Abhishek's concert at Margazhi Mahothsavam Jaya t.v

[Ponbhairavi]

Abhishek mesmerized the audience with the dazzling brilliance of the deluge of swaraprastharams
I am a lay man and my ignorance may be excused :two things appeared innovative to me.
1-For one of the items he announced and switched off the tambura and said that the violin will do the role of tambura.It is the expert opinion that he did the swarabedam.I plead ignorance and senior members of our forum who would have heard yesteryears stalwarts may pl clarify whether they also gave rest to tambura when and if they did swarabedam..
2-It looked as though he sang a full song( ragamalikai in which mohanakalyani stood out.) with only swarams. No word - no sahithya. Is it what T M K calls pure music
In the title signature tune of Margazhi mahothsavam of Jaya TV , I hear it as " thyagaraja..ga ma pa da ni ni sa." another person says that there is no thyagaraja. instead there is only a set of swarams. Can anyone clarify>?

[samarasaa]

The piece you mention is a swara composition of Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman.

[vs_manjunath]

The concert appeared to be a homage to LGJ ?The first two tamil compositions sung must be LGJ'compos ??
The first was in Nattaikuranji & the second was in Mohana Kalyani.
Abhishek briiliantly covered l,b&h of Mohana Kalyani.
The third item was Lalgudi Pancharatnam in Madhyamavathi(Thyagaraja).

[kssr]

We do not know how Sri.GNB or Sri.TNS were singing at Abhishek's age. But this boy is just awesome. Can say UNIQUE.

There is Thyagaraja in the title song. Need not be a specialist to decipher it, as I could do it myself !!

[cacm]

GNB'S MUSIC WAS & IS FOR THE AGES. In cricket parlance he was the EQUIVALENT of Don Bradman & Sachin Tendulkar. NO COMPARISON WITH ANY ONE ELSE THEN & HENCE.......Of course there were & are great artists then & now. :-BD :ymapplause:

[vs_manjunath]

GNB's one song " vara rAga laya " is sufficient to prove the credence!

[cmlover]

The swara song of Abhishek is clearly Sindhubhairavi which has the liberty of using all 12 swaras.
I wonder why he turned off the Tambura? Of course Vittal gave ample support.
I don't think it is a song composed by LGJ!

[Rsachi]

Dear all,
I am absolutely curious to hear a Lalgudi Jayaraman accompaniment to a virtuoso blockbuster vocal track from maybe GNB, SSI, SOMU, TNS...with tear away swaras like Abhishek sings MohanaKalyani in this concert. Can someone very kindly oblige!?
I suppose Varsha will surely have some such....
I want to know how the ultimate violinist accompanist of all time coped with such volcanic creativity of the vocalist spanning three speeds, three octaves, three and more nadais....

Thanks in advance!

[Rsachi]

I am hearing the Sindhu Bhairavi...

It is Abishek's composition built on an idea taken from a Hindustani refrain I have heard before, I will dig up a link...

By doing grahabheda, he is showing the variety of the compositional lines that Lalgudi created...in the various ragas...

[alpajnani]

Is this available online?

[varsha]

Rsachi
Not exactly the upload you asked for .
Here is LLG playing at Blore - He is not accompanying GNB here , yet the stamp of GNB is unmistakeable .

An evenings proceedings , made more memorable by Vellore Rambhadran and HP Ramachar .

https://archive.org/details/RAmaKathAMa ... AjaLalgudi
Will upload others in a different thread since this one belongs to AR , someone whom I like - especially after his duet with Mevundi .

[Rsachi]

Jaya TV AR Margazhi 2013 upload in HD:

http://bit.ly/1g9N8xX

[rajeshnat]

For those who heard last year academy mohanakalyani of abhishek , this jaya tv is really close to that - just few inches short in excellence . Lovely Abhishek - Answers to questions were very well answered . Keep it up Abhishek . The lalgudi pancharatnam was bit of dampener considering what came before and after . Rsachi -waiting for your sindhubhairavi reference link.

[Rsachi]

Rajesh,
I am still wading through many alternatives... there are many thumris, dhuns and taranas in Bhairavi of HM that seem a direct or an indirect inspiration for this song.
One of them is this:

http://bit.ly/1ezUee3

Bhimsen Joshi, live recording, Ras ke Bhare Tore Nain.....

