TNS f0r Brahma Gana Sabha at Petachi Auditorium

[grsastrigal]

Sri.T.N.Seshagopalan
Mridangam - K.Ramesh
Violin- VV Ravi
Ghatam A.S.Murari


1)....Singing Ritigowla Swaram. Could not get the song/varNam.

2) Vinayaka - Hamsadhwani - Vennna Kuppaiyar - Hamsadwani- Adi
Swaram in "Paramakrupa sAgara"

3) Raag-Pantuvarali followed by "rAmanAtham bhajeham"- Muthuswamy Dikshitar. Actually, it is kasi ramakriya in Dikshitar term and he took
neraval in "kumAra guruguha viditam". This was in praise of rAmeswaram rAmanAtha swAmy.

4) Raag- kannada followed by "SonnAlum iyal manam kelAdhe" - "must be Oothukkadu"

5) sArasadala nayane - Saramathi- HMB.

6) Raag- Guharanjani followed by "Ikanethala" by HMB

7) Todi main followed by "Enduku dayarAduda"- Thyagarajar

Tani

9) vandu seruvar - sahana - kavi kunjara bharati.

10) "hE dayaluvA, hE krupaluvA - Prarthana abhang.

11) Oru pozhuthum- chakravAham- Tiruppugazh - Arunagirinathar.

12) pavamAna followed by "shriyak kAnthaya....srinivAsAya mangalam...."

It was Day 2 in BGS. Venue- Petachi Auditorium. BGS along with evergreen "nalli" conferred "gAna padhmam' on
Sri.Nagai muralidharan. TNS was in very good form and perfect sruit alignment, he gave a stellar performance.
It was almost 3 hours concert and he was energy personified. Just to mention, after he completed the pavamAna
and in the middle of shriyak kanthaya, he gave a 3 minutes madhyamAvathi raga alapana which showed the energy
this veteran has had.

Given a change he would have rendered RTP on that.

The venue was surprisingly half-full despite being Sunday. I was listening kannadA raaga after a long time

Guharanjani, as TNS explained is of 40% kuntalavarAli, 20% Harikambodhi and in daivatham, it touches nAttakurinji.
Interestingly, after TNS finished guharanjani and waiting for return from VVR, the latter could not get the rAga
correctly and after 30 seconds stopped and asked TNS to start the kriti...!!

Todi, home ground of TNS, saw some breathtaking "pudis" and VV Ravi's return was also equally good.

Tani was very well done by the duo.

Tail piece - This time BGS has been charging Minimum Rs .200 and max of Rs. 2000 per day programe (after 4.30..).
Last year it was Rs. 50 strating.

In BGS, the best concert should be Malladi Brothers with Trichy Sanakran, Embar Kannar and Dr.Karthik on 17th Dec.

[arasi]

grsastrigal,
Good to have your review after some time. Enjoyed reading it. Please bring in more.
The veteran seems to be in great form! My! Could sing an RTP at the end! Makes me want to catch a concert of his soon.
So, the list had three guru's guru's compositions--all in different languages. Wish I were there.

[satyabalu]

""Guharanjani, as TNS explained is of 40% kuntalavarAli, 20% Harikambodhi and in daivatham, it touches nAttakurinji.
Interestingly, after TNS finished guharanjani and waiting for return from VVR, the latter could not get the rAga
correctly and after 30 seconds stopped and asked TNS to start the kriti...!!""
*I am sure he must have sung the chittaswaram which runs like this.(Excuse inadequate expression!)
*Pa da ni sa ni da ni sa ni da ni pa ma ga. I. sa ri sa ma pa da ni I sa ri sa ni da ni pa ma II
Pa da da ni ni sa sa ri ri sa ma ga sa ni da ni. I.sa ri ni sa ni da ni I pa ma ga sa ri sa ma II(I recollect this being ably taught by Vidwan Sunderraja Iyengar (Dis of Sri .C.Sankarasivam) as early as 1963 or so.)
*One should preserve such recordings with rare exposition of Raga by the maestro.
*BTW, is this the only kriti in this Raga?

[harimau]

Some time after the start of the concert, in walked Harikesanallur Venkataraman (HV), grandson of HMB and music critic of "Dina Thanthi".

TNS must have been inspired by his presence to sing two HMB compositions (Saramathi and Guharanjani; TNS mentioned that Guharanjani was a raga conceived by HMB) in a row.

HV left after the Todi alapana. TNS started the Sahana padam "Vandu seruvaar maane, Malaikkaathe Nee thaane" and after about a minute of this, HV walked in. TNS changed the first line slightly to "Vandu seruvaar thaane" (He will come of his own accord), evoking laughter from his accompanying artists as well as from those in the audience who knew HV and understood why TNS changed the song slightly at this point.

