Reviews of the Season

mahesh3 · Post by **mahesh3** » 05 Jan 2007, 00:07

I figured we would do this one too....I am unable to come up with one single review among some of the knowledgeable, erudite & fascinating reviews that I have read on this forum... The quality of reviews here are far better than what one gets to read in The Hindu and miles ahead of what we are used to in Sangeetham...Prashant, Ram, Vijay, R Bharath & Rajeshnat easily stand out....Enough said. I will let others chime in...

mahavishnu · Post by **mahavishnu** » 05 Jan 2007, 01:43

Mahesh, thanks for starting this thread. I agree with you totally. The quality of reviews on this forum have been excellent.

Ram, Prashant, rbharath, Rajeshnat.... thank you for your detailed and tireless reviews. It looks like you criss-crossed the city from corner to corner just to provide us with such comprehensive song lists and reviews. For those of us following the season from many oceans away, it was a real treat to read your pieces. I also appreciate the ringside views of Sri Balaji. It is rare to get a review of a concert from the participating mridangam vidwan. We wish you all the best for a glorious career!

Vijay's review of Sanjay at MA stands out for me. Like Vijay observes, I really think we might be witnessing the birth of a giant here (no pun intended). I remember the joke going around in the early '90s that in the height of his popularity the crowd's attraction for Maharajapuram Santhanam was strictly gravitational. Sorry, couldn't resist

I found the Hindu's reviews to be apalling, to be honest. They were non-informative, sometimes petty and one-sided and in some cases blatantly wrong. I remember reading one reviewer mentioning that Mayamma in Ahiri as a "Thyagaraja" kriti. A couple of these were caught in the errata section published today. This is not to say that all their reviews were all like that. I just got the impression that they were written by people who do not value & savour the musical experience as much as people in this forum.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 05 Jan 2007, 02:18

Vijay,
Were you able to attend Priyadarshini Govind's and Valli's recitals? If you were able to go, what were your impressions? Please share!

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 05 Jan 2007, 09:36

I personally enjoyed reading Vijay's review of Sanjay's Academy concert, Bharath's review of Sri TKG's Naada Inbam concert, and Ram's review of Sri Srikantan's Naada Inbam concert. All of them came from the heart.

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 05 Jan 2007, 11:47

Mahesh, thanks for your kind words but I don't think there is much point in dwelling on the best review and so on...I am myself extremely grateful to guys like Ram and Rajesh-Nat who put down the lists of almost concerts they attend and also BHarath and Prashant for their less frequent but equally erudite inputs. I am more lazy myself but happy to share whatever I can when i am in the mood and have some time.

On the Hindu I have a different take - I think they have been heeding the criticism from various quarters. The quality of reviews has gone up substantially although there seems to be some guardedness on the part of knowledgeable reviewers such as Sulochana Pattabhiraman. Nevertheess, I find a better coverage of rhythmic aspects, some observations on proyogas in raga alaapanas - these used to be glaringly absent from the "reviews" of SVK (who still holds fort at KGS) and the like which rarely, if ever, revealed any meaningful musical knowledge. It is not enough for a reviewer in my opinion to provide his or her general impression of the concert and make sweeping statements about lack of patantharam/sowkhyam etc. - a sophisticated art form like CM deserves nothing short of a technical analysis (going well beyond basic raga/tala identification) although the reviewer's subjective opinions are important as well.

Shankar, I did attend Malavikka Sarukkai yesterday and plan to show up for Priya Govind today but although I enjoyed myself immensely I am not sure how I can contribute meaningfully. I will probably have to miss Valli though on account of travel. I anyway, I will try and add something in the natya section but you will have to bear with my utter lack of knowledge!

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 05 Jan 2007, 12:13

Reviews at rasikas.org marks a watershed in the History of this forum.

Compared to the Critical Reviews as we generally know them, these were refreshingly different , on the following counts.

1.They were not constrained by Size limitations.If the Concert was great , The reviewer also wrote wih full gusto.
2.There were no pretensions of talking down to an audience.Reviewers made no secrets of their Intense Liking of an artist and hence it was easy to see them as an honest representation.
3.the lack of formaliity , meant that reviewers could let their hair down once in a while.
4.Song list representations were so neat and perfect .
5.A few newcomers got encouraged to write , as the season progressed , and did a fine job as well.
6.There was an attempt to break free from the well known names and try and project other artistes too.

Augurs very well for the coming days.Hope to hear from concerts in other cities as well.

A BIG THANKS TO ALL OF YOU.

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 05 Jan 2007, 12:42

Thanks to all of you for the kind words. All of you are very kind to read through the reviews posted - I know mine can be sometimes tortuously long! Looking forward to hearing more good concerts late this year. Malladi Brothers and Smt. Vedavalli in January; Sanjay, Ranjani/Gayatri and Sudha Raghunathan in February all coming up in Mumbai.

rbharath · Post by **rbharath** » 05 Jan 2007, 13:55

It feels nice when somebody says something good about oneself. thanks guys.

If only i was in town for the full season, i could have enjoyed more concerts. i had to miss the season from 15th to 25th of december and hence could only make it to a few concerts, much less than what i would usually do in a full season.

I hope to continue attending concerts in the city, whenever i can and would write stuff here...

The review i enjoyed the most was prashant's beautiful write-up about Vijay Siva's concert at Kalarasna. The list was also a very nice one, which made it more readable to me.

Jigyaasa · Post by **Jigyaasa** » 05 Jan 2007, 19:09

I must mention that I thought the name of a raga like Kaanada couldn't be incorporated meaningfully in a Sahityam but this was done beautifully in the Pallavi of RTP in Sri Vijay Siva's aforementioned concert. And having Mohanam in the ragamalika, in a way paying homage to Sri Thyagaraja(Nannu Palimpa) was a beautiful idea... And the review of this concert here was also a great read...