TN Seshagopalan @ Ramakrishna Mission Students Home, Chennai

ram · Post by **ram** » 25 Sep 2006, 23:01

Venue: Ramakrishna Mission Students Home, Mylapore, Chennai

Date: 24th Sep 2006

Vocal: Sri Madurai T.N. Seshagopalan

Vocal Support: Sri T.N.S. Krishna

Violin: Sri V.L. Kumar

Mridangam: Sri B. Sivaraman

Morsing: Sri A. S. Krishnan

List of songs:

1) sarasIruhAsana priyE - nAttai - Adi - puLiyUr doraiswAmy iyer (AS)

2) O jagadambA - Anandabhairavi - Adi - syAma sAstri

3) ekkAlathilum - pUrvi kalyANi - Adi - tiruvArUr rAmaswAmy piLLai (AS)

4) rAga AlApanA - hindOLam

maNkaNda - viruttam - hindOLam

mAmavatu shrI - hindOlam - Adi - mysore vAsudEvAchAr (S)

5) rAga AlApanA - sAmA

pArkadal - viruttam - sAmA

thAyE - sAmA - Adi -

6) himagiri tanayE - sudha danyAsi - Adi - harikEsanallUr muthiAh bhAgavathar

7) mahAlakshmI - shankarAbharanam - misra chApu - pApanAsam sivan (ANS - main)

8) ArabhimAnam - rAgamAlikA - Adi - tanangambadi panchanAda iyer

9) muthumAri - viruttam - sindhubhairavi

thEdi unnai - sindhubhairavi - Adi - subramanya bhArati

10) mangaLam mangaLam - suruttI - Adi

11) sarvamangala (slOkam) - srI

Shankarabharanam Alapana by TNS was very good; so was the hindOLam rAga AlApanA by T.N.S. Krishna. ArabhimAnam is one of the songs I like a lot. The version I have heard multiple times before is the one sung by Sri Neyveli Santhanagopalan. Though TNS sang it very well technically, I felt that the melodic aspect took a little bit of beating due to a lot of bhrigAs and a bit of mathematics in the sangathIs that were used in the song. The accompaniment was also not of very high quality and the artists didnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t look to be playing to their capacity.

http://ramsabode.wordpress.com/2006/09/ ... e-chennai/

gdg · Post by **gdg** » 01 Oct 2006, 13:47

don't you think this was only a shadow of TNS' ? it is high time TNS became aware of the limitations of his age and voice and did not attempt chewing more than what he can bite!

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 03 Oct 2006, 12:02

adityamohan
you really dont want him to

attempt chewing more than what he can bite !!

That is indeed the beauty of a TNS concert -Trying to chew what he bites ...
People who attend a TNS concert are aware of the gamblers spirit he brings to stage.We dont expect a carefully crafted synthetic concert .They are the last few signs of a daredevil spirit on show on stage today , when everything is becoming stale and predictable -except for the songlists..
maybe you can explain in more detail with reference to this concert

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 03 Oct 2006, 12:30

last november at narada gana sabha , towards the end of a krithi rendering , something wonderful happened.He was into the swaraprasthara of the mai item-and at one point he sang a difficult bunch of swaras which did not look quite OK.(To him , to me and to everyone in the audience)
after the violinists essay , he came back again with the same bunch and this time too it was patchy.As the violinist played his reply I told my friend who took me there =Let me get out ... He is going to come back at it again and I cannot stand the suspense-Oh God why does he have to take such risks in full public view ?
My friend had pinned me down securely so I had to go through the pangs of seeing TNS trying a third time and making it such a thrilling experience for all.
That is what defines the man -Take it or leave it-

That is the kind of beauty that TNS' s music holds for me .Those rare moments of ecstasy when he is trying to surpass himself ..Asking him to stop is like asking Sergei Bubka to take the last successful vault as his best!!

