Malladi Brothers- Parthasaraty Swamy Sabha

[grsastrigal]

Malladi Brothers
MA Sundareswaran
Neyveli Narayanan (Mridhangam)
Udipi Sridhar (Ghatam)

19th December 2016.

Parthasarathy SabhA.

Malladi brothers were not in good “voice” , may be, because of the previous day’s concert at MFAC they They had coughed more than singing and discussing at length each other between the songs, as if trying to attend high profile interview. Result was, they had taken simmedramadhyamam and surutti for rAga rendering and other kritis were made tukkadAs.

I also know about MA Sundareswaran, who always plays “not upto my expectation”. But to some extent, he proved myself wrong.

The highlight of the concert of one song- Sri Gayathri devi sanAtani- this was in Sanskrit which explained the meaning and the effect of Gayathri mantram. When I discussed with at the end, one of the brothers told me it was of Origala (near rajamudhry, AP) veeraraghava Sharma who was a Sri Devi upAsaka. Subsequently, when I googled, I got more about the composer. But it was very nice.

The surutti song was “Sri Balasubramanyam bhajeham”. It was another excellent kriti by Dikshitar. It was said to have been rendered by MD before nava varna kriti. Well rendered with a typical “guru gAru” pAni.

Vasantha-Ninnu kOri-varnam
jOOtA murarE-Arabhi- Ragam for 2 minutes. Swaram in “Agama sanchA rOOdaga”
mAnasa guruguha-Anandha bairavi-MD
vinata sutavA-JayanthasEna-T- (S)
Simmendramadhyamam-rAgam-ninnE nammidhi- ST (N) in “pannakEndra sayanA.. vAhanA” (S)
Shankara dayAkara-HarikAmbodhi-P Sivan
Surutti- Sri balasubramanyam bhajEham- MD- {N) in “vElAyudha dharam… chaturam” (S).
Tani (brilliant tani) – Neyveli never fails and along with US, they performed a real 13 minutes treat.
Sri.Gayatri dEvi-Valaji
Bhaja mAnasa raghavEndram-Tilang-kamalesa vittala
Brahma katigina-Annamacharya- Mukhari (?)
UyyAla-neelambari- Utsava Sampradhaya kriti-T
Mangalam.

[rajeshnat]

Malladi Brothers@parthasarathy swami sabha On Dec 19th,2016
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MA Sundareswaran (Violin)
Neyveli Narayanan (Mridhangam)
Udipi Sridhar (Ghatam)

Putting the minutes over GRS Song list

Vasantha-Ninnu kOri-varnam
jOOtA murarE-Arabhi- Ragam for 2 minutes. Swaram in “Agama sanchA rOOdaga”
swaras for 5 mins

mAnasa guruguha-Anandha bairavi-MD
vinata sutavA-JayanthasEna-T- (S)
swaras for 6 mins

Simmendramadhyamam-rAgam-ninnE nammidhi- ST (N) in “pannakEndra sayanA.. vAhanA”
(S)

raga alapana for 8 mins and 5 mins violin return
neraval for 5 mins and swaras for 5 mins

Shankara dayAkara-HarikAmbodhi-P Sivan

Surutti- Sri balasubramanyam bhajEham- MD- {N) in “vElAyudha dharam… chaturam”

(S).
12 mins alapana , neraval for 4 mins and 6 mins swaras

Tani (brilliant tani) – Neyveli never fails and along with US, they performed a

real 13 minutes treat.

Sri.Gayatri dEvi-Valaji - Origala veerarAghava sharma

Bhaja mAnasa raghavEndram-Tilang-kamalesa vittala
Brahma katigina-Annamacharya- Mukhari (?)
UyyAla-neelambari- Utsava Sampradhaya kriti-T
Mangalam.

[rajeshnat]

My impressions
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Yesterday i took a day off to attend 3 concerts . this was my third concert .

# I did not hear the first vasantha only came till the end . THe arabi krithi was sung well but the alapana was just okay. THeir rendition of manasa guruguha was well done .Jayanthesana had swaras centered on madhyama kAlam and i enjoyed more the taps of neyveli narayanan

# Simmhendra madhyamam alapana was sung by Ravi- it was a standard fare. The krithi , neraval were strictly for the lovers of krithi rendition- but i felt they could have given bit more laya variations that too with narayanan putting up a great show.

#Shurutti is a very difficult raga to master master especially to sing the alapana. I felt there was excessive squat on few sangathis and the main alapana had it share of repetition .The krithi of MD in shurutti was well done -the presentation was clean in diction.

# All the tukkadas had the same intensity - nothing that great or nothing that bad . Also the voice volume was way too high during tukkadas . I did not know the composer of the rare valaci (Is that valaci or kalavathi)- Thank you GRS for you letting us know

# The violinist MA Sundareswaran is usually very flamboyant , but today he could not show the flamboyance of his cut bow parur school. I guess the main reason was that the malladi brothers were singing nearly the same madhyama kala octave and violin reference was bit dictated by the vocalist idea

# As stated by GRS , I completely agree the neyveli narayanan played beautifully . The volume was not high (I had to say this as the previous concert was high ). The patterns were all clear with no overbanging effect . Udupi Sridhar gave a very good support , but he did not have that much chance to play due to less swarakalpana magic

I wish Malladi go beyond madhyama kalam
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It is atleast 5 or 6 years since I heard a malladi brothers live concert . Their concert gives a feel of music through the door of nice diction . But however I felt I was sitting for a two front to back doordarshan or an AIR concert . There is an excess squat in madhyamakAlam - i can even say malladi brothers can be renamed as mallAdi madhyamakAlam. Almost all krithis have the same tempo , the voice never goes to tAra sthAyi- atleast sreeram (whose voice resembles nedanuri) gives an impression that he is trying but Ravikumar finds it difficult to go with higher notes .Mandara sthAyi is nearly the same story as tAra sthAyi. There is a bit of plateaued approach in their singing atleast from the angle where they not able to keep up with a varied tempo during the course of concert.

Overall a good to very good concert for exact 2 hours and 30 minutes.