I don't believe the abhang was an HMB composition. TNS explained that abhangs have a special place in harikatha paddhathi and they must be sung according to tradition and not according to the whims and fancies of the singer in ragas like Bindumalini. So I don't believe the raga was Bindumalini. He also started the abhang at (and maintained) a high pitch, eplaining that without a mic, these were sung in a high pitch so that the sound could travel far. In this context, he mentioned HMB whom he called his "parama guru", HMB being the guru of Sankara Sivam under whom TNS learnt music. He said that HMB used to sing this abhang in his harikatha on the Ramayana.

[arasi]

Harimau,
The expression parama guru had eluded me at that moment. That's why I said guru's guru.
And I did not know that the critic was Harikesanallur's child's child--I mean, grandson

[cheens]

I don't believe the abhang was an HMB composition. TNS explained that abhangs have a special place in harikatha paddhathi and they must be sung according to tradition and not according to the whims and fancies of the singer in ragas like Bindumalini. So I don't believe the raga was Bindumalini. He also started the abhang at (and maintained) a high pitch, eplaining that without a mic, these were sung in a high pitch so that the sound could travel far. In this context, he mentioned HMB whom he called his "parama guru", HMB being the guru of Sankara Sivam under whom TNS learnt music. He said that HMB used to sing this abhang in his harikatha on the Ramayana.

Traditionally, He Dayaluva is sung in Mand. I believe, that is the raga in which TNS usually sings. Interestingly, there is another popular version of this same abhang in bhajan circuit in Karnaranjani (for which HMB composed the evergreen vachathonu)

- Cheenu

[grsastrigal]

harimau, you are right. For a minute, i forgot that abhang is Marati, and HMB would not have composed this. I have misunderstoo TNS speech. Stand corrected

[rshankar]

Sastrigal, IIRC, Sri HKMB did indeed compose in marAThi...but not abhangas.

[SundarK]

Is not "sArasadala nayane" in raga Khamas composed by Sri Muthuswami Dikshitar. Thanks.

[rajeshnat]

Is not "sArasadala nayane" in raga Khamas composed by Sri Muthuswami Dikshitar. Thanks.

Apart from the khamas-MD composition there is also Sarasa dala nayane sharade amba- Saramati - HMB

[grsastrigal]

Yesterday, on my return from office at 9PM, I stopped at Bharatiya Vidhyam Bhavan to see who is in the podium. TNS. He was singing tAnam in RTP. Listening to that, first I thought, vAgadeeshwari and I confirmed it is Jyotiswaroopini and nAyaki. Yes, it was two raga RTP.
The pallavi was
"Deepamangala jyotiswaroopini (Jsw), arunachala nAyike" , an apt pallavi for kArtikai dEEpam with the name of the rAgAs

For me, it is a difficult task to combine both these rAgas and bring RTP. The intricate swaras in Jsw and danger of darbar/nayaki trespass was deftly handled
by him. He took the tAnam at 9 and finised the RTP at 9.35. Now a days RTP itself gets over in half an hour. Violinist S.Sridhar and the Ghatam artists had a real tough time and pity that S.Sridhar had gone to darbar few times and found it difficult to come back to the kanakkus in swarams of jsw. I felt sorry for them. They looked like Westindies in front of Shewag. The sabhAs need to plan the accompanists for a senior artist for TNS like M.Chandrasekharan or V V Ravi etcs. TNS is sort of dare devil artist like MLV. K.Ramesh in mridangam closedly followed his swara pattern.

But, TNS has to realise the "point of no return" or "point of return", He should also know when to stop. Overdose of swarAs is always killing. After this, he took "chendanai kandhanai" a verse on Lord Muruga and started singing in Kedaragowla, hindolam, sindubhairavi and mAnd. It was 10, he was still singing. 40 odd people were still enjoying. I had to get up. He has more concerts to come including a morning cocert in MA. Pulse of the rasikas are more important than
the skill of the artist.

Though already mentioned somewhere in the post, I want to bring this incident as said to me by Mah.Ramachandran.

"Once Mah Santhanam was singing rAga in "Gangeyabhooshani" and after he finished, he immediately started the kriti without giving violin return to nAgai muralidharan. When nAgai asked the reason, after the concert, MS replied "rasikas were wondering what is this rAga and were restless, so I thought if I give you for return, they will not like it and go wild". Here is the man, who quickly checks the mood brings back the attntion of the audience. This is definitely lacking in TNS.

[CRama]

grsastrigal. YOu could have opened a new thread for TNS concert in BVB. Somebody else or myself will give a detailed review of the concert. It deserved a detailed review. Others- please open a new thread for each concert review so that feed back also will follow in that thread.

[grsastrigal]

Actually, I don't open a new thread, where I do not attend the concert fully. That is why, I inserted this in this particular thread. Since it is connectd to TNS, this is the only way, I can write my review. If someone starts and gives full list (even if no review), I will add to it. The most important part of any review is full list of songs and accompaniments.

[PUNARVASU]

Is not "sArasadala nayane" in raga Khamas composed by Sri Muthuswami Dikshitar. Thanks.

The song in kamAs by Shri MSD is 'sArasdaLa nayana' , a composition on Lord Krishna.