Big thanks to Dinakar (Musicapriya) for sharing - we can't really call it a list, can we - something of the shape of this concert. There is so much to say about it all. I have not heard a rendering of Sri Subramhanyaya Namaste anywhere near as beautiful as TMK's. It was fabulous.
This was one of those rare concerts where the house was full. I was lucky to get my preferred (for concentration) seating in the forward rows, yet it was not that easy to keep it. Just getting up and walking a couple of steps away to meet people (Musicapriya was one
) turned out to be quite risky! The concert began on time, but after a series of admonitions regarding audience behavior. To be frank, there were a lot of emphatic no's.. and it really felt like a school assembly where the principal used her sternest tone at the kids, all of whom were about to be predictably unruly. The lady said she spoke on behalf of TMK with these "requests" and tried to sugarcoat her words by saying that of course we are a great audience, so enjoy the concert (meaning comply and behave yourselves). I did not appreciate it, I found it shocking because there were a lot of very elderly people who deserved the usual respect (not to speak of the rest of us, who certainly did too).
TMK has a huge huge personality that towers from start to finish. He made it a point to interrupt the speaker who'd asked us to please welcome the main artist of the day by stretching out his hand to stop him, saying that it was not the main artist, please. Just artist. The rather stunned speaker meekly complied.
The introductory remarks about RKSK and KAP were much briefer, but I found it very interesting that KAP's approach was described as 'minimalist', which I did not understand then, but which became abundantly clear during the entire concert. It was amazing.
If TMK thought he was not the main artist, then I would really have appreciated a milder approach in showing that. He was playing the perfect main artist by dictating terms to everyone thus far. I felt he could have demonstrated his approach more gently by saying in follow-up remarks that he understood the term, but that he did not view it that way. He could have proved it by adding a little more substance to the four sentences or so that had been said about each of the accompanists. These were his steady collaborators, and he could have expressed a few appreciative thoughts about them. He did not accept the term "main artist" but he allowed the introductions to be unequal.
But, all my distaste with the proceedings vanished when he started singing.. A slow tempo to the lovely kambhoji kriti so beautifully modulated and so slow that it gave me the impression of another world, another time, when people were not rushing around, cars weren't so fast, and bullock carts ruled the streets. It was superb. I was utterly soothed, my critical thinking was silenced, my mind brought ever so gently to clear focus, I was calmed and centered. My heart resonated, and my constricted throat made me feel that I could easily make some tears.
Then TMK himself rather idiotically broke the spell he had us bound in by interrupting the kriti at the charanam with his request to us to please forget, for his sake and ours too, about being there to listen to a kutcheri. We were all there to share music, he said. And doing that would just make things easier for us (and for them too, he said). That last sentence of the request gave me a very strange feeling.
I settled back into the charanam. Beautiful again. However, I had the sahitya before me, and noticed that he used the word "bhuradi" instead of "Bhu-suradi".. He stopped for a second and seemed stumped for several avartanas of silence.. I was positive that he could tell that something was wrong, but he inexplicably started a neraval on those lines and he did a stunningly beautiful and sensitive neraval with the mistake incorporated throughout. Please correct me if I am wrong about the mistake. RKSK's returns were just as gentle and soft as TMK's, and I was completely taken aback by KAP's style of accompaniment. He barely moved a muscle, completely gentle playing, just percussive support to enhance and regulate the singing and completely in keeping with TMK's and RKSK's meditative approach to the song. I admired his commitment to the Sangeetam in the concert, which he seemed to be putting ahead of his commitment to ensuring his own visibility. Beautiful relaxed swaras followed and TMK's second kaalam could not have been much faster than the usual lower kaalam of most renderings. Kambhoji rose gently in a beautiful, shimmering form.
I began to feel that this team was all set to revolutionize CM. They could really change everything - of course not by making everyone else copy them, but by opening up CM to all sorts of new freedoms.
Beautiful Neelayatakshi followed with all sorts of lovely slides.. Rksk's neraval at Samaganalole was imaginative. TMK seemed to appreciate it and asked him to keep playing several rounds, but was surprised that rksk smilingly handed it back to him rather quickly.. Rksk performed excellent kalpanaswaras that drew strong applause. KAP performed a short tani sequence here.
