T M Krishna, Sunadam

rbharath · Post by **rbharath** » 16 Oct 2007, 22:18

T M Krishna - R K Shriram Kumar - B Ganapathi Raman - S Karthick

sunAdam. Raga Sudha Hall
15th October 2007. 6 pm

mEru samAna - mAyAmALavagauLa - Adi - T(S)
vinavE O manasA - vivardini - rUpakam - T
kshitijA ramaNam - dEvagAndhAri - Adi - MD (RS)
rAma nI samAnamevaru - kharaharapriyA - - T(N)
pArvati ninnu - kalgaDa - Adi (tisra naDai) - SS
kshInamai - mukhAri - Adi - T(RNS)
tani Avarththanam
srI valli dEvasEnApatE - naTabhairavi - Adi - Ps
sAramaina - behAg - rUpakam - ST
bhajarE yadunAtam
viruttam - sahAnA, danyAsi, aTANA, kharaharapriya
navasiddhi peRRAlum - kharaharapriyA
tillana - kAnaDA - rUpakam
nI nAma rUpamulaku - saurAshTram - Adi - T
sriyatkAntAya - suruTTi

nice concert. TMK announced that his choice of kritis is bound by a list given by the organisers and he will sing as much as he can from the list. The svarams in mAyAmaLavagauLa were amazing and were very highly creative. The AlApanai of dEvagAndhAri and mukhAri were both done in a leisurely fashion with no hurry and it was a total viLamba kAla affair thro' the concert. The neraval in kharaharapriyA and mukhAri were good also. The svarams were as usual of TMK, long sarvalaghu patterns and were well interwoven. Accompanists did a good job.

bharath

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 16 Oct 2007, 22:56

Thanks Bharath. Very SSI-ish set list, isn't it?

mahesh3 · Post by **mahesh3** » 16 Oct 2007, 23:37

TMK had a similar list in Naada Inbam in December..Bhairavi, however was the main piece....and some of the sangathis he had sung on that occasion were immense...SSI's stamp, no doubt!

rbharath · Post by **rbharath** » 17 Oct 2007, 10:48

yes, very much an SSIish list...

mohan · Post by **mohan** » 17 Oct 2007, 11:44

Being Navaratri, I would have thought the organisers would have requested more Devi krithis such as a Navavarna of Dikshitar or a Navaratri krithi of Swati Tirunal!

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 17 Oct 2007, 23:19

Two karaharapriyas in the same concert? Interesting!

bhaktha · Post by **bhaktha** » 17 Oct 2007, 23:32

Irrelevant post....deleted in view of further developments:(
-bhaktha

mdrgnb · Post by **mdrgnb** » 17 Oct 2007, 23:42

These are SSI classic. But I would think SSI may not sing these ragas in that order.

SreeRanjani, Karaharapriya, Mukhar, Bhairavi would not be bunched up.

There would be some contrast like Sankarabaranam - Sree Dakshinamurthe, or Kalyani - Birana Brova, or Varali - Karuna Elagante between these ragas.

googoo · Post by **googoo** » 18 Oct 2007, 05:55

I couldnt agree more with mdrgnb... In fact, the above concert would be a disaster!

Sriranjani followed by Reethigowla? Followed by 2 Kharaharapriyas?! Why not throw in rudrapriya and abogi for good measure?

Mukhari followed by Bhairavi?

And where are the prati-madhyamam ragas?

Frankly, I dont know how the guy repeatedly sang the same boring krithis for several decades! (even if, as people claim, each rendition was different)

ram · Post by **ram** » 18 Oct 2007, 08:36

Just wanted to present some facts so that the list is read in the context of what happened there in the concert. I am just a rasika and do not know TMK or any of the other artists or organizers personally.

* The concert was organized in memory of Soolamangalam Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar (I think it was his aradhana day) and the organizer who was related to bhagavathar gave TMK a list of kritis just before the start of the concert. These kritis could have been bhagavathar's favorites. TMK said he will try to sing as many kritis from that list as possible. So his choice of kritis must have been restricted to a large extent by the list he had been given.

* After kSINamai in mukhAri got over, one of the guys in the front row (who was sitting with one of the organizers) requested TMK to sing srIvalli dEvasEnApatE in naTabhairavi. TMK immediately asked "ippOvA (now)?". Then he thought for a few seconds and said "seri pADarEn (ok. I will sing)". He then started the song from the anupallavi and sang it in a slightly faster pace than I think he usually does.

* srIranjani and rItigauLa (mentioned in some of the replies above) were not sung in the concert.

Personally, I felt it was a very good concert. I heard from one of my friends that TMK had landed in Chennai just a few hours before the concert and had to travel to Kerala for the Navarathri Mandapam concert the next day. It is great that artists like him manage to give such quality performances without any sign of tiredness despite such packed schedules.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 18 Oct 2007, 08:48

Ram,
Thanks for the post. It is always nice to see things in perspective.

mdrgnb · Post by **mdrgnb** » 18 Oct 2007, 08:55

Natabhairavi after Karaharapriya is also tough.

