Sri N Vasudev - Mridangam
Sri Raghavendra Prakash - Ghatam
16 Dec 2012
for 'Nadasaurabha', Kannada and Cultural Department
@ Sri Rama Lalitha Kala Mandira
sarasijAkSha - nAyaki varNam - khaNDa tripuTa - Kothavasal Venkatarama Iyer (sketch)
gaNa patE (?) - kalyANi - rUpaka - MD (RS)
? - mEgharanjani - Adi - Mysore Vasudevachar (sketch)
padavini sadbhaktiyu - sAlagabhairavi - Adi - T (RS)
cEtaH shrI - dvijavanti - trishraEka-2 - MD (R)
RTP in kIravANi, khaNDa tripuTa, little-finger eDuppu
"vANi gIrvANi kIravA[Ni] mAm pAhi <...>"
rAgamAlika svaras in <some rAgam>, mishrashivaranjani, shubha pantuvarALi and dEsh, maybe some others
tani
Some song
manadiRkugandadu - sindhubhairavi - Adi
a song in nAdanAmakriya
a song in kurinji
rudram (?)
It was a fine concert.
Wonderful beginning with nAyaki sketch -- I had heard the varNam just the previous day, in a Smt Kalyani Ganesan radio concert recording recently uploaded on sangeethamshare. I liked this sketch better, since it didn't overuse the ga-ni symmetry.
The kalyANi was nice and chaste.
The mEgharanjani krti was dignified; somehow I always find that Sri Vasudevachar's compositions carry a certain dignity not common / consistent among post-Trinity composers, but to achieve that in mEgharanjani is so awesome. The composition, especially in the pallavi, lays stress on the mAyAmALavagauLa anga rather than the ma-ni jump.
I did not particularly like the sAlagabhairavi AlApanai; it kept having a [hindustAni] kApi tone to it. The swarams were good though.
The dwijavanti exploration, too, had more of akhilANDEshvari anga [well, that's seems to be the de facto anyway!]
Smt Bhagyalakshmi Chandrasekaran's usual technique for jaNTais -- which keeps the forefinger at the previous fret regardless of the rAga mUrcana -- is nice, and makes the music smooth and vocal-like. Some stupid schools of violin even use an open string if that is suggested by the mUrcana, and that sounds really horrible. Thankfully, in vINai, it is often impossible to keep fingers in successive notes in some mUrchanas (mEgharanjani's ma-ni, for example).
Apart from that, of course, she also uses bending-the-string techniques for jaNTai when appropriate.
Keeravani raga exploration was solid. Towards the end, and also in the second more-than-half of the taanam, Smt Bhagyalakshmi played at an amazing speed, demonstrating awesome control over the instrument. The second part of the taanam also had the Ghana Five -- nATTai, gauLai, Arabhi, varALi and shrI played briefly.
The pallavi was rendered deftly with trikAlam -- trishram and anulOmam were also done.
Please excuse me for not naming accompanists -- I will tell them soon. It was a little sad that the mridangist did not make enough of an effort to keep his instrument tuned. Strangely, his shruti went down rather than up: in spite of the chilly weather outside (I shivered in earnest when I stepped out of the hall), the hall itself was warm. Indeed, at Smt Bhagyalakshmi kept checking her veenai if it had gone off-tune. Anyway, the tani was otherwise nice. I also have to give the sabha's name (remind me) -- Sri Rama Lalitha Kala Mandira (SRLKM) was the venue, but not the organizer.
Inclusion of nAdanAmakriya and also kurinji in the post-pallavi section is wonderful of course, but it was a mixed lot otherwise. The kurinji piece itself was way too childish, actually!
Would have preferred if another rakti rAga had made it to the first part of the concert -- there had been a yadukula kambhOji (divAkara tanujam) and a sAranga (nIvADanE) in her previous concert for BTM Cultural Academy.
In the announcement, SRLKM Mama (I don't know his name
) said that when Bhagyalakshmi mami and Chandrasekaran mama moved to Bangalore 10 years back, her first concert in Bangalore too had been at SRLKM -- he added that unfortunately, that was also the only other concert of hers SRLKM had had until then! To justify, he said there are "so many artistes!" and also that said veenai concerts typically get sparser audience, which is discouraging. (Having seen Sri A Shankar Raman's concert there a couple of months back, I have to sadly agree!) He expressed his happiness to see the crowd that had come for this particular concert, including many youngsters. No one else from here, I think, though.