Kala Ramnath and Lalgudi Viji - Boston - 14th Oct 2012

[bilahari]

Kala Ramnath - Violin
Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi - Violin
Abhjit Banerjee - Tabla
Bangalore Praveen - Mrudangam

MITHAS
4.30 PM to 7 PM

LV Solo [30 min]
varNam - garuDadwani - Adi - LGJ
mAmava sadA janani (R, S @ pallavi) - kAnaDa - rUpakam - ST
heccarikkaga rA rA - yadukulakAmbOji - khaNDa cApu - T

KR Solo [40 min]
pUriya dhanaSri

KR-LV Duet [50 min]
rAgam and pallavi - dharmavati - catusra Eka
tani Avartanam
vaiSnava janatO

This was my first Boston concert, and certainly a pleasant experience. The concert was held in an auditorium at MIT, and the stage set against the backdrop of integrals scribbled across blackboards. The concert started 20 minutes late, which is seemingly a constant across the world.

The first part of the concert was a short solo by Lalgudi Viji and Bangalore Praveen, and I enjoyed the sprightly garuDadwani varNam. LV's kAnaDa alapanai was scattered and the kAlapramANam was uneven. I did enjoy her emotive presentation of ST's kriti, and I thought she and BP had especially good understanding in playing the sangatis in the caraNam of this composition. Heccarikkaga was again a rushed affair that did not reveal the abundant charm in the raga. I felt that LV could've slowed down her entire solo, but I suppose she felt pressurised by the late start. I also thought she overdid vibrato a fair bit. However, I appreciate that she selected different composers and talas and a nice array of ragas for an audience of about fifty including several non-Indians.

Kala Ramnath played an elaborate pUrya dhanaSri next, which was true to the gayaki Ang of Rajam's school and replete with all the various bowing techniques they employ. This is my first experience listening to KR live and I was astonished by her mastery of the instrument. However, I feel she went slightly overboard with the Western bowing technique exposition at the end, which started to feel repetitive. She did admirably build up the tempo throughout the piece, and I liked the rapport she shared with AB on the tabla.

After an intermission, KR and LV played a dharmavati alapanai together (I missed the announcement and am not sure what it's called in HM). While dharmavati was a refreshing change from the yamans and malkauns-es that ordinarily populate the jugalbandi world, I do not think the raga offered a sufficient contrast between HM and CM, and felt like - yes, I will use this word - a scalar exploration. There also wasn't great understanding between KR and LV during fast exchanges, with each one taking these sequences in different directions all the time. I was disappointed that no tAnam followed, but it is an understandable omission given the lack of a good parallel in HM (from my understanding at least). Both artistes then played the same pallavi, which was a simple sama-eDuppu construction framed in catuSra Eka, and played elaborate swarams, where the differing techniques of LV and KR were more highlighted than any difference in the interpretation of the raga. I enjoyed the exchanges between the violinists and the percussionists, leading to a grand kOrvai.

The tani was a brisk and energetic affair, and I enjoyed both BP's and AB's playing. Both percussionists were sensitive throughout the concert and made sure not to impinge on each other's space and make a cacophony of it all. AB was very mellow throughout the concert. BP had delightful azhuttam and played beautiful sarvalaghu during LV's kAnaDa swaras. The percussionists recreated the final kOrvai at the end of the tani, with the violinists picking it up to conclude the piece. This is one of those rare instances where I wish a ragamaliga had been done - I really enjoy those in jugalbandis!

LV and KR then played a short sketch and concluded with a stirring presentation of vaiSnava janatO - it is a composition that never fails to give goosebumps!

All in all, it was a pleasant evening and not a bad way to start my East coast adventures.

[mahavishnu]

thanks, Bilahari. Nice to see a Boston review from you!

In addition to the North-south differences, they are both from very different schools and contrasting styles of playing the instrument. The contrast would make the jugalbandi interesting to say the least.

Is there a Dharmavati equivalent in HM or was it just loosely based on Madhuvanti?

[bilahari]

Photo here, courtesy of a friend who attended with me:
http://instagram.com/p/QyYMPjHKbU/

Mahavishnu, it sounded like madhuvanti to me. My friends in San Diego say the same pallavi was played there and announced as dharmavati (CM) - madhuvanti (HM).

[arasi]

Thanks, Bilahari!
Your azhuttamAna review has thIrmAnam, as expected.

Do you get any time to practise? I do hope you brought your violin along.

We were discussing stage decor recently, and this certainly is an unusual backdrop! All the same, it's better than being dazzled by multicolor mishmash of decorations and posters we sometimes see on a Chennai concert stage.

[mahavishnu]

Arasi, yes. Can there be a better backdrop than the MIT blackboard with equations on it?

[VRV]

Do you get any time to practise? I do hope you brought your violin along.

Arasi,

Bilahari will have all the time to Practice. Practice medicine that is. Nice review Vignesh.

Vinod Venkataraman

[arasi]

AND violin, I hope--and I'm also thinking of your daughter Aishu

[bilahari]

Speaking of madhuvanti, here Parween Sultana weaves magic:
http://chowdaiahandparvati.blogspot.com ... begum.html

Speaking of having time to practise violin:
There is no time. I would love to attend TVS's concert next weekend, but those textbooks aren't going read themselves!