I have heard stories, Tiger was an expert at singing allied ragas right after each other - Sankarabaranam and Begada. There was a Chamber concert of Tiger attended by Veena dhanammal. Tiger sang Bhairavi in detail. After Bhairavi, apparently, Dhanammal requested Tiger to sing Karaharapriya. Tiger was a little surprised at this request, but still sang Karaharapriya as a challenge.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 18 Oct 2007, 10:06

mdrgnb: Curious why that would be considered a challenge? If I have to guess it is because they are closely placed in the melakartha scheme? But then Bhairavi's placement in the chart is purely for syntactic purposes and its relationship to the parent mela is nebulous and tenuous. But then there may be other reasons why it is considered a challenge, in which case I am all ears.

googoo · Post by **googoo** » 18 Oct 2007, 14:33

Ram, I was talking about Semmangudi's hypothetical songlist and not TMK's!!!

Naada Priya · Post by **Naada Priya** » 18 Oct 2007, 16:09

Is ist justified to provide such a list to the artist??...I personally feel that, to an extent it hampers the creativity of the artist. In the morning the artist might have planned to do an RTP in rishabhapriya. But finally he might have to end up singing kalyani or thodi...
any thoughts...

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 18 Oct 2007, 17:40

I agree with Ram - the concert was one of the best I have heard from him in recent times...and the presentation of the krithis should matter more than the song selection which, IMO, is an aspect that gets more attention than it deserves.

bhaktha · Post by **bhaktha** » 18 Oct 2007, 18:09

Curse myself for diverting the thread, though I didn't mean to...

I had provided the SSI list just to illustrate that the mahavidwan could pull off just about anything in a concert!
-bhaktha

mdrgnb · Post by **mdrgnb** » 18 Oct 2007, 18:47

Bhairavi vs Karaharapriya or Bhairavi vs Manji - big topic for Music Academy morning session. Big topic .... SRJ or Vedavalli would be the right persons to comment. I will find the appropriate link and post it.

An innocuous rasika could have requested for Karaharapriya right after Bhairavi. But, it was Veena Dhanammal requesting for that raga, and that too right after an elaborate Bhairavi, Tiger felt this was a challenge/test posed to him. Tiger made some quip to that request " What guts to ask me to sing in that sequence ".

Aside, according to an interview of Semmangudi about Tiger, he has mentioned Tiger was one of the first musicians to sing Karaharapriya in detail as a main ragam - Vidamu Seyave.

jukebox · Post by **jukebox** » 18 Oct 2007, 20:32

googoo wrote:Frankly, I dont know how the guy repeatedly sang the same boring krithis for several decades! (even if, as people claim, each rendition was different)

Googoo, I'm assuming that 'the guy' you are referring to is Sri. Semmangudi. One of my friends was saying that some collector had documented more than 750 compositions sung by SSI! We admittedly have more of SSI's recordings than most other musicians, but come on, that is a pretty staggering number. He certainly repeated some kritis a lot but he seems to have cleverly interspersed them with a lot of hitherto less known or even unknown compositions.

We are in no position to comment about the repertoires of other past musicians (mostly because we don't have enough recordings), but with a lifetime ahead of them, we have to see how many of today's musicians are going to provide such a rich and variegated fare.

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 18 Oct 2007, 21:53

Ram

I was "one of the organizers" (Mr. Rammohan, the organizer and grandson of the Bhagavathar is my father-in-law) sitting with a friend of mine who made the request for srivalli. Now I personally wouldn't request srivalli or anything else in Natabhairavi if my life depended on it so I was trying to pretend that the request didn't exist

. But T M Krishna saw my friend scribbling something on a paper that was clearly a request and wanted to know what it was

.

Actually I think the concert would have had a different (and arguably somewhat better) dynamic if this request hadn't been made. Perhaps even a short RTP.

As a rule I would discourage rasikas from plying the artistes with requests unless the artiste himself/herself throws the question open or the request is made before the concert.

Uday

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 18 Oct 2007, 22:51

Bhairavi vs Karaharapriya or Bhairavi vs Manji - big topic for Music Academy morning session.

So you are indeed talking about allied or 'similar' ragas. I fully understand Bhairavi vs Manji but you can not include Bhairavi vs KHP in the same breath. The similarity of those two pairs do not hold in regards to allied ragas, does it? Anyway, I am just curious that a story like this involving stalwarts like Tiger and Dhanammal exists about two ragas which should be reasonably fine to play next to each other. IMHO.

ram · Post by **ram** » 18 Oct 2007, 22:58

Ah Uday !!! I am able to place you now. Were you the one who offered a lift till Adyar (for one person) to a few of us who were chatting outside the hall after the concert ended?

I can also now recall TMK asking for the paper on which your friend had scribbled his request.

rbharath · Post by **rbharath** » 18 Oct 2007, 23:34

well, for once, i left early, and i missed the opportunity to meet one of the forum members..

Svaapana · Post by **Svaapana** » 19 Oct 2007, 18:00

We seem to be so concerned with allied ragas appearing in tandem. Listen to western classical; so rich mostly based on Sankarabaranam. Listen to Chinese; again rich based on mohanam (Have I over simplified matters?)

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 19 Oct 2007, 22:44

Svaapana, western music is supposedly based on an harmonic system - although I really haven't understood what that means...as for Chinese music, I don't think it is really considered on the same footing as the Indian or western classical systems but that may just be my prejudice/ignorance