Suryaprakash - MA - 23rd Dec 2010

[bilahari]

R. Suryaprakash – Vocal
K. P. Nandini – Violin
K.N. Mohanram – Mrudangam

Duration: 2h

Approximate Songlist:

01. swAminAta (S) – nATTai – Adi
02. anudinamunu (N @ kanakanaruchi) – bEgaDa – rUpakam
03. mahA rAja rAjESwari (R, S @ mEru rAjasura) – swarnAngi – Adi
04. evarUrA – mOhanam – miSra cApu
05. saravaNa bhava guhanE (S @ pallavi) – kannaDa – Adi
06. srI lalitE kAnci (R, N @ nIlaja dala lOcanE, S, T) – bhairavi – Adi – Annasamy Shastri
07. rAgam tAnam pallavi – kAmbOji – tiSra tripuTa
pallavi: parimaLa rangapatE mAm pAhi (eDuppu ½ before samam)
08. peTRa tAi tanai (vruttam) – hamsAnandi, sindhu bhairavi, bEhAg
09. manamE gaNamum – sindhu bhairavi

I arrived as Suryaprakash was amidst kalpanaswaras in swAminAta. I have been longing for bEgaDa for a while now and anudinamunu came as a pleasant surprise. There was a detailed neraval in this krithi which was handled nicely. The swarnAngi alapanai was interesting – pretty quirky raga that sounds like a happier version of shubhapantuvarALi. SaravaNa bhava was rendered very nicely with swaras. Suryaprakash embarked on a thorough bhairavi alapanai – it was very classical and covered many of the raga’s important phrases effectively. A rare krithi was taken up and I enjoyed it very much. The neraval and swara prastharam were both executed well. I enjoyed the G,R centric patterns in the swaras. I was more than happy when kAmbOji was taken up for pallavi. Suryaprakash sang a good alapanai that was especially noteworthy for the tara gandaram oriented phrases. He even did a dramatic ascent to the tAra panchamam as MMI used to and evoked similar applause. The tAnam was concise. No neraval was sung in the pallavi. There were ragamaliga swaras including darbAri and one other raga. Trikalam was done as well. The vruttam provided a nice close to the concert.

This is my first time listening to Suryaprakash live. I was impressed by his shruti shuddam and classicism – elaborate raga alapanais and neravals both featured in the concert. There was an element of surprise, as well, with the suvarnAngi. However, I felt a certain additional “oomph” was missing from the concert. It’s hard to pin down – I think a degree of spontaneity was lacking. Rajesh often comments about Suryaprakash’s exceptional imagination, so my observation here might be just wrong and an artefact of my own mood more than anything else. Also, the sowkhyam component seemed missing.

Nandini appears to be from the Lalgudi school. She played very nicely and I liked her bhairavi ragam. Her darbAri response was also top notch. Good violinist in the making. She has a tendency to overdo oscillations in notes. Mohanram gave competent support on the mrudangam. The thani was short and sweet.

It was a good concert.

[arasi]

Bilahari,
I am glad you touched upon the 'classicism' bit of Surya's music. In the sweep of the dominant 'jana ranjakam' aspect of his singing (with a great ringing voice, range and the Sruti Suddham), we tend to pay less attention to it. Though I am not used to siesta, a lunch and sitting in a concert hall in the afternoon hours can induce a nap--but not when he was singing!.
You are right about Nandhini's durbAri. i heard her for the first time. I ran into her after the concert and remarked about the durbAri and said, though brief it was, it was impressive. I also said that MSG had played that madhyamAvati the previous evening, and brief though it was and old though he is, it sparkled. She has many many more years of playing, and I wished her a bright career.
I liked the sound of Mohanram's mrudangam too.

This morning, off to hear Suryaprakash again at NGS!

[rajeshnat]

03. mahA rAja rAjESwari (R, S @ mEru rAjasura) – swarnAngi – Adi
...
09. manamE gaNamum – sindhu bhairavi
...
However, I felt a certain additional “oomph” was missing from the concert. It’s hard to pin down – I think a degree of spontaneity was lacking. ...

bilahari
Few corrections in your song list
03. mahA rAja rAjESwari (R, S @ mEru rAjasura) – swarnAngi – maharAjapuram vishwanAtha sAstri
09. manamE gaNamum – bhimplAs - papAnasam sivan(popularized by MS ammA )

On Spontaneity , I would say I have always experienced it, possibly your insights there with more words will help especially the vidwan. Reading your review I felt it was always to your liking like you have mentioned your dear neravals were there,shruthi suddham etc . I could not make it to this concert.

