Ramakrishnan Murthy@tattvalOka on Aug 12th,2012

[rajeshnat]

Ramakrishnan Murthy@tattvalOka on Aug 12th,2012
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Vocal : Ramakrishnan Murthy
Violin : parur MS Ananthakrishnan(parur ms anantharaman's grandson)
Mrudangam :N C Bharadwaj

Concert duration/Day : 2 hours and 15+ mins /Sunday
Sabha/Hall : TattvalOka

1 and 2. RaghupathE (sahana) and MerusAmana (MM Gowlai)

3. ninnu jeppa (R N S) - mandAri - Patnam
neraval in "kalalOlaina venkatEshayani " for 4 mins and swaras for 4 mins
4. eNraikku - mukhari - neelakanta sivan

5A. shree subramanyAyA namasTE(R N S T) - kAmbOdhi - MD
15 mins alApanai, 9 mins violin return ,
neraval in "vAsavathi sakala deva vaNdithya varenyAya" for 11 mins
11 mins swaram
5B. tani

6. shree shankara ... sharadE - hatakAmbAri?? - bharatha teertha swamigal
This no is tuned by RK Shriramkumar
7. parulana mAtA - kApi - Dharmapuri subbarAyar

8A. viruththam OOrilE kAni illai- behAg + shuruTTi- Pasuram(Thondaradipodi Azhvar)
8B. vanga kadal kaDainta - shuruTTi - andAl tiruppAvai

I had to miss the concert for atleast 15 to 20 mins (the first two - sahana and mAyamAlavagowlai krithis). Ramakrishnan Murthy is a young musician but his music is far far matured than his age . As I entered he was singing a gripping mandAri alApana. mandAri has overlapping countours with amrithavarshini and after a well developed alap he launched with patnam krithi ninnu jePa in a fast mode. There was right usage of brigas with solid returns did indeed make mandAri as a brilliant sub-main.

Many have generally said that Murthy has a kvn touch, in the last few concerts that I heard I found that was some what true though I found him having more of TMKrishna like touch . But in this concert when he started with that super line kanrin kuralai kettu in mukhAri , the intonations ,the spacing and thrust was voila voila very very KVN'ish.His rendition was impressive.

KVN has in general taken many many krithis where in as a rasika you feel if the original composers wrote it for KVN's stentorian voice .When he sang KAmbOdhi the thrust and the aakaram usage that murthy brought was very much as what KVN bought us in the last century . Ramakrishna murthy sang beautifully the main subramanyAya namastE . I particularly liked his long neraval that oozed with so much of polished sangathis ,they indeed gave a viswaroopam darshan of stormBodhi. KVN generally has a bit shorter swaras when compared to his detailed neraval and that was the case for murthy too ,nevertheless for KAmbOdhi it was a concert worth it. I found at few places when he going with swaras ending with sakala and then vasavathi those combinations could have been better.

Tukkadas were bit too short , he announced about violinist RKSK tuning the composition of sringeri swami. I am not sure if the rAgA was hatakAmbAri , but I think the raga mudra was kind of there. I could not soak much in that krithi .

The kapi passed thru but the behag portion of the viruththam was the most impressive and it was a nice rendition of tiruppavai .

The violinist MS ananthakrishnan (son of MA sundaresan) pepped the concert .If there was something to crib about the violinist, it was his kAmbOdhi alapana return .He tried to contrast and bring in lot of western symphony like touches and I did not like that much. But there were indeed quite a fast exchanges in mandari that was very much like his dad MA Sundaresan (fast cut bowing) that kept up the tempo.

The revelation to me in the concert was indeed mridangist N C bharadwaj(Is he a first or second generation of Karaikudi Mani Sir, someone can confirm) . Bharadwaj is young and his strokes are really wonderful . His sound was bit low till the mukari , but in KAmbOdhi there was just extraordinary anticipation and he showcased and really went well with the vocalist turns especially in the neraval. Tani went with the flow of the song and I liked it.

In short three youngsters gave a matured presentation. It was my bad luck to miss the first two that too meru samana being one of my favourite compositon. Overall a very good to excellent concert.

[mahavishnu]

Rajesh: your post lists Parur Sri MS Anantharaman at the top of the ticket. I was so excited to see the doyen was accompanying this young singer and then a bit deflated when I realized later that it was actually his grandson (who is no doubt very talented).

And yes NC Bharadwaj is an excellent mridangist! I was very impressed when I heard him last season.

[rajeshnat]

mahavishnu
At the top I put thatha's name and at the bottom part i had put grandson's name. Changed it .Tx . The violinist was Parur MS Ananthakrishnan .

[mri_fan]

http://www.sangeethamshare.org/tvg/UPLO ... e_Concert/

The mridangam artist is a student of a disciple of KRM. Plays really well! I know we don't generally like to share recordings of musicians, but these are three stars-in-the making.

[rajeshnat]

mri_fan or shri tvg
The merusamana and subramanyaya namaste has problems , after downloading , I am unable to play the mp3 file. I am especially interested in merusamAna.

[mohan]

rajesh I had no problems downloading and playing those files. Perhaps try the mirror servers.

[rajeshnat]

Mohan
Those 2 files I was not able to play it in windows media . But with the power DVD I was able to play.

[mohan]

strange - I played them with window media player only

[mahavishnu]

All of them work on my Mac as well.