N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

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Sivaramakrishnan
Posts: 1582
Joined: 02 Jan 2010, 08:29

N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

Post by Sivaramakrishnan »

Concert marking the conclusion of year long celebrations
of Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary
@Narada Gana Sabha, Chennai

16.09.2018
10.15 a.m. - 12.45 noon
e Sruthi- 5.5 kattai

N Ravikiran - Chitraveena
Akkarai Subhalakshmi-Violin
Mannargudi Easwaran-Mridangam
N Guruprasad-Ghatam


Chitravina Ravikiran presented the concluding concert of the RAMNAD KRISHNAN (1918-1973) birth centenary celebrations at Narada Gana Sabha, Chennai.

Sri Ramanathan, son of the legendary singer, noted for his highly nuanced music, spoke briefly at the occasion.

Ravikiran rendered kritis special to Ramnad Krishnan.
****
1. Nayaki - Varnam (khanda triputa)
2. Sourashtra - Ninujuchi- Patnam Subramania iyer
3. Phalamanjari- Palukutache padamemi- Patnam Subramania iyer
4. Devagandhari - Tulasamma-Tyagaraja
5. Poornashadjam - Lavanyarama-Tyagaraja
6. Kalyani- Biraanabrovayithe- Tarangampadi panchanada Iyer (Main)-
Tani
7. Varali-RTP
Khantajati triputa 2 Kalai, eduppu 7 matras from samam
(Kanchadalayathakshi kamakshi, karunajudumu varali veni)
8. Reetigoula- Javali-Nyaayamu
9. Poornachandrika - Tillana- followed by
Mangalam
************
A fine Sunday morning filled with chaste music!

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Chitravina Ravikiran@Ramnad Krishnan Day(NGS) on Sept 16th,2018

Post by rajeshnat »

Chitravina Ravikiran@Ramnad Krishnan Day(NGS) on Sept 16th,2018
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chitravina : Chitravina Ravikiran
Violin : Akkarai Subbulakshmi
Mrudangam : Mannargudi Easwaran
Ghatam : N Guruprasad
Occasion : Culmination of Ramnad Krishnan Centenary Celebrations

Concert Type : Nirvana - No concert to follow
Day/Duration : Sunday/ 2 hours and 30 mins
Hall : NGS Main Hall
Sabha : Ramnad Krishnan Centenary Committee joining hands with Karthik Fine Arts
Paid or Free: Free

1. Nayaki varnam
2. Ninnu Juchi (S) - sowrashtram -Patnam
6 mins swaras

3. palukutachE (R) - phalamanjari - Patnam
5 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return
4. Sri TulasammA (R) - devagandhari -T
6 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return

5. Lavanya rAmA (R) - poornashadjam -T
5 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return

6A. birAna brOVa (R NS T) - kalyani - Taragampadi panchanatha Iyer
11 mins alapana and 6 mins violin return
11 mins neraval and swaras
6B. tani for 12 mins

7. RTP in varAli
9 mins alapana with 6 mins taken by chitravina
4 mins taanam
7 mins pallavi and swaras
21 mins RTP
Pallavi talam -kanda jAthi triputa chatushra gati
Pallavi line kancha dalAya DAkshi kamAkshi , karuna joodavu varAli vEni

8. nyAyamu gAdurA tOyajAkSa - reetigowlai - PattabhirAmiah???
9. Thillana - poornachandrika - Poochi
10. pavamana + mangalam kosalendrAya

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: Chitravina Ravikiran@Ramnad Krishnan Day(NGS) on Sept 16th,2018

Post by rajeshnat »

It is atleast 10 years since I heard ravikiran playing chitraveena . Many many years back i went once to academy there was a concert of his and there was also powerpoint slide . I recollect now he played a varali with UKS mama . I listen to CM Live concert atleast as a redemption to My life with powerpoint tamasha in work. Few years back I heard him sing in a sangeeetha priya award concert and i put that review .

The day was Sunday, In the morning there is ravikiran@NGS , Hemmige Prashanth@ragasudha and Tadepalli@Arkays and there is about 5 to 6 concerts in the evening there is even a 4 hour concert in ragasudha of vasudha ravi. Personally I wanted to attend ravikiran as I want to understand ramnad krishnan . RK is to me in the league of medieval era greats (1950 to 1975) .My medieval era greats includes maharajapuram santhanam, MLV ,KVN, Somu, MDR ,Voleti , SKR, TRS, Ramnad krishnan and TK Rangachari(The order is the order of my acclimitization of them not the ranking ).

