Smt.VS at Hamsadhwani (02/04; Indiranagar, chennai)

[Sundarnrao]

Yesterday’s concert by Smt. VS (Organizer: Hamsadhwani; Location:youth campus hostel, Indira Nagar, Adyar) was steeped into a remarkable combination of great-tradition, subservient-spirituality, reflecting-thoughts and imaginary expressions. Smt. VS commenced the concert with valachi varnam and created an ambiance of devotions for rasikas through a stimulatingly disciplined presentation. Through her resonant and cultured voice, smt. VS moved ahead with malayamarutham based manasa etulo where she casted a beautiful manodharma spells on alaap (very crisp and extremely effective), behlawas, textual-elaborations and sargams.

Artistic dedication of smt. VS was revealed in bhupali based kadambari where she wonderfully exuberated every aspect of raagdhari through a detailed alaap and also during ornanmented sargam cycles at the end. Malkauns based marugelara followed next with splendors and lure to prepare the rasikas for the main-presentation of the concert. Musically drenched rasikas then witnessed a superb presentation of bhairavi (upachalamulanu) that demonstrated the heights of creative classicism of smt. VS, who executed an imaginative improvisation on vistaari-alaap, bol-banav, bol-taans, bol-baants, behlawas, khatkas, murkis, and sargams. Accompaniments (Charumathi raghuraman on violin, P.Subramanian on mridangam, BS purshothaman on kanjira) added great sport all through the concert and notably in this main-presentation.

Smt. VS then graduated to a paraj (not sure of Carnatic equivalent) like bandish smara sundara and enhanced the emotive quotient through an effervescent execution. Kabir bhajan Rama Govinda hari was delivered with varied characteristics of aesthetics. Smt. VS’s class-par-excellence was hallmarked with a phenomenal rendition of her signature bandish arul seyya (rasikapriya).

Smt. VS then concluded the wonderful concert with a short vritham like mangalam.

[mahavishnu]

Sundarnrao: I must give it to you for your relentless pursuit of the verbose.

But just so you know, we call them "kritis" in Carnatic music, when we refer to compositions of people like Koteeswara Iyer. Much of CM revolves around these kinds of compositions. Second, a composition like SmarasundarAnguni is called a jAvaLi. The word bandish just won't do for either. So, please do not call it that.

A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but we don't call it a tulip for good reason.

[Sam Swaminathan]

By the way what is the full name of VS?

[MV]

By the way what is the full name of VS?

Vijayalaxmi Subramanian.

[MV]

Sundarnrao: I must give it to you for your relentless pursuit of the verbose.

But just so you know, we call them "kritis" in Carnatic music, when we refer to compositions of people like Koteeswara Iyer. Much of CM revolves around these kinds of compositions. Second, a composition like SmarasundarAnguni is called a jAvaLi. The word bandish just won't do for either. So, please do not call it that.

A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but we don't call it a tulip for good reason.

[srikant1987]

Sundarnrao: I must give it to you for your relentless pursuit of the verbose.

Well, I find this review easy to read, compared to many of Sundarnrao's earlier ones ...

I don't think using "bandish" for smarasundaraguni is a problem.

Sundarnrao, the Carnatic equivalent of paraj is paraj.

remarkable combination of great-tradition, subservient-spirituality, reflecting-thoughts and imaginary expressions
...
prepare the rasikas for the main-presentation of the concert

The hyphens joining the adjectives (great, subservient, "reflecting" and main) to their following nouns are unnecessary. Weird that you haven't used one for "imaginary expressions".

[Sam Swaminathan]

Thank you MV for the clarification. I am very happy that CR, PS and BS made the concert such a huge success ! And I am looking forward to SR's commentary on various other concerts.

[hamirkalyani123]

For ease of understanding the CR, PS and BS maps to

Smt. Charumati Raghuram - violin
Poongulam Sri. Subramaniam - Mridangam
Sri. BS Purushotham - Kanjira

Overall it was a very enjoyable concert on a very pleasant evening...

[sureshvv]

vistaari-alaap, bol-banav, bol-taans, bol-baants, behlawas, khatkas, murkis, and sargams

Reminds me of the time when Madras 'B' featured a program of "shaayri" before a live studio audience who would say "wah wah" after every couple lines and once someone was overheard saying "waah sollu da"