gdg · Post by **gdg** » 03 Oct 2006, 18:47

coolkarni,

SG Kittappa was a freak and never learnt Carnatic music formally. the zenith he reached is still unsurpassed even today by well trained exponents! he was adventurous no doubt but was too sure what he was doing & each time he could hit the bull's eye.
Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer was another explorer himself but started constricting his pheriphery in the later years fully realising the limitations of his voice.
GNB was doing all histrionics thanks to his bruga voice but the sruti kept on oscillating.
Santhanam a genius in his own right was a gandharva on earth with a musis harp in his voice. he spread the message of harmony even to novices (like me) and to great scholar rasikas. he never had limitations in his voice but never tried to surpass himself.
Sembai's ramamantram can not be equated with his pantureethi in his later years. he understood the limitations of his voice but even for him devotion came to his rescue.
MSS through well rehersed music transcended the barriers of nations. she did novel things without any acrobatics.
what i have said in the earlier para may sound unrelated. this is just to emphasise that adventures are ok but there were people who could perform feats as a matter of well disciplined self expression without histrionics or when some tried they did not cut a sorry figure!
adityamohan

kaapi · Post by **kaapi** » 03 Oct 2006, 21:25

TNS may differant from all of them. But, don't you think the willingness to step into the unventured track is what gives CM its colour.

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 03 Oct 2006, 21:34

My 2 cents:
While it's all very well to be adventurous, it's a good idea to sing (on stage at least) with purity of sruti and swaras. It ceases to be music otherwise. And this is one of the drawbacks of TNS's singing style. On a good day he is amazing, but on a bad day...you just want to make a dash for the door!

Contrast this with the likes of KVN, Ramnad Krishnan, Madurai Mani Iyer - they would bring serenity with their sruti/swara alignment.

mahesh_narayan · Post by **mahesh_narayan** » 03 Oct 2006, 21:34

TNS Sir has always been a mixed bag for me !!! A mixed bag of genius and boisterousness!!! In terms of brilliance and vidwat, he could probably beat anyone hands down, including past and present giants, but his over-emphasis on briga and increasing infidelity to Sruti result in soukhyam being lost. One complaint I always had against him is that unlike KVN, DKJ, Nedunuri, his kriti renditions never seem well-established in terms of patantara. I can understand ever-new manodharma in alapana, neraval and swaras, but people like SSI, KVN, DKJ had unwavering patantara everytime. TNS Sir, however infuses a lot of manodharma into kritis, with the result he never seems to have a standard repetitive patantara.

This may exactly be what his beauty is, but I guess I have grown too used to SSI, KVN, DKJ and the likes, to be able to open up myself to a new concept of kriti singing. My apologies if I ticked anyone off. I didn't intend to do so.

gdg · Post by **gdg** » 03 Oct 2006, 21:58

editing is the most important aspect. concerts or raga alapana/kalpana swara should not be blown out of proportion. Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar was a master in editing. people lacking editing are like the medium pace bowlers. they lose the lusture in course of time. this is like Neelakanta Brahmachari or VVS Iyer turning to Gandhian ideals in the later years.
another aspect is the limitation of the human voice in comparison to wind or string instruments. the heights Dr.Ramani or mandolin Srinivas could reach remain to be touched by all vocalists. but the vocalists have an edge over the instrumentalists in rendition in diction and bhava.
if anybody could make a comparison between AKC Natarajan's clarinot and his vocal concerts of late this fact could be inferred.
aditya mohan

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 03 Oct 2006, 22:04

adityamohan
Years ago My Dad gave me two pieces of advice , when it came to appreciating art.
One was - ' The woods would be silent if only those birds sang , the ones that sang best "
and the second was -" Dont let anyone else make the world for you.For if you allow them to do so , it is likely to be too cramped for you ...
I am glad that I took both of them.
He would also drill into me , his understanding that every performing artist is a Gandharva (not just Santhanam), having been sent to this earth to enthrall us.
My point was
what was in this concert that disconcerted you .That is all that we were interested in.And you have not answered that.
And if TNS's music did not stand up to your standards at any point in his singing career or your listening career (as your second post suggests) then what were you saying when you referred to his being a shadow of himself.

gdg · Post by **gdg** » 04 Oct 2006, 07:48

coolkarni
thanks for the charitable and elder brotherly remarks. my only concern was that human voice is subject to vageries of aging. a genius like TNS by his sheer experience and vidvath could bring about all the nuances of unexlored singing which he had been trying all these years with plain rendering without frequent intteruptions of cough.
it was only loud thinking. i'm sorry if i sounded undermining the genius of the master. i am not competent to do so!
aditya mohan.