The next item was not the Purvikalyani, but a superb alapana of Atana, handled with delicate care with very little of the emphatic phrases we know Atana for. All those strong prayogas were lengthened and softened. This was the raga's best form I have ever had the joy of listening to.
So far the concert was going really well and now TMK disappoints me by asking KAP to just tell him a raga to sing.. KAP mouths something off the top of his head and TMK begins an Alap in Purvikalyani. I ask myself why I was disappointed - after all TMK is famously unpredictable and he lets the kutcheri take its own shape according to his mood. But here it was not his mood.. If KAP had of his own initiative suggested Poorvikalyani, and if he had complied, it would have been a lovely moment. I feel disappointed because he seemed too lazy to think of what his mood was and wanted someone else to think for him. It is just the sort of thing that as a rasika I find disappointing. The alap turned out to be a short one of a few minutes.
Another brief sketch of Saraswathi Manohari and the song. TMK sang fervently with his eyes closed. I experienced a comical effect when with his eyes closed at the higher reaches of the Anupallavi, he snaked his face all around right from his hips to finally open his eyes very close to rksk's face with a huge grin.. I imagined Kaa the python hypnotizing Mowgli
and couldn't resist a little laugh, but no one else seemed to find it funny. But their beautiful work on that song with the improvization, the deep exploration of the taara sthayee swaras seemed to be an intimate conversation between TMK and RKSK, just as Musicapriya seems to say. TMK relaxed singing leaves no room for any abuse of his voice and he is still in great shape.
During the Ritigowla alapana, TMK let his voice suddenly trail off and stared sternly at someone who opened a door rather noisily (it was actually a noisy door), leading us all to turn and stare at what he was staring at.. It was a break in everyone's concentration, brought about by TMK himself. If he had not done what he did, I would not have noticed the noise at all. At this and many other points, I remembered one of the discussions here about audience distraction and proper etiquette at concerts.
Taanam in Udayaravichandrika was all too short, like almost all the manodharma items. But it was its loveliness from both the singer and the violinist which made me want more of it.. There was a lengthy exploration of the typical range of manthara sthayee swaras.
The beautiful ragamalika sloka which I found on an internet search:
cheto-darpana-marjanam bhava-maha--davagni-nirvapanam
shreyah-kairava-chandrika-vitaranam vidya-vadhu-jivanam
anandambudhi-vardhanam prati-padam purnamritaswadanam
sarvatma-snapanam param vijayate sri-krishna-sankirtanam
The ragas changed at each turn of line..
The pallavi neraval was begun in Hamsadhwani, and was sung in the reverse order of ragas to the Vrittam, with rksk taking the lead in the change from Varali to Dhanyasi to everyone's appreciation. Everybody enjoyed the change and exchange of ragas in pairs between the two.. TMK's change from Begada to Huseini was done over the phrase rgmrgsr sung first a couple of times in Begada, seguing into Huseini.. the phrase was a motif in the Huseini. The raga changes were neat, smooth segues.
KAP'S tani was interesting.. TMK confused everyone with his kriyas by overtly demonstrating a misrajati laghu followed by a veechu.. or if I don't remember it right it might have been a 6-jati laghu followed by a dhrutam. This made no sense to me.. and I realized soon enough that it was a 5-jati Jhampa Taalam. TMK caused a bit of laughter at the end by absent-mindedly announcing the taalam as Adi taalam, khanda nadai.. and rksk sort of woke him up
and he quickly realized his mistake and corrected himself and blabbered endearingly a bit, or may I didn't catch exactly what he then said.
The Jagadoddharana I heard was vastly different from the one we saw on youtube, the Bangalore utsav performance with the beautiful set. This was a slow, sensitive, ruminant rendering.. The Bharatiyar song was very energetic. The post tani phase was predictably made of lighter pieces like a traditional concert and there were no particular surprises. There was no Mangalam.
- the feeble response was after one of the raga expositions before the pallavi I think. His announcement about the 'type' of concert was at the beginning like he always does.
( Anyone else planning to go? Also, my BP is already shooting up thinking about the whole process of getting to these events, fighting for parking, picking up the tickets(never easy even if pre-paid), negotiating long lines due to organizer snafus (and even missing the concert beginning because I was in line outside), and eventually getting into the concert hall only to find myself next to bored kids/mamas and mamis in the audience who insist on performing the alapana alongside with the main artist! (all true stories, not making this up)!