Any way Tx for writing 3 opinions and attending 4 crts . I will continue to attend concerts from today night too. I attended one yesterday just an hour and half . My customer has gone out of meenambakkam airport

[harimau]

[quote="bilahari"]

R. Suryaprakash – Vocal

09. manamE gaNamum – sindhu bhairavi

[quote]

The words would have been "Maname kshanamum" if we didn't have a phobia about Sanskrit words inside a Tamil composition. "Kshanam" (meaning a second, as in 60 seconds make a minute) gets modified to "kanam" in Tamil dropping the 'sh', not "ganam".

I have heard musicians sing "Ini Oru ganam" in Sriranjani as well.

If Sowmya had thought that this "ganam" is one among the bhoothaganams, she would have sung it at her Halloween-themed Bharat Sangeet Utsav concert in October/November!

[arasi]

harimau,
The word for kshaNam in tamizh is kaNam--as in 'ini oru kaNam unai maRavEn', 'kaNamum piriyEn'.

[Ramasubramanian M.K]

Bilahari: Nice summation!! The Bhairavi item(#6 in your review) is a song that DKJ popularised in the eighties--he has taught it to all of his disciples. My sister was one among them. The charanam Neelaya dala Lochani(I may have scrambled some of the words here,my apologies) is a nice place for neraval---to a certain extent the krithi resembles Thyagaraja's Lalithe Sree Pravruthe(Lalgudi Pancharathnam).


Looking forward to your reviews--please comment upon the younger audiences "texting" during performances-- and other canteen humor!! Also a review of the best canteen food amongst the Sabhas would also be welcome!! When you do review the canteen foods, please list the items that are out-of-the-ordinary!! This way you would have stirred up my EQ (Envy Quotient) to unbearable levels!!!

[grsastrigal]

I agree with Arasi. In tamil, KaNam is correct. But in another Tamil compostion Kshanam is correct because of its "beauty and word phrase"
of the Charanam

Enna kavi pAdinalum- (Neelamani- Somu's favourite.

song goes like this....

Akshara Laksham.......
Pakshamudane vandu.....
E Kshanatil unnail anRi....
(A)lakshyamo unakku.....

[bilahari]

I'm glad kaNam came up. I was wondering about it when SP was pointedly singing the vallina "Na", and now there is an explanation thanks to arasi.

Rajesh, I will reflect a bit more on SP's singing and get back to you.

[harimau]

harimau,
The word for kshaNam in tamizh is kaNam--as in 'ini oru kaNam unai maRavEn', 'kaNamum piriyEn'.

Do you think I was saying something different?

PS. I refuse to put capital letters in the middle of words. That was the way I was taught English!

[bilahari]

Get with the times, yo!

[keerthi]

The words would have been "Maname kshanamum" if we didn't have a phobia about Sanskrit words inside a Tamil composition. "Kshanam" (meaning a second, as in 60 seconds make a minute) gets modified to "kanam" in Tamil dropping the 'sh', not "ganam".

It isn't about a phobia. It is the nature of a language (bhASA-dharma), and how it modifies borrows words when they are assimilated.

A kSaNa or a kOTi in Tamizh are incongruous and simply wrong, (except in cases of prAsa conformity).

The AzhwAr-s must have been either tamizh-fundamentalists or SanskRt-phobes, to say arakkan and iruDIkEsan for rAkSasa and hRSIkEsha??

I refuse to put capital letters in the middle of words. That was the way I was taught English

Yes, yes, kaNam is an english word, and the roman script is all about English.

All those indic scholars are grammatically challenged or 'haughty and pretentious' for using the Harvard-Tokyo transliteration scheme.

Happy Christmas!

[ksrimech]

The AzhwAr-s must have been either tamizh-fundamentalists or SanskRt-phobes, to say arakkan and iruDIkEsan for rAkSasa and hRSIkEsha??

Good point keerti. Yes they weren't.

For those who do believe that, we can prove that they weren't from their own works. During the days of AzhvAr or nAyanmArs or earlier, they never included Sa, Sha, sa, and ha because tamizh language did not have it at that time. They were probably added later on due to the introduction of maNipravALam (mixture of tamizh and sanskrit). Also, tamizh grammar prohibits the beginning of a word with a half syllables (right???).

[sureshvv]

Also the direction of borrowing is not always obvious.

Many words in Sanskrit are synthesized forms of words borrowed from Prakrit languages (like Tamil) and then baptized with a canonical pronunciation.

[arasi]

Harimau,
I thought you were objecting to gaNam!
As for capital letters, that's the only way we can distinguish among na and Na-s, la and La-s. Otherwise, there is the danger of sounding like the TV, movie folks who often interchange the pronunciation. Also, imagine the way the lyrics would read without the capitals--for those who do not speak tamizh!