Smt. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam Srinivasa Sastry Hall 01-July

[Sundarnrao]

This fascination for the serious music lovers with an equilibrium and divine abstraction of Smt.VS’s music began right from the first-drone and her voice continued to be mellifluous & pitch-aligned to bind the listeners in a spell.

Smt VS struck an emotional pang on the first song saranga-varnam and exhibited a phenomenal start. Smt.VS’s absorption of rasikas in her second presentation sarasiruha was strongly due to her wizardry of artistic elaboration with poetic touches on the lyrics.


Unification of listener’s tranquility requires a deep renovation from “Sadhan” to “Sadhya” and this was revealed in her third presentation on kamas presentation. Alaap was just outstanding. Known for her specialty to create magical manodharmas(MD) based on the raga dynamics and raga emotion, she truly exhilarated novel sketches across the MD departments.

Her fourth poised presentation gaanamudha etched yet another unforgettable ambiance all through. Fifth on telisi rama was yet another blazer in the presentation and reassured that the concert was going to get stronger.

The uncrowned empress in smt.VS sublimated a soulful and emphatic sixth presentation kaligiyunte building profound pace on the overall performance – When every sur is seen as a god, the ornamentation of surs shaping to form raga-clusters created a galaxy-of-gods through her electrifying performance and manodharma statements including an inexhaustible serenity of kirwani alaapana. This was followed by a graceful O pavanathmaja that woved a captivating spell to all the listeners.

Smt.VS’s single-minded approach to a raga balancing sur-taal-lay-bol-bandish strongly confirms her secret sauce of creating emotions through that finest-balance and her seventh presentation sarvam brahma mayam was no exception to this. It was one of the most scintillating madhuvanthi heard after many years. The range of emotions immersed with bhakthi and the color characteristics with full uniqueness was a superfluity today.

Karpagame followed by a terse mangalam both set in megh was also a retreat. It was a terrific balance of classicism and yet poignant with smt. VS’s usual sketches of expressive artistry.

Both the accompaniment artists (Sri. Sundaresan on Mridangam; Sri. Mysore Srikanth on the violin) created a sporting balance to strengthen the performance and blended their support to enable VS in enhancing the creative brilliance during the concert.

It was great to see the MC reading out profile-details elaboratively on all the performing artists. This is truly a welcoming initiative that warms up the heart of both the artists and the listeners. Smt. VS courteously thanked the MC for his effort to detail out artistic biography.

What a great day to welcome july-1st – which is also the 45th birthday of Rashid-Bhai (aka, Ustad Rashid Khan of Rampur-Sahaswan Gharana). Coincidentally, Kirwani, Megh (madhyamavathi), Madhuvanthi etc are all some of the popular ragas that Rashid-Bhai is seen presenting often and these fell out as a great birthday souvenir for him. May the musical vibrations that smt.VS created turn out as a sheer blessings to Rashid-Bhai on his birthday today.

[mahavishnu]

Wow, Ustad Rashid Khan is only 45? Amazing what he has achieved to date!
Sundarnrao, thanks for another floral review.

[arasi]

A bouquet of a review, indeed! Thanks, Sundarnrao.
'Vijaya'lakshmi, the undefeated empress rather than the uncrowned one She fills her concerts with many unheard songs and rAgAs. Look forward to listening to her this season.
Many happy returns of the day to Rashid Khan. May his music flower forth more! Hope you will write more reviews. May I suggest that you give us a song list in the beginning?

Mahavishnu,
Reminds me that we are missing kedharam with his blossoming reviews. Have we got to wait till the Season comes around?
They say it was raining in Bengaluru--in Chennai too? Good music goes on. Then why this drought in reviews? I know Rajesh is very busy with work.
As Maduraimini said in the Bengaluru Rasikas Meet thread, we are all thirsty for reviews!

[Sundarnrao]

yes, Mahavishnu sir. Rashid-Bhai (b: 01-July-1966) is 45. Still can't get out of Smt. VS's Kamas - very artistic presentation. Rashid-Bhai is also frequent on khammaj (often mishra-khammaj) with his signature bandishes (compositions) ' kaun albeli' or 'shyam sundar banwari'. Forgot to add this point y'day. I'm sure Rashid-Bhai would have also had a ball and would have given multitudes of 'daad' (instant appreciations pointing hands or with 'wah' or 'kya-baat-hei' or 'yeh baat' etc) in all her presentations.

Sure, Arasi madam. will definitely work on the structure of writing you advised. I'm still learning to align writing techniques on the carnatic-based-formats. Apologies for the inconvenience caused.

[rajeshnat]

Smt.VS’s absorption of rasikas in her second presentation sarasiruha was strongly due to her wizardry of artistic elaboration with poetic touches on the lyrics.
...
This was followed by a graceful O pavanathmaja that woved a captivating spell to all the listeners.

Since she sang sarasiruha in nAttai , do you mean "pavanaja stuti pAtra(sita kalyAna vaibhogamE) in shankarAbharanam" when you say pavanathmaja

[satyabalu]

Dear Friend,

A.I.R. would be broadcasting her concert of Syama Sastri compositions on 2nd July - Saturday at 9:30 PM on Madras A. Happy listening!

