Sanjay-Brahma Gana Sabha-Dec 14

grappelli · Post by **grappelli** » 14 Dec 2008, 23:09

Quick recap of sanjay's concert.

1) Valachi varnam
2) Sattaleni - naganandini (S)
3) ?? - malayamarutham - misrachapu (R,N,S)
4) Chetasri - Dwijavanthi
5) Muripemu - Mukhari (R,N,S)
6) RTP - Behag - tisra triputa (with ragamalika neraval)
7) Adiya paadathai - surutti

I left at this point, somebody else can fill in the rest. A nice concert filled by sanjay's classicism and exhuberance.
The malayamarutham was a tamil composition and the neraval and swaras (at two different points in the sahitya) were excellent. I thought the chetasri rendition was just ok, but sanjay more than made up with a brilliant mukhari alapana. Nice song selection and neraval/swaras at the charanam (iduleni malayamaruthamu) were very well done (with a small excursion to tisra nadai during swaras). His behag had a lot of unusual phrasings and some nice jarus from the tara shadjam. The violinist's (I didnt recognise him) reply was outstanding and got multiple rounds of applause. The pallavi was in tisra triputa, neraval was in ragamalika, it included hindolam, anandabhairavi, sivaranjani and finally when he finished the neraval in surutti, he launched into the song without singing any swaras for the pallavi.

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 14 Dec 2008, 23:24

Thanks Grappelli - my schedule (rather Ram's!) says SR Vinu. The Hindustani juggernaut begins to roll out - I hope there are some pleasant surprises in store on that front...

Look forward to Arun's comments too...

venkatpv · Post by **venkatpv** » 15 Dec 2008, 04:10

he sings malayamarutham and then asserts that it is "iduleni malayamaruthamu". some nerve he has!

harimau · Post by **harimau** » 15 Dec 2008, 06:14

venkatpv wrote:he sings malayamarutham and then asserts that it is "iduleni malayamaruthamu". some nerve he has!

Give some consideration to the possibility that maybe he was trying to be honest!

Unlike some reviewers on this website.

PS. At his Bharat Sangeet Utsav concert, Sanjay made an error in his calculations snd didn't come to edam after the swara korvai. He started a second time and failed. Finally on the third try he did land at the right edam. I don't think anybody in the audience noticed but he announced that he made an error and that is why he had to repeat himself. This is why my sly reference to his being honest.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 15 Dec 2008, 07:50

The malayamarutam krithi is candiran oLiyil avaLaikkaNDEn. Not sure whose composition it is but the guy next to me thought it was Bharatiyar's and it seemed like a very good guess. I had thought perhaps vedanayagam pillai considering there were zero references to specific deity except for references to an implied reference female deity - but I think bharatiyar makes perfect sense.

The neraval was at "payan eNNAmal uzhaikkacconnAL" - the composition flowed very well and as I was hearing it, I, preposterously, thought - hey here is another tamil krithi which fit naturally, with the words spaced out almost ideally like you see in trinity kriithis. In fact, today morning as I was taking a walk, I heard yet another excellent bharathi composition by TNS in varamu, which starts with the raga mudra. It also had the same excellent structure.

I like the mukhari piece too but felt the malayamarutam was the best. I would have loved for more accentuation of the "extra-sensitive" parts of dwijavanti and mukhari. In general, to me both had a tad strong feel to them - if you know what I mean. To express my wish, I would say in Tamil "innum konjam kuzhaiccirukkalam" - not sure how that translates. In fact, during the mukhari alapana, sanjay was weaving complex brigha laden sangatis in what I think was mainly the purvanga part for a while and then when he brought out a gamaka-laden "ni" (ni... d pa.... i think) - there was immediately a torrent of "tch tch tch"es throughout the hall - almost like the audience were parched for it and were just overwhelmed by the first few drops of the rakthi component of mukhari.

In general, I felt it was an excellent concert with Sanjay being typically bold and innovative - which my parents also whole heartedly expressed as we headed back home. His brilliance came through to us clearly - despite of "the guy next to me". What's up with the guy next to me? Read on...

