I just heard a unique and most evocative rendition of the song addressed to goddess Mookambika, composed by SK Vidwan TV Gopalakrishnan, sung by Vid. Amrutha Venkatesh. I think it is the third song in this concert.
Varamu is a different kind of raga. It is very flavoursome and yet can sound quirky. The way to enjoy this raga is shown here. A wonderfully constructed song, with swarakshara and meaningful lyrics by a very accomplished musician. And Amrutha embellishes it with her rendition fabulously. She prefaces it with a great, indeed great, alapana. The accompanists L Ramakrishnan, Vijay Natesan, and Karthik, get into the spirit of the raga and song splendidly. Sri. TVG is in the audience and appreciates it very much.
I listened to the concert, on top of Varamu a very nice Rasa Vilasa in Kambodhi as main. And TVG's Behag Thillana was also good. L Ramakrishnan was impressive.
I remember Rasa Vilasa of the great KVN! Will listen to this....
I have mixed opinions of Varamu. Often folks sing it with lots of slides (instead of gamakams) and sounds hindustanish...
Manasuloni marmamulu is many a time sung in Varamu.
Concert Type : Nirvana and free
Time/Day : 6:30 pm to 08:50 pm ,Wednesday
Sabha : Sampoornam trust , they also placed a photo of Late Kadri Gopalnath
Hall : Arkays hall
01. varnam - sAmi ninnE(RS,S) - shree ragam-Karur Devudy Iyer
4 mins swaras
02. Gnanamu sagarAdhA (S)- poorvikalyani - T
10 mins swaras
03. mAheshwari mAmava sathatham (R,CS,N,S) - varamu - TV Gopalakrishnan
8 mins alapana and 6 mins violin return
neraval for 6 mins in mahAkAli mahAlaskhmi mahA sarswati roopa dharini
6 mins swaras
04. chintayAmi santhatham(R N) - sucharitra - Dr BMK on Muttuswami Dikshitar
05A. rAsa vilAsa (R S T)- kAmbOdhi - ST
13 mins alapana and 8 mins violin return
14 mins swaras
05B. tani for 19 mins
# The poorvikalyani swaras were really well done with nice languid pace and controlling the flow with nice rotation. The preceding sami ninnE was well done i came in at half point
# When the varamu alapana was on , my mind was only thinking about thunai purindarul. I am a fan of TVG playing mrudangam , TVG colllaborating with isaignaani illayaraja in 80's but I dont like his vocal music at all . I knew he was also a composer but this is the first time i am hearing his compositions. Superb song on Goddess Mookambigai with amrutha caressing with right emote in the neraval with different stresses on maha to give a subtle difference to sarasaraswati , kali and lakshmi was well done. The conclusive thillana was very well done konjam Lalgudi thillani like sangathis but still TVG showed his class there.
# THe Muttuswwami dikshitar biographical composition by the composer genius DR Balamurali krishna was to me a nice composition. References to phrases like panchalinga, margadesi , navaavarna were all cute musical phrases that were chiselled superbly by DR BMK. When DR BMK died that year i heard some lovely new compositions from musicians like Suryaprakash, Pantula Rama and trichur brothers . I personally feel like celebrating bit more DR BMK as a composer . Amrutha did great justice under the presence of her present guru Rama verma who was also there with his unfailing video camera
# THe kAmbOdhi was not roaring for most time but gentle with lot of sweet anchors in madhyama and mandara sthayi. She consciously picked up more throw to give more kambodhi rasa which was well done with this master piece rasa vilasa, She slightly disappointed me by just singing a phrase of neraval but unfortunately went directly to swaras.
# Vijay Natesan played with lot of sowkyam. Incidentally possibly because of presence of his guru TVG i could notice bit more muscle in tani which was not a case in my earlier concerts. Vijay natesan in this concert has moved a notch up
Few Minuses
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# I think varamu ragam sounded repetitive in ideas in both alapana and swaras
# A bit of rationing from L Ramakrishnan in violin return and also playing such long returns in poorvikalyani. Violinist if it is 2 to 2 hours 20 mins concert cut down bit more
# Just like how the relative volume of vocalist has to be shade higher than violinist . i would prefer ghatam karthik to have a shade lower volume than mrudangam in the future. At times i had to hear mrudangam which was like upapakkavadhyam . I personally feel may be the volume was jacked up in testing microphone where this lovely vidwan ghatam karthik played less with intensity but during the course of concert his volume bit went more than mrudangam artist.
Amrutha Venkatesh is a spectacular vidushi. Her strength is to give a steady voice and emote. I personally like in general anyone who sings detailed and cute swaras that go with the flow of thes song . Amrutha is a champ there.
Some thoughts about amrutha
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Personally looking at concert schedules academy is backing big time her and most of the time she takes extremely successful young gen accompanists that perhaps also shows she is able to have great push from fellow biggie artist and sabhas .But i am not sure how she is featured in many sabhas . If you took male artists this year there is a bit of high count of promotion of young vidwans to evening slots, atleast i would have preferred few years wait for 3 to 4 male artists. In female the count of performers in prime slots are fairly steady over the years but I always feel this young vidushi Amrutha Venkatesh cuts differently from the usual stereotype of many female vidushis.Her musical confidence is deep with a lovely undercurrent of voice texture, words enunciation with nice creative musical flourishes thrown quite evenly.
Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours and 20 mins.
I never found anything repetetive in Varamu alapanai - it was full enjoyable
All the time I was thinking Shambho Sathatham which is tuned by Sri TVG as well
The composition on Mokambika devi was good - liked madhyama kalam but overall didn't find the song to be that great
Yes Kamboji didn't sound usual majestic but alapana was v well done
In kamboji I heard some senjurutti phrases initially- for a sec I thought maybe she was singing kamboji in madhyama shruthi - anyone else felt that?
Between sucharitram and kamboji a fast pace song and quick swaras would have been nice
For me everything abt Amrutha is great great always gr8- only quip she sings concerts just around 2 hrs or under mark which means less fillers and tukkaddas
Also one more observation - she already sings in a usually lower shruthi than other female artistes i.e. in shruthi 5 or 4.5, is it? Not sure. But even in this shruthi her voice is bit strained in higher octaves - some higher stretches in Varamu song and swaras sounded bit hard and bit like struggling. She shd work on this. Especially she is more comfortable in middle range and lower range but not higher range
She is not yet popular like RAGA or Sanjay or RKM or Abhishek etc - even though she is at par with them or even better than them at times
Dunno why she is not yet so popular???
