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Vocal : Trichur brothers - Srikrishna Mohan & Ramkumar Mohan
Violin : MA Krishnaswamy
Mrudangam : Trichur Mohan
ghatam : Venkatasubramaniam(n?)
Concert duration : 1 hour and 45 minutes
Sponsors : I wish ODOMOS sponsored it
Saturday , I am usually in a dilemma as there are atleast 2 or more concerts to choose and goto. Had to choose between Trichur Brothers and RG sisters in SKGS. Decided to go with the brothers . The concert was advertised to be held in kalAkruthi in chetpet after an awards ceremony at 6pm. I went at 06:45 pm(as I was not interested in speech and awards) and incidentally the venue shankarAlayam hall in spurtank road , chetput did have power cut .
Because of delayed start,The award speech was minimal with vidushi NC soundaravalli speaking(it was just 10 to 15 minute affair) and the award was given to suryaprakash and K gAyathri. As the awards was given, I just looked back to see one of the brothers was applying ODOMOS, they had the vimochanam from the mosquitoes and as the concert moved on the mosquitoes disturbed all of us , the hall has a fairly lousy (to put the least )sound system. But hey as long as the sound decibel is not high, and when the musicians are able to bring intense classicism the sound system need not be the best (perhaps only carnatic music can achieve that kind of intrinsic excellence despite sub optimal sound setting)
1. vanajAkshirO - kalyAni - poochi
2. ganarAjEna samrakshiTOham (RS S) - Arabi - MD
swaras for 3 mins
3. brOcEvaarevarE (R,S) - shreeranjani - T
alApana for 11 mins and violin return for 6 mins
3 mins swaras
4. nAnOru vilayAttu - navarasa kannaDa - psivan
5A. rtp in Desh
rAga alApanai for 19 mins
violin return for 6 mins
tAnam for 7 mins
pallavi "vaNdE ??? varadAyikE paradevathE" for 7 mins
swararAgamAliga in Desh + Anandabhairavi + hinDOlam + KApi for 10 mins
5B. tani for 11 mins
6. nAnAti baduku - revati - AC
7A. pavamAna - sowrAshtram - T
7B. brief madhyamAvati slokham on mahA chandrasekara swami
The brothers started at 07:10 pm with the famous kalyANi varnam dedicated to poochi(not the musquito) , i was wondering with that breakneck speed were they cutting a 78 rpm disc with that rendition. The rendition reminded me of antakAlathu chembai bhAgavathar singing it as a very flat and fast number, not too great in short.
The unusual breakneck kalyAni varnam paved way to usual breakneck ArAbi with a dikshitar krithi , the rendition was well done the swaras at the end were bit repetitive in patterns but still overall a nice rendition.
The concert picked up from #3 with a lovely alApana of shreeranjani.These brothers have a style that is very enticing to say the least. One can assert that there is a heavy vocal synchronization ,and if I can say packed with classical sangathi density . Usually with most dual brothers and sisters, one sibling takes one rAga in a submain and pass to the other sibling the main alapAna. But these brothers just exchange the baton quite fast and it keeps me very engaged most of the time as there is no sag.
In shriranjani alApana with one brother hitting a high tAra sthAyi note every once in 2 minutes ,another brother is just strumming like a tampurA and giving sharpness to the note to give aesthetic bonus. The krithi brOcEvArevarE in shriranjani usually goes with fairly quick turns where spacing of sangathis is not sampradAYa shreeranjani (atleast for this krithi) and I liked their ferrari ride there. For a such well sung alApana and krithi the swaras were bit measured , I felt they could have gone little more there.
The famous shivan's krithi nAnOru vilayAttu bomaiyyA was bit rushed ,a little spacing before and during charanam would have been lovelier .One of the brothers announced at the end of navarasakannada that since they are running short of time they will go for a RTP. The RTP in Desh was stunning and exceptionally creative in alApana and tANam . The alApana of DESH ,being independence day gelled well and they taking turns for about 19 minutes was just awesome, cant expect anything more in dEsh alApana.
The tAnam was non metered for few minutes and when the violinist returned , trichur mohan played beautifully and just cajoled the dEsh .There were quite a few exotic rides perhaps with the most safest hands of their dad the ride was well steared by the brothers.
Desh a cameo rAga as a pallavi gives me goosebumps from the day I listened to a suryaprakash pallavi roughly 5 or 6 years back, the recurring theme is always on mother India whenever it is delivered on the independence day. This pallavi today was again on mother India with lines "vaNdE ??? varadAyikE paradevathE", with me never never getting the second phrase??? of the pallavi.
After an exhaustive pallavi neraval they went with swara rAgamAligA with a very brief Desh swaras.The swararAga mAliga was a nice vocal orchestration between brothers , with one brother exhausting in AnandabhAiravi the other brother taking it from there in hindOlam was edge of the seat affair . Then the more tara sthayi pitch hitter took a long cycle of swaras in kApi .Overall liked the ananda bhairavi and hindOlam the kApi was little too rushed and just did not fall in place with the percussion. During violin return in swaras , krishnaswami played anAndha bhairavi , hindolam and went to vasantha bhairavi there.
There was only one tukkadA , an annamAcharya krithi in revati popularized by MS ammA and it was well done. The accompanist violinist was quite good but had very minor role to play as most of the time the brothers were rotating.Their father played with lot of sowkhyam and his use of toppi in tAnam was very well done.ghatam artist was hardly heard in the concert. Their tani was well done in line with the pallavi.
Few shortcomings of the brothers:
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1. I prefer these brothers to go in the same style of overlapping alternation ,as I said before there is more classical sangathi density in their concerts no OB adichufying . But I prefer them not to rotate as fast for all krithis at times just getting a feeling they are rushing bit too fast . This style just gells well with pallavi and alApana but at times when they go with high speed swaras the gelling of percussion just goes bit whacky(I felt that a lot in their kApi swaras).
2. I am always a swara loving rasika and generally prefer engaging krithis with not much squating and dharna. But I still would like them to take atleast one slow moving number with a very distinct vilamba kAla kruthi , so that attention is sustained . I am pretty sure (though not heard in the few concerts that I attended )that they have the musical intellect to even sing slow numbers with right aesthetics just like how they sing racy numbers.
3. 9pm is not a time bomb time in chennai(all musicians dont get too obsessed with 9 pm close pleassssse)
I wish they had sung more, would love to hear a 3+ hr concert of theirs in the future.Overall with a highly synchronized voice and a really high shruthi adherence , these brothers have a definite USP . Overall a very good concert.