Smt. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam Vani Mahal (12/27)

[Sundarnrao]

Sanctity, spirituality, solemnity and sensitivity continued to be the secret-sauce of Smt. VS at the Vani mahal concert today. The doyen from Late Shri. S. Rajam Gharana spirited the concert with sarasija varnam to define the ambiance with an abiding blend of quality, purity and sobriety to all the rasikas.

Smt. VS went ahead with her second bandish seethamma mayamma (vasantha) marking an immaculate ‘surelpan’ on every note and mesmerized all the listeners with ingenious musical phrases on the improvisation-cycles(alaap, bol-baant, sargams, bol-vistaars).

Smt. VS’s creative outbursts were further characterized in the third recital Brovabarama (bahudari) where the mastero exhibited an outstanding imagination of sargam-passages, bol-vistaar and alaaps that enthralled all the accompanists on the stage in-addition to the overawed rasikas.

Smt. VS scaled her fourth performance with a vritham (mukda: srimath sundara nayaki) and beautified the presentation into ahiri based mayamma eni bandish. She demonstrated heights of scarce sensations in this rendition.

Kalyan based Bhajare re chita was her main performance spanning nearly 1hr that elaborated a journey of emotions, improvisations (alaap, behlwas, bol-taans, sargams) and sancharis. Perfect precision of raagdhari and industrial virtuosity were the added delights to this stupendous presentation. Violinist (Lalgudi Viji) and accompanists (Sri. poongulam subramaniam on mridangam; Sri.Guruprasad on ghatam) also had a great ball during this main presentation besides ensuring a great support across the concert. Playoffs revolved around gmp, pdpmgr and dnd as baseline.

Her multi-layered presentation were further revering in the immediately followed RTP ( Pallavi mukda: "dhi-thai, dhee-dhee-thai endraadum deivame, enai kaatharul kanaka sabheshane") that eventually got transformed into raag mala ( covering an array of khammaj-thaat, bhairavi-thaat and kafi-thaat based ragas) to attest an extreme emotive appeal besides an ornamented drapery of alaap, bol-taans, Dhrupadi-gamaks, bol-baants, bol-vistaars & sargams as part of manodharma execution. Some of her nam-tom phrasings reminded me of Agra gharana doyen ustad vilayat khan’s strong influence.

As the saying goes, “ If there is a feeling in the soul, there is a definite feeling in the art”, Smt. VS casted splendors in her seventh presentation on kaapi ( kannada-vritham that linked into jagadhodharana) and established an array of creative flourishes through bol-alaaps.

Smt. VS illustrated unusual interpretations and paramount fidelity on rasikapriya ( arul seyya) as part of her eighth piece besides painting a spellbinding tamil-vritham (raga-mala) to arrive at rasikapriya. With the same impetus, she sprinkled poignant graces to her ninth presentation vrindhavani sarang based thillana layering racy-brilliance inventively and later, concluded the concert with a hearty mangalam.

Smt. VS, the truest seeker of bhakthi-maarg, not only drenched herself devotedly, but also transported all the rasikas as part of her extraterrestrial journey.

[Jyeshtha]

There are two threads for this concert. Can be merged with Mohan's?