Chingleput Ranganathan, Asthika Samajam, Thiruvanmiyur

rbharath · Post by **rbharath** » 09 Feb 2007, 00:47

Chingleput Ranganathan - Mullaivasal Chandramouli - Madirimangalam Swaminathan

Amarabharathi. Ashtika Samajam, Thiruvanmiyur.
Thyagaraja Utsavam
8th February 2007. 6:30 pm

srI gaNapatini - saurAshtRam - Adi - T
rAmA nI pai - kEdAram - Adi - T (S)
raghuvara nannu - pantuvarALi - Adi - T (RNS)
kanulu tAkani - kalyANa vasantam - rUpakam - T (RN)
nI vADanE gAna - sArangA - kaNDa cApu - T (R)
mundu vEnukA - darbAr - Adi - T (RNS)
tani Avarththanam
kalinarulaku - kuntaLa varALi - dEsAdi - T
mangaLam slOkam on tyAgarAja - suruTTi

The concert began with a short phrase of saurAshtRam. The kriti was rendered well. The kEdAram kriti, a forte of his school, was rendered very well with a nice and long set of one Avarthana svarams.

Sri Ranganathan's pantuvarALi AlApanai was very nice. The kriti was rendered well with a beautiful neraval at 'manasuna nIki marulu konnAnu'. The svarams sung were nice and had a lot of intricate kaNakku in them. Sri Ranganathan later explained that it was a misra kOrvai in kaNDa naDai he sang to finish the pantuvarALi svarams.

The kalyANa vasantam AlApanai was very elaborate and the kriti was rendered beautifully with awesome neraval at 'mana mOhanAnanda mada cakOra'. One was expecting svarams and was disappointed.

The flashy sArangA AlApanai was very indicative of a main piece, but was quickly rounded off with a quick number. The main darbAr AlApanai began with a punch of darbAr and was elaborated very well. The 13+ minutes of the AlApanai were just too good. The kriti was rendered very movingly with nice neraval and quick round of svarams at 'O gajarakshakA O rAjakumArA'. The kuntaLavarALi kriti was nicely rendered. The mangaLam slOkam, a composition of a certain Rao from kumbakonam of the 1920s was rendered nicely.

Sri Ranganathan gave a very enjoyable concert. All his AlApanais were very nice. They were very logically built and made enjoyable. His neraval and svarams were nice also.

Sri Chandramouli was very good in giving replies to the main artist. He sorta was tentative while beginning the last svaram of pantuvarALi, for he was quite surprised that Sri Ranganathan actually asked him to play the svarams after all the intricate math he displayed. However, Sri Chandramouli played a simpler yet enjoyable kOrvai in his turn. He was good in kalpitam and manOdarmam parts.

Sri Swaminathan on the mrudangam was very accomodative of the main artists style and played with amazing anticipation. He was very good in all parts and his tani was nice also.

bharath

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 09 Feb 2007, 14:40

I was there in the concert seated next to bharath.The sabha secy Shri Narasimhan gave a brief talk at the end of tani and said he got a glimpse of how, many of the yesteryears musicians used to sing. Not too sure of how right that statement is??.But there were clear distinctions in his style that too considering his age it appears a lot can be learnt by today's musicians.

1.Long akarams in almost all krithi renditions ,that too he dropped it with ease. Notably in the kedaram krithi in tyAgarAjuni hrdayamandu... was fantastic. I just thought he did that to build up his voice strength and he used it regularly for almost all the krithis.

2. His neraval in kalyAna vasantham was a 15 minute marathon. Never heard such a long neraval in kalyAnavasantham, as usually it is just skirted.

3. As bharath mentioned , the long kanakku swaram in pantuvarAli was abstract math to me and I felt my head was spinning after a roller coaster ride. But When MullaivAsal was asked to play,he must have felt as though he was dropped in the middle of the sea he swam quite well and came back to shore. Other than that, mullaivAsal played very well (especially darbAr)

4. Shri RanganAthan said he was inspired to sing mundu vEnukA in darbAr after listening to maharAjapuram VishwanAtha Iyer? That was interesting , has anyone heard MVI's darbAr.

5.The last shuruTTi mangalam was in the lines "girirAja sUtra",a long tamil composition by rao?? dedicated to sadguru thyagarAja(Lji help).

I asked shri ranganathan as to whether he prepared the song list before hand for this concert. He said not really "ithu thyagarAja arAdhana utsavam thAne, enna kavalai??". (This concert is one dedicated to thyagarAja , why worry?? ).Well that statement was more than validated by he singing a rare kalyAnavasantham and kuntalavarAli krithi which I heard for the first time.

3 swarams,3 neravals(rarity) and 4 rAga alApanai is definitely a big treat to hear.

shripathi_g · Post by **shripathi_g** » 09 Feb 2007, 22:31

Rajeshnat/Bharath, I'm visiting India next week. Will be there for a month. Can you guys post/email some info about these concerts? I'd love to attend at least 5 to 10.

Thanks,

Sripathi

gravikiran · Post by **gravikiran** » 10 Feb 2007, 02:00

it is said that maharajapuram vishwanatha iyer was a repository of kritis in darbar raga.
kritis in darbar like "aparadhamula maanpi" (khandachapu) were brought forth only by him according to what i have heard.