Ramnad Ramanathan from RK family gave a lovely introduction and also gave a precise list of all of the 23 concerts that were held in the past one year.Ramanathan thanked the artist. Ramanathan is really a great soul , he also profusely apologised the other artist whom he could not feature(I bow you sir when you said that). For me the highlight of the concert was the heartfelt talk of Ramnad Ramanathan than even the concert .I wish i had the bhagyam to have atleast taken that brilliant sreevalsan menon who was featured in the 22 concerts that I missed. Dr Menon in chennai is so so rare .

Ravikiran had a great team ranging from the violinist akkarai who immaculately bows with right raga bhavam.The non violinist easwaran sir who till now does not know to bang the mrudu angam .Guruprasad who comes with tight rhythmmic leash gives right impromptu touches . Team is great and NGS main hall had a very less count of rasikas perhaps we could have fitted in NGS mini with little spill over in aisles, it is not ravikiran's fault , the instrument apathy of rasikas is very high in madras, even on a sunday morning free concert in prime alwarpet for instrumental concert this is what you get.

I had to sit with trivandrum brothers , when ravikiran started with the alapana , i wrote in my notebook as nayaki, one of the trivandrum brothers said it was nayaki and the other said it was darbar .After 10 seconds we all agreed it was nayaki , i am glad that even one of the trivandrum brothers got nayaki as darbar(they both will write after me).

Nayaki is a rakthi raga ,that has a more share of subtle nuances. I felt ravikiran showed his class and I did not feel any sense of darbar athattal but only nayaki melivu even when there was kalpanaswaras and a shade of kanakku. Ninnu Juchi in sowrashtram is a superb number , i love personally nagaswara vidwans taking this song , it is slightly racy sowrashtram number , the swaras were very impressive, ravikiran played bit slower but still impressive .

The third number was a bonker to me even after 30 seconds i did not get the raga when alapana was on. The trivandrum brother who wrongly got nayaki as darbar told it is phalamanjari in 10 seconds and he psyched me . See how demystifying CM is , he gets phalamanjani in 5 seconds and sometimes even mistakes nayaki as darbar. If one of the trivandrum brother had not told me the raga was phalamanjari ,I would have continued to bang my head in kharahara priya janya zone(phalamanjari has a slight kAnadA lining) , the alapana was surely rare in phalamanjari . Ramnad krishnan sings such exotic ragas with ease and I liked phalamanjari with alapana . Ravikiran took a more rare patnam krithi than a less rare phalamanjari T krithi, phalamanjari was well done and ravikiran showed his class with depth .

Exotic rakthi ride continued with a more detailed alapana of slowcoach devagandhari .The raga devagandhari usually tests your patience and I was ok with it . Nice turns to give very deep carnatic gamakas and that was the virtual theme of ravikiran.He played beautifully the devagandhari and the expected krithi sri tulasamma of sadhguru came out well.

The most taken up Ramnad Krishnan popularized krithi by omnipresent musicians of today is lavanya rama and the raga poornashadjam .Usually that comes as #2 . Ravikiran took it as premain filler with a raga alapana. I adore poornashadjam raga and his handling was very clean , during that time at the start itself he announced that he is taking poornashadjam and will follow with kalyani birana brova

Melakartha 65 arrived not as a sprightly kalyani shade in alapana , She appeared very tired and docile in alapana . Ravikiran gave a bit of pointers to take it from its shackles of gloomy kalyani in alapana , akkkarai refused to steer it away from a shade of excess melancholy. The number birana brova is a semmangudi number to me , SSI has taken it to himalayan heights. Ravikiran mentioned about aakaram and accentutation of this kalyani he talked for few minutes , but unfortunately he did not back up that well with what he spoke by his play.He played very nicely kalyani with a little faster tempo and I liked his krithi and rendition .I did not get any AhA Oho greatness that he explained before . There is a subtle salesmanship of Ravikiran and his vidwat there. I wish I had come home where I had written this kalyani was like say 75% of vasudevayani of GNB or kamalabAm bhajarE of MMI or needu charana of SSI .

