Sri MR Sainath - Mrudanga
Sri Dayanand Mohite - Ghata
21 July 2012
BTM Cultural Academy
@ Ramana Maharshi Academy for the Blind, near East End, JP Nagar
Bangalore
sarasUDa - sAvEri - Adi - Kothavasal Venkatarama Iyer (R)
vallabha nAyakasya - bEgaDe - rUpaka - MD (RS)
divAkara tanujam - yadukulakAmbhOji - Eka - MD (R)
nI vADa - sAranga - khaNDacApu - T (RS)
akhilANDEshvari - jujAvanti - Adi - MD (R)
sharAvati taTa vAsini - sharAvati - rUpaka - MD
? - sAramati - rUpaka - ?
RTP in nATTaikurinji
3 akShara tIta eDuppu in caturashra jhampatALa
ardhI on anudhrtam
rAgamAlika swarams in shivaranjani,
sgmdns-sndmgs in gamanAshrama scale,
rEvati, shiva pantuvarALi
Couple of weird-rAgam tukkaDas
A song in nAdanAmakriya
Another song
'shlOkam'
It being a Saturday evening and at JP Nagar, I expected to see some forum members there, but whatever ...
It was almost overwhelming to hear sAvEri, bEgaDe, yadukulakAmbhOji and sAranga in a row. Salutations to Bhagyalakshmi mami for such a pristine unbroken chain of classical rAgams -- played so classically too!.
The varNam, too, was prefaced with not an outline, but a proper AlApanai.
The version of divAkara tanujam rendered was rather different, and more on the caukam side than what I've heard so far.
Smt Bhagyalakshmi completely experiences her music
The jujAvanti AlApanai explicated what Smt Bhagyalakshmi has said in an interview about using fewer plucks. Lots of notes packed in a single pluck make a lot of listeners very excited, so Smt Bhagyalakshmi has much to offer for those listeners too.
The krti, however was rendered impeccably, such perfection in such caukakAlam ... Smt Bhagyalakshmi's playing especially shines in the caukakAlam, with all the detail played with so much bhAvam.
The sharAvati composition (and also, I think, the sAramati composition) were played straight off a book. It went very smoothly, though! With eyes closed, no one could tell.
The nATTaikurinji rAgam was very elaborate, but I would have liked snatches (or more!) of fast phrases every here and there. I think SSI sings the best nATTaikurinjis, and what makes that so is that he builds this madhyama/duritakAla flow, and the rAgam just gushes out of him! I think something similar applies to sAvEri also.
The tAnam was very good too, supplemented with the ghanapanca rAgams (nATTai, gauLai, Arabhi, varALi and shrI).
The rAgamAlika almost made up for any want of light or scalar rAgams left by the first more-than-a-hattrick. It is nice though, to hear light rAgams this way, they allow kaNakku to flow more (without letting rAga bhAvam get in the way
).Just after the pallavi and the tani, in the announcement they said, "We don't have many veena kucheries here, because many vainikas do various kinds of gimmicks ..." at this point, many, including Bhagyalakshmi mami, made a sudden movement, and the organizer suffixed, "on the veena itself!!" (The speech was in Kannada, I'm translating from my very limited ability.)
It seemed to me to be a case of exploring very little veena music and forming opinions from that.
I found the "shlOkam" which was actually a Vedic kind of chant played on the veena (I hear SB used to play such things too) a gimmick (and actually a not-so-good one at that
) ... perhaps it was done to indicate that gimmicks are unavoidable, and it will be good for listeners to learn to discriminate the good gimmicks from the bad ones. This gimmick was not a bad one, seeing as the music was played in two sthAyis at once (something I don't think is very easy -- what with a bend-of-string used for the shuddha riShabham). Many vaiNikas use this in between krtis also (I drool at it myself ... like when Trivandrum R Venkataraman plays that in munduvenuka's pallavi ... I've also seen Prof TT Narendran use it for mOkShamu galada ... and Prof TNK do something like it a little bit for eppo varuvArO's anupallavi -- on the violin. I think it was done in a krti in this concert also.) In the end, she even played a sa-s'a-s''a kind of thing using 'light-touch fingering' for getting higher octave ... something done in an acoustic guitar exercise (I'll find out which composition it is and post it here later, perhaps I can find a youtube link.)I don't remember much about the percussion support this long after the concert, but it was unobtrusive (which, for a veena concert, is commendable in itself). The tani gelled well with the swarams played by Smt Bhagyalakshmi, and led nicely into the pallavi itself.
how was the turnout srikant? Don't know where my weekends go these days 
I think at least 70% or so of the hall was full. I sat in the front-most non-member row, so didn't get to study it much. Nice that you asked -- I'd made a mental note to mention it, but forgot.