[varsha]

Is there a Dharmavati equivalent in HM or was it just loosely based on Madhuvanti?

SAMPLE given here in this thread
http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 53#p229053

[rshankar]

Bilahari - nice that you got to take yourself out of those books. You need such breaks to recharge your brain..a very nice review.
For me jugalbandhis are a hit or a miss - nothing midway!
Of all the jugalbandhis, the one I really enjoyed listening to live was the one with Smt. Jayanti Kumaresh, and Sri Gaurav Majumdar - an extradonary sense of mutual respect and sensitivity between the artists translated into an experience one did not want to end at all. And of the recordings I have heard, I like the ones with Sri Ramani and Smt. Rajam

[arunk]

I was under the impression that madhuvanti (in both HM, and in CM) omitted ri on ascent (i.e. cannot ascend from ri) and so would not be the equivalent of dharmavati.

Arun

[mahavishnu]

Arun, that is correct. So all HM attempts at Dharmavati are as I mentioned earlier, "loose".

[vasanthakokilam]

Arasi, yes. Can there be a better backdrop than the MIT blackboard with equations on it?

I had to zoom in and see what course it is. Seems like a statistics course, from the formula for the Gaussian. " BP ,, played beautiful sarvalaghu during LV's kAnaDa swaras." - He probably figured why indulge in kaNakku while surrounded by such kaNakku ( sorry )

Thanks for the great review, Bilahari.

[mahavishnu]

Seems like a statistics course, from the formula for the Gaussian.

I like your idea of kanakku surrounded by kanakku. Very interesting way of saying it. I will probably use that line on my students when I talk about Gaussian envelopes!

But the equations could be in any course these days. Distributions with uniform random variables can be seen in everything from signal processing to photometry to even the social sciences.

So, in true geek spirit I googled the MITHAS website for the classroom location and checked with MIT's course calendar and discovered that since the concert was on a sunday the last possible class session would have been on Friday ending around 4:30 and the course listed is

1.001 (5 1 3) INTRO COMP & ENGR PROB SOLVING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (MEETS WITH 1.00,1.002),
LEC . . . . . MWF3-4.30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10-250

Interestingly, I also discovered I have actually given a talk in that same room (Building 10 Room 250) about 8 years ago in October 2004!

[vasanthakokilam]

Good job, Mahavishnu. I also had a similar idea but did not follow through.. You did it much faster than I could have. Amazing.

You are right about the range of possibilities. I was also forensically thinking that given what looked like the formula for Convolution ( can not tell for sure, the line that looked like phi(x)*f(x) = integral seemed to indicate that though I am stretching myself thin here ) it can then be in any of those subjects that you mention. Now we know.

[arunk]

Arun, that is correct. So all HM attempts at Dharmavati are as I mentioned earlier, "loose".

Thanks. I would not go far as to categorize as "loose". It has its own distict name (i.e. madhuvanti), and its own distinct lakshana which is a fairly significant deviation from dharmavati i.e. omits ri as well as da in ascent. This would make it very much a separate raga as its own as opposed to a loose interpretation of some other raga (unless it is claimed as equivalent to dharmavati - is it in HM circles?). So from a pure aro/avaro point the relationship between madhuvanti and dharmavati is sort of like karnatakadevagandhari (or nowadays abheri) and kharaharapriya.

Arun

[Thalaivarda]

geeks.org

[mahavishnu]

unless it is claimed as equivalent to dharmavati - is it in HM circles?

It is in the sense that the after the CM artiste plays dharmavati the HM artiste plays madhuvanti as the equivalent raga. This is a bit different from the standard similar scale mohanam-bhopali, kalyani-yaman, hindolam-malkauns, kalavati-valaji which dominate the jugalbandi scene.

Not sure what the rules are about what ragas are sung together anymore. For e.g., I once heard TMK and Rashid Khan do a combination of surutti and desh where the similarities "sketchy" at best. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ThC7RsCuE8 It is a bit discordant IMHO.

I also heard dhrupad-carnatic jugalbandis last year featuring the Gundecha & Malladi bros where they each sang very different ragas in the same piece. Felt like a dwi-raga pallavi of sorts with HM/CM variations thrown on top.

[arunk]

Yep. I think I have also attended jugalbandhis where the ragas were contrasting. Perhaps in HM madhuvanti is the only raga that is in the neighborhood of dharmavati. Interestingly, it was apparently conceived/derived from the weightier multani of the hindustani tODi thaat (Subhapantuvarali i think) by replacing R1, D1 with R2, D2. So multani itself could be grossly simplified as S G2 M2 P N3 S | S N3 D1 P M2 P G2 R1 S - it would be interesting to try a raga with that structure in CM , if one doesn't already exist.

(Note: All of the above digested recently from http://www.parrikar.org/hindustani/multani/ where it notes multani is a big league raga in HM holding its own distinct identity from HM tODi and cousins. My knowledge of HM is minimal to non-existent)

[vasanthakokilam]

Photo here, courtesy of a friend who attended with me:
http://instagram.com/p/QyYMPjHKbU/

Not related to the concert but related to the off shoot discussion. You will know what I mean when you eye ball the article.

http://m.theatlantic.com/technology/arc ... bs/264166/

[mahavishnu]

love it. I would go to museums more often if they had these kinds of exhibits.