Ravikiran asked can i go ahead with pallavi . One rasika whom i know shouted please go for RTP. One of the trivandrum brothers who sat next to me was bit down there .He told he is bit fed up with too much of kalyani and varali. Personally I love varAli , ravikiran showed his class there with RTP in varali . The rough contours of varAli was only in the structure but there was intense gamaka suddam in my ears . Taanam was very censored he took it more from mel kaalam and it was pretty good .He perhaps coined a new pallavi and I liked the pallavi amaippu. I thought he will go for atleast two ragamaligas connecting portions of pallavi line like kamalamanohari (kancha dalayadaskhi) and karuna joodavumma (shree ragam), but he refused to go away from a single raga RTP to ragamaliga swaras .Perhaps this is the weakness of excess rationing of brinda muktha veena dhanammal school, he could have gone with more shade of onspot manodharmam there and gone bit more out of his comfort zone to create bit more brahmippu.

The last reeetigowlai was simply fantastic, my ears are more tuned to hear the truti fruity reetigowlai .I got a shade of some unexplained aesthetic beauty of reetigowlai with this RK-Senior javali performed by RK-Jr. SOme muse of reetigowlai muse that i cannot map to tatvamaria tharama of sivan, janani ninnuvina of subbaraya sastri, dwaitamu sukhama of T or for that matter the earliest thalayai kuniyum thAmaraiyE of isaignani illayaraja that I heard even without knowing that as reetigowlai. Thank you Ramnad krishan and thank you Ravikiran for giving that rare Reetigowlai javali with a great exotic rakthi touch. poornachandrika was bit rare in one aspect , in my dictionary after reading thru the forum Ramnad krishnan = (GNB + Veena Dhanammal )/2 , 90 percent of the tribute was more of veenai dhanammal school of RK , the poornachandrika had the maximum verve of GNB typecast.

Akkarai is always a spectacular violinist . She had lovely proportion , I hope she continues the same form and not overplay return length when she accompanies in the future for other artists. Her play in poornashadjam was most impressive, superb raga bhavam . Easwaran and Gururprasad did lift up the concert . In the tani guruprasad had more variations than easwaran sir .

Few things that I am pondering now
-------------------------------------
1.I personally knew most of ramnad krishnan only thru forum. My personal favourites of his is bhuvini dAsudane submain , the akshayalinga vibho main and one sahana rtp. There was a long discussion in our forum about 10 or 12 years back.There was one camp which was selling Ramnad krishan Veena bhani and his subtle and restraint of style that he got it from veena dhanammal. There was another camp I forgot that person's name now where he told Ramnad krishan early days especially he taking up music like GNB was way too impressive . In a concert, verve and pouring manodharma of a GNB or SSI or MMI is way too important to me

2.Having stated the above point Ravikiran was only showcasing Ramnadkrishnan (veena dhanammal subset).He was only showcasing his school more .Choice of say devagandhari , kalyani on the sedate side , he did not give any sprightly numbers for me to sit up and enjoy that much atleast prior to RTP. Brinda muktha school on a concert platform for a near entire duration needs a different mindset and I missed a certain verve for most part atleast before RTP.

3. Ravikiran stated at the beginning of kalyani that this kalyani of birana brova of taragampadi panchanadha iyer is very unique in aakarmish phrases and he stated there was accentuation of aakaram .He talked and said aha oho of the krithi and he slowly also brought up there his school of Brinda muktha . At times he speaks but I wish he also follows up with that aha OHO kalyani, quite frankly i didnot get as much of what he spoke. What aakaram and accentuation that is not there in other telugu krithis like needu charana or yetA unarA that this birAna brOva has ?

All said , Ravikiran has intense gamaka suddham , the contours of raga is very clear . I would have preferred a little more shade of say RamnadKrishnan (with GNB contours) far more than the excess of RamnadKrishnan (with veena dhanammal school contours).
Personally the reetigowlai, phalamanjari and varAli RTP will stay bit more dear for a longer time-thank you ravikiran

Overall a very good to excellentconcert for 2 and half hours.
Last edited by rajeshnat on 17 Sep 2018, 13:45, edited 1 time in total.

CRama
Posts: 2939
Joined: 18 Nov 2009, 16:58

Re: Chitravina Ravikiran@Ramnad Krishnan Day(NGS) on Sept 16th,2018

Post by CRama »

rajeshnat wrote: 16 Sep 2018, 18:00
Ramnad Raghavan from RK family gave a lovely introduction and also gave a precise list of all of the 23 concerts that were held in the past one year.Raghavan thanked the artist. Raghavan is really a great soul ,
Rajesh, Ramnad Krishnan's son is Mr.Ramanathan who has organised all the concerts. Ramnad Raghavan is Ramnad Krishnan's brother who was a Mridangam artiste based out of US.