[Gadolinium]

Thanks for the link, Rsachi. The Nattaikurinji was absolutely beautiful. High on music, higher on aesthetic

[knrh05]

What were the ragas highlighted thru the Shruti bedham in the Sindhu bhairavi swara song? I heard Senchuruti, Behag??, Mohanakalyani, Tilang??.

KN

[vichu1947]

1-For one of the items he announced and switched off the tambura and said that the violin will do the role of tambura.It is the expert opinion that he did the swarabedam.I plead ignorance and senior members of our forum who would have heard yesteryears stalwarts may pl clarify whether they also gave rest to tambura when and if they did swarabedam..

I think no one has addressed this part, here is a possible explanation ....

This was not innovation per se - it was tu suit his convenience .

The tempura always sounds the original sruti, which can be a distraction for the vocalist when he/she does sruti bedam to change the shadjam.

So Abhishek has conveniently switched it off and has taken Violin's revised tonic that the violinist is playing non-stop (which is the new shadjam after sruti bedam) as the base sruti and has sung without "distractions"

When varnam can be the main item and an alapana can be a separate item in itself, why not switch off tampura ??

Tomorrow some vocalist may ask the mrudangist to go out of the hall as his red shirt or his french beard is a distraction during sruti bedam ...

Or the mrudangist can stop the tampura during thani if the mrudangam is out of tune with sruti and he is not able to fix it ...

we never know what more "innovations" , are in store

[Rsachi]

Vichu1947,
Please remember your name celebrates the year of Indian independence

Whatever Abhishek was going to do was tremendously complex and quick. The Tambura would have been a hindrance as we need to forget the normal S and P during grahabheda. You know musicians don't play the Pa string on tambura during Hindola, Vasantha etc. Just as you don't put Perungayam in Payasam. No offense meant or taken, sir!

Sir, re. your bringing in the red shirt, and French beard and Japanese tempura- you are surely celebrating the global Indian legendary CM ambassador! I mean Amartya Sen-garu. :ymapplause:

[tiruppugazh]

Perfect tribute to Lalgudi - Well planned, well rehearsed, well rendered in the Saccharine, Sugary, Syrupy Lalgudy style!

[Ponbhairavi]

Congratulations to Abhishek Raghuram for the music academy award. He is indeed a rocket soaring high up at supersonic speed in the music firmament. Does he need any trajectory correction at this stage of his career? Not necessarily ,as he himself is a computer with auto correcting power. Perhaps it may help if he comes to know of the observations expressed by some rasikas coming out of the concert hall.
While speed,brigas and calculations coming out with roller coaster majesty are dazzling and mind boggling, there is another aspect of carnatic music called sowkya bhavam highlighted by M.D.R, Brinda and some others. There are some ragas and compositions which cannot be sung at break neck speed likedevagandhari, saveri, sahana huseni etc . In concert composition( decried by TMK) padams and javalis coming before a brisk thillana underline this aspect.
Raga delineation(alapana)-like the art of painting-is of 2 types.Some artists draw initially a couple of strokes which unmistakably bring the full swarupa of the raga and then go on embellishing the structure which the audience follows at every step. The second type is like presenting a puzzle: taunting and challenging the audience to guess and giving gradually the clue one by one and the full swarupa comes at the end.This is what he did with kamas at the music academy concert. While this may work with expert audience of music academy level, It would confuse the average rasikas(which form 80 percent of general audience) and test their patience and distract their involvement.
If he pays some attention to these aspects, and make a judicious mixture( M.S concert are exemplary models of perfect blend), his concerts will become perfect entity.
2 examples come to my mind.:
In an Olympic competition a young girl gymnast standing at one end of a rectangle concentrates,takes a deep breath,races forward,jumps high up, does a somersault, and then a pirouette and a reverse somersault and lands at the other end of the diagonal statuelike. It is a marvel of human body and muscle control which leaves the spectators STUNNED in awe and admiration.
-Here is a bharathanatyam stage. A danseuse stands at one end of the stage and when the Gopalakrishna bharathi’s varugalamo (in maanji raga) is being sung she (nandanaar) slightly bends her body to express humility and her face expresses mixed emotions successively,like piety, longing in bhakthi, slight restraint and hesitation because of social taboo, fear etc and inches her way forward
hands and fingers expressing inner feelings and reaches the other end in full GRACE. The spectators melt in compassion.,
In both cases the distance covered is about 15 metres or so.What the gymnast and the dancer do with their body, a carnatic musician can do with his vocal chords.A good carnatic music concert has fortunately the potential to combine both in one.
Abhishek can avail of this advantage.

