as "maNNum poNNum", thereby considerably altering the meaning of the line. The students also seemed to have some shruti-related trouble in the phrase "mannavan dEvaki". The pallavi of alivEni enDucEyvo was sung as a viruttam in kurinji next and the concert concluded with a crisp rendition of kshIrAbdi kannike.

By the end of this hour, I was in good spirits again. Dr. CMV's students sang with good synchronisation, admirable shruti shuddam, and presented some lovely compositions in a very crisp manner. Both the students who sang the two mini-viruTTams accurately pinned down the bhAvam of the rAgas they were singing, and they were both very impressive.

Next, Smt. Revathi Subramanian's young students presented a few smaller Dikshitar compositions like shakti sahita gaNapathim, and the tots were quite adorable with their "mazhalai" and all. Thereafter, some of the older students sang mahAgaNapathim (Smt. RS's student performance had a Dikshitar theme) with a few swaras at mahA kAvya which had nice "poruttham" (fit), but the students delivering the kalpanaswaras did not look confident (I'm sure they will gain confidence with time). I appreciated Smt. Subramanian's effort to introduce manOdharma into the piece and it definitely made for interesting listening. Unfortunately, I had to run an unavoidable errand after this song and missed the rest of the student performance.

B. Nadhaswaram Concert

Injikudi Subramaniam - Nadhaswaram
Chitra Subramaniam - Nadhaswaram (accompaniment)
Sembanarkoil S.M. Babu - Thavil
Sengalipuram G. Abiramasundaram - Thavil

Duration: ~ 2 h

Approximate Songlist:

01. raghunAyaka (?) (Sketch, S @ pallavi) - hamsadhwani - Adi
02. teliyalEru rAma - dhEnuka - dESAdi
03. nATi mATa (?) - dEvakriya - Adi
04. nagumOmu ganalEni (R) - AbhEri - Adi
05. maryAda kAdura (R,S,T) - shankarAbharaNam - Adi - T
06. bhajan (R) - dES - Adi

It was announced that Injikudi Subramaniam had just recently married and this was the couple's first joint performance. The concert started with a beautiful sketch of hamsadhwani noteworthy for the effective use of NRG phrases in both the madhya and tara sthayi, the karvai at tara G, and for the intelligent stops at the nishadam (especially in the mandra sthayi). Elaborate kalpana swaras were rendered for hamsadhwani, with IS combining tail raga-esque flourishes with swaras nicely. He used repeating NNS phrases well and there was a particularly beautiful PNRG,,R phrase with a gorgeous jaru to the gandharam as well. Towards the end of the kalpana swaras, IS and his wife alternated with IS first playing a simple sequence (scale-oriented) and his wife repeating it. Unfortunately, Chitra Subramaniam struggled consistently as she could neither blow hard enough to sustain a note nor control the pitch of the notes. Thankfully, IS put an end to the alternating sequences briskly and finished the piece.

The subsequent vilamba kala rendition of teliyalEru rAma was outstanding and still lingers in my mind. IS dealt ever so sensitively with each word of the composition, punctuated the delivery with several karvais, using them as an opportunity to demonstrate the contours of dhEnuka. At the end of this piece, I felt like the krithi and the raga had both been done justice - without even a raga alapanai. IS appropriately followed this up with a peppy dEvakriya and then launched into AbhEri ragam. IS's AbhEri ragam was probably my highlight of the performance and a testament to the musician's creativity. I heard several unusual phrases in the alapanai but was unable to make out the swara constitution to present them here. IS has a great skill in his ability to play gamakas extremely precisely and his various gamakas around the nishadam in this alapanai were very beautiful. IS's other talent is in imparting variety to the kala pramanam in his raga alapanais. He creates a wonderful ambience by beginning a raga alapanai in vilamba kalam, punctuating phrases with long karvais, developing the raga note by note. Just when the rasika is entirely immersed in the raga, IS starts ramping up the pace by incrementally introducing faster sangathis, and then seamlessly combines fast and slow phrases into the tara sthayi before producing a few final flourishes and swirls to dip into the mandra sthayi and conclude the raga. IS's rare ability to use kala pramanam variations to construct an intense and absorbing raga alapanai will carry him far in the CM world. After the raga alapanai, I was slightly disappointed with the rendition of nagumOmu, where I felt his sAhitya shuddam was somewhat lacking (i.e., the splitting of syllables was not consistent with sahitya). I also missed kalpanaswaras for this piece, but IS explained later that although he had intended a more elaborate AbhEri, he had to cut this piece short because of the shortage of time (this concert was only scheduled for 1.75 hours) and a request for him to play a shankarAbharaNam main.

IS then began an alapanai of shankarAbharaNam which had all the necessary ingredients of a typical sh'bharaNam (ga-oriented phrases, karvais at madhya and tara G, etc) without being arresting. IS also seemed to be rather time-conscious at this stage, not dealing with the ragam as leisurely as he had with AbhEri. A krithi I have never heard before was presented and was short and brisk. Elaborate kalpanaswaras were played with PM-PM-PM as an interesting refrain. Here, too, CS played in tandem with IS and here, too, she struggled (though she had clearly gained some confidence).