CRama
Posts: 2939
Joined: 18 Nov 2009, 16:58

Re: N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

Post by CRama »

It was a superb concert which you can always expect from Ravikiran. Ravikiran chose to present the ragams that are synonymous with Ramnad Krishnan. I was much impressed by the delineation of many ragams like Phalamanjari, Poornashadjam, Devagandhari alapanas besides the evergreen Kalyani and omnipresent Varali. I have never heard the alapana of Poornashadjam. That javali in Reetigowla was also new to me.

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: Chitravina Ravikiran@Ramnad Krishnan Day(NGS) on Sept 16th,2018

Post by rajeshnat »

I changed to ramanathan from raghavan in my review. Thanks crama

ganeshkant
Posts: 963
Joined: 05 Feb 2010, 11:59

Re: N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

Post by ganeshkant »

Sunil Gargyan sang Poornashadjam ragam accompanied by MC that was held in Arkay some time back.its available in U tube.a very good attempt.

RasikasModerator2
Posts: 151
Joined: 27 Aug 2018, 21:02

Re: N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

Post by RasikasModerator2 »

As requested, the two review threads on this concert have been merged into one.

asangeetha
Posts: 137
Joined: 19 Oct 2006, 12:21

Re: N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

Post by asangeetha »

I also attended this event and thought of sharing some views. As a regular attendee of Shri Ravikiran's concerts, and being personally acquainted with the beauty of the chitraveena as a singing instrument, here are some thoughts.

First of all I have to say that just handling this instrument in terms of tuning all 21 strings, let alone playing tunefully is a Herculian task. And on top of that to play ragas like Phalamanjari and Poornashadjam at such levels is only possible by someone like Shri Ravikiran who has done great Tapas with the instrument!
Ninnu Juchi in sowrashtram is a superb number , i love personally nagaswara vidwans taking this song , it is slightly racy sowrashtram number , the swaras were very impressive, ravikiran played bit slower but still impressive .
The inherent capabilities of each instrument dictate a certain kalapramanam which is expertly chosen by the artiste. The kalapramanam chosen for a nagaswaram might not work for an instrument like chitraveena whose strengths are in bringing out the nuances as close to the voice as possible. So I feel slowness is only subjective.
..but he refused to go away from a single raga RTP to ragamaliga swaras .Perhaps this is the weakness of excess rationing of brinda muktha veena dhanammal school, he could have gone with more shade of onspot manodharmam there and gone bit more out of his comfort zone to create bit more brahmippu.
A vast majority of his pallavi renditions do include ragamalikas. In fact he has even rendered special Raga malika pallavis including the 100-Raga Shata ragamalika RTP in both vocal and chitravina. And as for Brahmippu, it can even come elegantly through purity, elegance and restraint which was the hallmark of the Brindamma school. They seldom resorted to gimmicks to attract some quick attention, which is common knowledge to those who are well acquainted with the values of this school.
..Ravikiran mentioned about aakaram and accentutation of this kalyani he talked for few minutes , but unfortunately he did not back up that well with what he spoke by his play.He played very nicely kalyani with a little faster tempo and I liked his krithi and rendition .I did not get any AhA Oho greatness that he explained before
This is probably something that a vocalist would better understand. He was talking about the unique abilities of the vocalists from that school to render akaram type phrases effortlessly and seamlessly. This was just an observation and admiration of the superior vocal abilities that made their music endearing. How can this be connected to how he played Kalyani on the chitraveena ? Theres no connection :-)

Overall, I agreed with many points that had been nicely brought out. Just wanted to clarify a few points.

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

Post by rajeshnat »

During the concert shri Ramnad Ramanathan was thanking The Hindu writer Renuka Suryanarayanan. For sure i was thinking the review of this concert will surely come in The Hindu . Ravikiran review dated October 05th,2018 in The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/ ... 122440.ece

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

Post by SrinathK »

The inherent capabilities of each instrument dictate a certain kalapramanam which is expertly chosen by the artiste. The kalapramanam chosen for a nagaswaram might not work for an instrument like chitraveena whose strengths are in bringing out the nuances as close to the voice as possible. So I feel slowness is only subjective.
True, a chitraveena involved continuous sliding of one block with big movements, while in a flute, we have 8 fingers, all of which move mere millimeters in comparison. So every instrument must be played to its strength.

ifcm_rfi
Posts: 35
Joined: 20 May 2005, 05:20

Re: N Ravikiran @ Ramnad Krishnan Birth Centenary 16.9.18

Post by ifcm_rfi »

The concert video is available at:

https://youtu.be/0EsevTvswLg

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