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 04 Oct 2006, 09:58

Well....
You can bet on me not to continue this debate anymore.
Maybe it is something to do with me ..
I can hear my wife complaining loudly from the kitchen..
Monday you liked Beans , Tuesday you liked Beans, Wednesday, Thursday,Friday yoiu liked beans and NOW ALL OF A SUDDEN ON SATURDAY YOU COMPLAIN THAT YOU DONT LIKE BEANS !!!I guess there is something wrong in my way of looking at a logic

ignoramus · Post by **ignoramus** » 04 Oct 2006, 10:48

i like the beans in the beans story!!

Vocalist · Post by **Vocalist** » 04 Oct 2006, 15:24

ROFL @ beans story!!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 04 Oct 2006, 23:22

coolkarni
Don't complain! She did not say:
Fifteen years ago you liked me; ten years ago you liked me; even five years ago you liked me; now you don't like me ....

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 04 Oct 2006, 23:38

We have heard a lot about Thyagaraja through his sishyas and through hearsay. He sang all through his eighty odd years. Being human his voice would have taken the toll of age. Do we have on record any remarks to that effect from any of his sishyas?

In fact he shines like a pearl in 'giripai' (supposed to be among his last ones); not because of his voice but because of the ambience he creates!

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 05 Oct 2006, 03:43

In fact he shines like a pearl in 'giripai' (supposed to be among his last ones); not because of his voice but because of the ambience he creates!

And MDR used to render it with great sensitivity. One wonders whether the saint composed this song just for MDR to sing it!

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 05 Oct 2006, 07:29

May be he did, but he did not expect all those who listened to MDR to pay any attention to the words in the song. By the way, words do come in handy, at least to identify a song...

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 05 Oct 2006, 07:46

Coolji,
Hope those from Bean Town (Boston) don't take offense and pounce on you! Ah, wonder why good banter is taken as offense by some.
CML, keep the bonhomie going with wit and verse. Other kinds of
humor(s)--bile and so on--we don't need...

gdg · Post by **gdg** » 05 Oct 2006, 07:47

vaggekaras are a different genre altoghether. the allowances that are available for them may not be available for songsters. to quote an example papanasam sivan sang on a few occasions but his main stay was only composing. i've heard him singing in AIR and he created an impression only after listeners taking a total view of his status as composer.
Reverence permits allowances and the same would have happened in thiagaraja swami's case. after all were there anybody even in the distant past to have commented about the swami?

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 05 Oct 2006, 13:37

By the way, words do come in handy, at least to identify a song...

Aaah, the tyranny of words!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 05 Oct 2006, 21:12

It is true vaggeyakaras are not not necessarily good performers. PSivan is a case inpoint. But Thyagaraja must have been exceptional. Even Kings sought after him. SvAti would not have sent for a mere composer! Same must have been true of the rest of the Trinity. I have heard HMB inperson singing his compositions and those were magical moments. He was pretty old at that time!

Unlike HM or even WM, CM cannot exist without the sahitya. Even while listening to Instrumental CM our mind runs through the sahityam and we experience the magic of the words vicariously. Pure raga aalaapana or laya (tani avarrtanam) does have its place in CM. But that is only one side of the coin.

gdg · Post by **gdg** » 06 Oct 2006, 08:26

mazhavarayenendal subbarama bagavathar sang once before the paramacharya aparama bahkthi and the paramachacharya said after listening, ' this is not apraramabhakthi; this is subbarama bhakthi!'. such was his devotion.
thiagarja was a nadopasa and it is 100% true that he would have been capable of raising the levels of listeners to his stature through his music even when he was 80.
the difference of instrumentalists merely following notes and not knowing the sahitya can be made out very easily by listeners.
the best example will be the famous nagumomu where thiagaraja actually wails in the song (Jagamela paramatma everitho moraliduthu). the bhava was very clearly brought out by musiri.
the instrumentalisits use the same song as a rejoicing expression of thiagaraja!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 06 Oct 2006, 09:10

Yes you are right! I have heard some ridiculous instrumentalist experiments that kill the mood of the lyrics. Musiri was unique in creating the emotional milieu without sacrificing classicism. I have seen many in the audience actually cry (with him) while listening to his mukhari 'enRaikku siva kripai varumO..'.

Vocalist · Post by **Vocalist** » 06 Oct 2006, 12:32

cmlover wrote:I have seen many in the audience actually cry (with him) while listening to his mukhari 'enRaikku siva kripai varumO..'.

:'(