[Rsachi]

Ponbhairavi,
This is AN IDEAL RASIKAS.ORG post. It should be framed and preserved!

Respect. Constructive suggestion. Encouragement.

Hats off to you sir/madam!

[Ponbhairavi]

Thanks Rsachi.,
being of his grandfather's age,how can I write otherwise to A R who,invited to perform at Bhairavi a couple of years ago on the prophetic suggestion of our forum member Nadasudha,gave one of the best concerts in the history of our sabha.Moreover we owe a gratitude to his grandfather Palghat shri RaGHU who ,several years back, when he came for a concert at bhairavi developed a big right shoulder blade abcess but still played mridangam at the concert after he was given some local anesthesia and started on antibiotics by our then presidentDr Chandrasekar former director Jipmer.

[cmlover]

MKR
Ponbhairavi is a Sir ( and qualifies to be Knighted!)

Thanks Ponbhairavi for the brilliant inspiring post.
Somebody should bring it to the attention of Abhishek ...

[rajeshnat]

Raga delineation(alapana)-like the art of painting-is of 2 types.Some artists draw initially a couple of strokes which unmistakably bring the full swarupa of the raga and then go on embellishing the structure which the audience follows at every step. The second type is like presenting a puzzle: taunting and challenging the audience to guess and giving gradually the clue one by one and the full swarupa comes at the end.This is what he did with kamas at the music academy concert.

Shri Rajagopalan(Ponbhairavi)
Good point sir, many have echoed this kind in different posts . I did not attend this concert. But based on posts in the MA concert , Abhishek presented as type 1 only for atleast kamas and in first stroke itself no one would have doubted the ,,,,, . Maybe if you had reworded for simm madhyamam as type II possibly it was the case . I am atleast extrapolating that based on the posts history here.

[sureshvv]

The second type is like presenting a puzzle: taunting and challenging the audience to guess and giving gradually the clue one by one and the full swarupa comes at the end.This is what he did with kamas at the music academy concert.

I think you are seeing this too much from the listener's point of view of "getting" the ragam. Too often the "elite" rasika loses all interest after he/she has guessed the raga

There is no taunting or challenging. There is just a custom recipe being created for the moment. It draws on the notes and the characteristic pidis of the raga. Sometimes it dwells on sancharas that are not so revealing of (or unique to) the raga but are very much part of it. If you allow yourself to get immersed in the alapana without timing yourself on how many notes you needed to name that tune (which I think the academy reviewer has still to learn), you may enjoy the concert much more.

[Ponbhairavi]

CML thanks.
With a couple of my lumbar vertebrae fused , I may not be able to do full justice to the "knighthood."I would be happy with a" Rasika kalanidhi " if one is awarded by our forum for which I satisfy one (and only one) eligibility criteria viz age.
Thanks rajeshnat

[rshankar]

I have watched several of the Jaya TV uploads from their MMU series, and I can honestly say that this is the only upload that perked me up, and made me sit up and listen, and brightened my day. Don't get me wrong, the rest were not bad, but they did not give me the rasAnubhava that this one gave me.

After I heard the concert, I happened to look a the comments, and I was struck by the one on how Sri Abhishek had completely ruined the bhAva of tAmadam tagAdaiyyA - now, that was certainly not my take, so I decided to hear it again - the first time around, I was 'listening' to the upload, and not 'watching' it - the second time around, I watched it, and I have to agree that the singer's enthusiasm and sheer joy on the stage does seem at variance with the bhAva of the composition - so, to complete my experiment, I went back and 'listened' to the song again - and IMO, Sri Abhishek seems to have the extraordinary talent to project two different things with his voice, and his mannerisms - just the voice alone I feel conveyed the meaning of the kRti perfectly - clear diction, beautiful singing - but when you 'see' him, his (high-energy) movements on stage do seem to give the idea of celebration. Would like to hear from others if you feel/felt this dichotomy.

[rajeshnat]

Ravi
At times Abhishek goes out of the mic range and slants his neck bit orthogonally and the first rasika (mic) at times loses the sangathis. That is where it creates the biggest dichotomy to me. Abhishek in general energises the other co artists and kind of persuades them to be more assertive is how i look at it.