Totally Versatile Gopalakrishnan at Bangalore

[Rasikapriya2013]

A beautiful evening was organized at Nayana Auditorium, Bangalore, yesterday (Thursday, Feb 5th, 2015) by Ms.Lochana Ashok Kumar, honouring her guru Dr.T.V.Gopalakrishnan, who was recently awarded the Sangeeta Kalanidhi by the Music Academy.
It was attended by a host of TVG Sir's students and well wishers. The main person designated to speak about TVG Sir was Sri Raghu, popularly known as HMV Raghu. Sri Raghu has around six decades of anecdotes to share, about his interactions with various musicians during his time in All India Radio and later, in His Master's Voice, recording company.
He regaled the audience with several anecdotes related to Sri TVG. Both TVG Sir and HMV Raghu spoke in tandem at times. They both remembered how Sri TVG accompanied the legendary Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu for the first time, during the early 1950s. When Sri Raghu recommended Sri TVG's name to Dwaram, he only asked "Has the boy heard me play?" and proceeded to accept a concert with him forthwith. When young Sri TVG went to meet him, pay his respects and give him a sample of his mridangam playing Dwaram simply repeated what he had told Sri Raghu "Have you heard me play? Then that is enough."
Sri TVG said that in a single concert, Dwaram gave him an opportunity to go through the entire gamut of possibilities as an accompanist; hard, soft, fast, slow, left side, right side, you name it.
Sri TVG said that for a mridangam artist, it was hardest to do justice, providing proper accompaniment to veena, followed by violin and only then, to vocal music.
After Sri TVG played for Dwaram, Dwaram said "There is Palghat Mani, there is Pazhani and then there is TVG!" and went on to call him "Totally Versatile Gopalakrishnan."
Rich tributes followed from many of the students and well wishers gathered there. This was followed by a very short, yet brilliant concert by Sri TVG, accompanied by Smt.H.M.Smitha and Sri Cheluvaraju. Sri TVG's sharpness, precision and poise was significantly higher than it was during some of his concerts at Chennai in December.

He started with Vandisuvudaadiyali in Nattai by Purandara Dasa, followed by a few crisp rounds of swarams.
He followed up with the Chembai masterpiece in Nattai again; a composition of Meenakshisuthan, Rakshamam Sharanagatham, which had featured prominently during the tributes before the concert.
This was followed by an evocative rendition of Ninnu Joochi in Saurashtram by Patnam Subramania Iyer, rendered at express speed. The amazing thing with Sri TVG's rendition was that despite the breakneck speed at which this was rendered, it still retained it's poignant nature completely.
The brief main song was a composition of Swathi Thirunal Maharaja in the raga Varamu; Shambho Satatam, followed by a few rounds of swarams and a short thani by Sri Cheluvaraju.

Sri TVG being such an accomplished mridangam artist himself, we expected a little more from
Sri Cheluvaraju. But the violin accompaniment by Smt.Smitha came as a pleasant surprise.
Sri TVG (an accomplished violinist too, with a exemplary disciple like Sri Varadarajan to carry on the legacy) did to Smt.Smitha what Dwaram had done to him when he was a teenager. Smt.Smitha emerged as victorious as Sri TVG did with Dwaram, more than six decades ago. There wasn't even the smallest gap between Sri TVG's musical ideas and their vocal execution. With so much creativity and spontaneity cascading out in torrents, it would keep any violinist on their toes and normally one finds only a handful of artists like Sri Varadarajan, who rise to the occasion every time. As someone who was accompanying Sri TVG for the first time, I don't think anybody could have done better than Smt.Smitha did yesterday.

The proceedings were disrupted slightly though amusingly, by the appearence of a really large bandicoot in the auditorium, which led to several patrons changing their seats, others putting their legs up on their seats, old maamis brandishing their walking sticks and trying to shoo the creature away and little kids following it around gleefully. Probably the poor animal simply wanted to listen to some good music, like the rest of us gathered there.

The post main songs were Lokabharitano in Maand by Vaadiraja Swami, Tamburi Meetidava in Sindhubhairavi by Sri Purandara Dasa and Sri TVG's thillana in Kadanakuthoohalam. All in all, an extremely intimate and heart warming evening that will linger in the minds of all of us who were fortunate enough to attend it, for a long long time.

[Rsachi]

In 1982 or so, Ravikiran have a gottuvadyam concert in Rama Seva Mandali Fort high school with Kanyakumari and TVG. It was a highly memorable concert. Todi Ragam Tanam Pallavi after some beautiful renderings like Ni vadane GAna, Nadopasana. The tani of TVG and the Todi were unforgettable.

I had also heard a talavadya cutcheri in 1970s in Ashok Hotel Delhi. The tabla player was Latif Ahmed, a formidable maestro. TVG was spectacular. The audience was in raptures.

TVG excelled in accompanying Chembai, MDR, MSG and Yesudas.

[arasi]

Couldn't have made it to the concert last evening, but I re-lived my recent experience of a TVG's concert at Ragasudha with his ace student Varadu playing for him. Nadopasana honored him, and Sri Srinivasan and others who happen to be friends of TVG for long, made it memorable, adding more to the evening.

[Sivaramakrishnan]

Rasikapriya,
A fine report.
There is a Swati Tirunal Kriti 'Shambho satatam' in the raga Karnataka kapi.
Could you pl check whether TVG has sung the same Sahitya in Varamu?

[Rasikapriya2013]

Rasikapriya,

There is a Swati Tirunal Kriti 'Shambho satatam' in the raga Karnataka kapi.
Could you pl check whether TVG has sung the same Sahitya in Varamu?

http://youtu.be/cLoE4aeJUPY