[HR]

Rajeshnat - Dr. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam sang the Mukhari Raga composition - Sarasiruhanana

the song list for the evening -

1. Inta Modi Seya - Varnam - Saranga - Adi - Tiruvottriyur Tyagaiyer
2. Sarasiruhanana - Mukhari - Adi - Thyagaraja - S
3. Sri Swaminathaaya - Khamas - Khanda Chapu - Muttuswami Dikshitar - R , N , S
4. Gaanamutha paanam - Jyotiswarooopini - Adi - Kotiswara Iyer - R
5. Telisirama - Poornachandrika - Adi - Thyagaraja
6. Kaligiyunte - Keeravani - Adi - Thyagaraja - R , N , S , T
7. O Pavanathmaja - Sankara - Adi - Annamayya - Set to Tune by Dr. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam
8. Sarvam Brahma Mayam - Madhuvanti - Sadasiva Brahmendram - tuned by Smt. Vijayalakshmy's guru Sri. S. Rajam sir
9. Karpagame - Madyamavathi - Adi - Papanasam Sivan

[arasi]

HR,
Thanks for the song list.

Though the meaning is the same, 4 is gAnAmuda pAnam.

[Sundarnrao]

Terrific listing with novel representation done innovatively through " R N S T" etc.

For rasikas that are not familiar with Raga Shankara and are interested to note -- It is part of Bilawal Thaat and is ascented with S G P N D N S and desencted with S N P G P G(R) S; Please note the "Kan" on rishabh. Pakad / key-phrase -- S (P)G P, P (R)G-->S (poorvaang), G P N D S" N ( Utraang)
Chalan/raga-movement -- S (P)G P, G P N D [S"] N, G P N S" ; P N S" G"-->[S"] N, P N D S" N-->P, G P DG P (R)G-->S
Shankara is also referred as the raga that invokes source of Joy to Shiva and is a night-raga in HM samay-ki-pradhan

[arasi]

If you go though the song lists in the Review Section, you will find that it's more or less a regular thing to point out where the RNS-s took place in a concert, thanks to Rajesh who even gives you the duration in minutes! A tall order for scatter brains like me.
The reviews here are special because they are written with a view to share one's own listening pleasure (often that way!) with others who are unable to be there. All are amateurs and not folks who write for the media. Each brings his or her own flavor to a review.

[CRama]

Sudarnrao. Fantastic review of Smt VS concert as it always comes from you. This reminds me of the most picturesque of review of TNS concerts by Saroja Ramanujam which do nto come nowadays. I think you are well versed in both the streams of music- CM and HM. But my only doubt. Why do you restrict to only VS concerts? I would like to read your reviews of lot many concerts of other musicians as well.

[Sundarnrao]

Dear CRama sir - Thanks for your suggestion to widen writing. Being an ardent probationer of HM for nearly 2 decades, I'm always deeply motivated on Dr.VS's creative contents to any raga elaborations, her emotional excellence with balanced devotion/expressions/musical aesthetics, her aprachalit raga/kriti undertakings, her tonal consistency/range-management/cultured voice-textures, her purity based approach to any demonstrations that creates divine ambience, her artistic value in balancing the right ornementations/embellishments/sangathis/vistaars/alaaps/badats/behlawas/bol-baants/laykaari etc without compromising on the raga-dynamics, raga-mood, raga-frameworks and raga-based-aesthetics, her focus to build synergy values and creative-freedom to her accompaniment artists, her discipline and persistence to not get distracted/overwhelemed with vocal acrobatics/gymnastics (that she may easily produce based on her tayyari/riyaz/vocal texture), her lyrical quotients (dictions, enunciations, pronounciations etc) etc makes me fully inspired to attend most of her concerts and motivate me to write up in this forum passionately.

[CRama]

Dear Sudarnrao, You have not left out any idiom for glorification of VS music that can be used by others. But These qualities are available in music of many other musicians in different quotients. (I do like VS music, among many others). I suggest you to explore this musical world on a wider scale and post your reviews.

[mahavishnu]

I fully agree with CRama. I am happy for you that the music of Smt VS inspires you so. However, writing exclusively about one artiste ends up sounding like fan mail. I think both CRama and I mean this in the most constructive spirit possible.

[mahesh3]

Fanmail is fine, according to me! Carnatic music has always had a long history of rasikas preferring a particular artist, and if it is particularly someone with an established interest for nearly 2 decades like Sundarnrao...its says to me that because of a discerning preference, he/she claims to be more fully inspired to attend Smt. VS's concert vs. other artists, and that really should be a good enough reason! It is upto the reader really, to look through the glorifying idioms, and parse out the meaningful insights....common, folks...this is a public forum!

Meanwhile, heard the Syama Sastry concert on sangeethamshare. Nice.

[HR]

Here are the video clips of a few songs sung in the concert for ICCR . These have been uploaded by Sri . T.V.G . Happy listening!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYzM7pbisKI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCDEPztyrns

http://www.youtube.com/user/teeveegee08 ... csnU4-yVj0

[satyabalu]

*Shall we call Sri TVG as "Tavaramal varum (google/group)Download. I am not telling in a light vein -His service is great .You donot miss anything .
*Why Ariyakudi photo is sidelined?