IS then complied with a request and presented a really elaborate dES ragam. His raga alapanai here spoke of his tremendous creativity. It was filled with folkish phrases with several MPD,PM sequences which are almost never heard in this ragam, slippery gamakas produced by rapid fingering, DND phrases and a general emphasis on the dhaivatham which sometimes almost veered on kAmbOji, etc. Of course, the rAga bhAvam was rarely compromised as IS judiciously emphasised the madhyamam with careful, elongated jArus to the madhyamam (RM,,,GR; RM,,,,G,,RS). It was by far the most interesting dES ragam I have ever heard. The concert concluded with an elaborate bhajan.

I must agree with Harimau here. IS will make his mark in CM because he has the single most important trait for a Carnatic musician: creativity. His flourishes and raga alapanais today reflected not merely his creativity but his courage to deviate from tradition (especially with such senior musicians as Nagai Muralidharan and Guruvayur Dorai in the front row) and present his own brand of music. Additionally, IS plays with a lot of bhAvam, incorporates kArvais and silences very effectively in his music, and immerses himself in his music.

He does have a few hurdles, however:

(1) An occasional lack of sAhitya shuddam (and shruti shuddam) in his krithi renditions. Even with common krithis like sObillu and nagumOmu, I felt his word splitting was off (it might just have been me, so others are welcome to comment).
(2) He often plays the first line of a pallavi or anupallavi of a composition, stops, and plays a two to three avarthana raga sketch before continuing. I feel this practice often disrupts the fluency of the krithi rendition and that he should reserve kArvais and flourishes for the end of parts of the composition (end of the pallavi, AP, charanam).
(3) He often struggled to blow for an extended period of time. His kArvais often had to be interrupted while he changed the reed (don't know what it is - some kind of mouthpiece), and the continuity which is a hallmark of nAdhaswara music was often missing. This is definitely his most important hurdle as I see it. He must find a way to sustain a note for a period of time and to play at least one part of a composition without having to stop every now and then.
(4) Chitra Subramaniam is obviously not concert-ready. Her blowing was very feeble and she could not even blow one swara loudly for any amount of time and had to constantly rest the nAdhaswaram on the ground (so she could never get a good sound out of it). She also did nothing other than repeat IS's patterns during her few kalpanaswara returns and I am just not convinced she needs to share the stage with IS. When he does not play, she stops playing as well, so she does not play the role of an accompanist as well. She also seemed rather awed by the occasion and did not appear to have any confidence in herself. She definitely had a negative impact on this concert and several audience members felt much more strongly about her playing.

The double tavil percussion accompaniment was very good this morning. The tavil players alternated during krithi renditions so there was no, er, ensemble feel to the concert. Both of them played with immense clarity and their accompaniment for teliyalEru rAma and the dES bhajan spoke of their sensitivity to music as well. The thani avarthanam they played was one of the most interesting ones this weekend as they used the stick (don't know the name, sorry) in conjunction with their finger tips to play some really curious patterns.

All in all, this was a good concert.

[rajeshnat]

05. maryAda kAdura (R,S,T) - shankarAbharaNam - Adi - T

mariyAda gAdurA is a number that Flute mahalingam popularized a lot, possibly these are one of the few krithis of T where it is more popularized by non vocalists than vocalists..

[rajeshnat]

(1) An occasional lack of sAhitya shuddam (and shruti shuddam) in his krithi renditions. Even with common krithis like sObillu and nagumOmu, I felt his word splitting was off (it might just have been me, so others are welcome to comment).

Bilahari
Lack of Shruthi Suddham perhaps just happens , it is unexplainable and unintentional.

With respect to your second point on sAhitya suddham , I think in general as a rule of thumb nAdaswara vidwans take more artistic liberty in presenting more rAga bhavam than in general sAhithyam , in the sense you can see lot of recordings of even great masters like karaikkurichi , TNR taking a more liberty in being manodharmic with more rAgabhavam patterns at the cost of little slip in sAhityam. I am not following nAdaswaram live concerts that much other than the only AKC natarajan clarinet that I attended a year back, per se , possibly my point of view can be challenged too.

Very intense and well written review.Kudos to organizers for inviting them all the way to san diego.

[bilahari]

Interesting point, Rajesh. But I do think that being chaste to sahitya is important in instrumental music. I should download some TNR from Sangeethapriya and listen.

[rajeshnat]

Interesting point, Rajesh. But I do think that being chaste to sahitya is important in instrumental music. I should download some TNR from Sangeethapriya and listen.

My point of view is only for nAdaswaram ,in general you dont find such a thing in veenA or violin instrument concerts where chaste sAhityam is as much or even more than a vocal. I will pass few nAdaswaram crts to specifically clarify the point i made.

[srikant1987]

I think indicating sAhityam could be a challenge by itself on wind instruments (even flute).

He often plays the first line of a pallavi or anupallavi of a composition, stops, and plays a two to three avarthana raga sketch before continuing. I feel this practice often disrupts the fluency of the krithi rendition and that he should reserve kArvais and flourishes for the end of parts of the composition (end of the pallavi, AP, charanam).

Yes indeed, I find this unaesthetic too. Though sometimes (especially with sensitive percussionists), it could be a good time to play upto one and a half avartanas of silence. But again, I think it's a little more common among nAdaswaram vidwans too, as compared to, say, vainikas.

[SimhaNandana]

Nice write up Bilahari. A small typo in the Kannada song name you have written.. It is "kshIrAbdi kannike"

[bilahari]

SimhaNandana, thank you for the correction.

Srikant and Rajesh - clearly, nAdaswara vidwans seem to do several things differently in krithi renditions! I really need to listen to more nAdaswara music.