The guy next to me in general was a major spoiler and a pain in the butt. One of his ears seemed to have magically extended itself between me and my parents that he could hear the faintest conversation. My mom made the cardinal sin of quietly mouthing "is this valaji?" very very early on during the malayamarutam alapana. The guy immediately concluded that these guys needed help and proceeded to loudly announce the raga of *every* song from then on almost immediately. He was quite quick on the draw and very accurate - the man knew his stuff. Nick would have certainly strangled him as he probably put the loudest talam in the hall - he actually was doing rhythm as he was not going textbook talam (i also thought his talam was not his strong suit unlike his raga identification skills). To make things worse, he was also quite animated with his hands flaying about in excitement as Sanjay was doing energetic kalpanaswaras. Eventually I had to take refuge my cowering away from him into my dad's seat just to prevent from being whacked by his flaying hands.

Eventually I had to take refuge downstairs during the RTP in behag (excellent - particularly the alapana) in the canteen downstairs and guess what? Ran into "kamalamba" of our rasikas.org and had a nice brief chat.

Arun

Jigyaasa · Post by **Jigyaasa** » 15 Dec 2008, 09:02

arunk wrote:The guy next to me in general was a major spoiler and a pain in the butt.

I had a similar experience last evening at Sri Vijay Siva's astika samajam concert... The man was just TOO vocal in his appreciation... Got his tAlas all wrong but made so much noise tapping his hands on his thighs...
N the OH-SO-PAINFUL attempts to replicate phrases during the AlApana, LOUDLY... MOST of his predicted phrases were COMPLETELY off the mark. I really wonder what such ppl think of themselves... It's happened quite a few times to me... These folks shud be given the chance to get on stage n try... Anyway, it really spoiled my listening experience esp during Sri Vijay Siva's reposeful mukhAri AlApana...
I wish audiences wud be more contemplative n silent sometimes...

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 15 Dec 2008, 09:12

I found a thread for Chandiran oliyil avalai kanden: http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=78879/

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 15 Dec 2008, 09:28

A thoroughly bArati song. Yes, Arun. The neraval line 'payan eNNAmal uzhaikkach chonnAL, bakti Seidu pizhaikkach chonnAL' is the bhagavat gItA line (karmaNyEva). How many such magical lines inhabit his poetry and prose! A great neraval line indeed.

VK,
Flash a sign or not, rasikAs need to pack a water pistol, it seems. Anyway, Nick would have a better idea...

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 15 Dec 2008, 09:32

There is one more pATAntaram of chandiran oLiyil - in bAgEshri. I have heard Alapuza Sri Venkatesan sing this.

sridrect · Post by **sridrect** » 15 Dec 2008, 10:06

"Chandiran Oliyil...." is a Mahakavi classic. Sanjay had sung this Malayamarutham piece during Jaya-TV concert in the year 2003. The theme of that concert was Bharathi. The neraval at "Payan Ennamal...." by Sanjay during that concert was a gem.

Looks like Behag RTP will be heard some more time this season.

Sathej · Post by **Sathej** » 15 Dec 2008, 10:51

Chandiran Oliyil is really an emotive composition of Bharathiyar. Heard Sanjay sing it at IFAS in Malayamarutham last season. I believe TNS has set it to tune in Chandrakauns. Have heard Gayathri Girish sing it in Chandrakauns preceded by a Virutham. Unnikrishnan renders it in Keeravani. The Varamu song, is probably Saaga Varamum Arulvai, again set to tune by TNS and sung commonly in the TNS school. Heard it a couple of years back at Vani Mahal by Gayathri Girish.
Sathej

sumathibhuvarahan · Post by **sumathibhuvarahan** » 15 Dec 2008, 22:14

The rest of the items were,

8. Virutham starting with the paasuram Oorilen kaaniyillai in ragas Suddha dhanyasi, Kedaragowla, Subha Pantuvarali & Sahana
9. Oho Kaalame - Sahana
10. Paniyin vinthuli polave
11. Mangalam

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 15 Dec 2008, 23:07

Thanks Arun

sramaswamy · Post by **sramaswamy** » 16 Dec 2008, 02:02

arunk

I guess the situation was not much fun for you. But I had fun trying to picturize the guy and the scenes as described by you.

PUNARVASU · Post by **PUNARVASU** » 16 Dec 2008, 06:50

The marketing gimmicks 'buy one, get two free'-working here? You pay for one kutcheri and get 2 more as 'kosuru'?

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 16 Dec 2008, 08:19

Arun

Was this the same guy who seems to have cloned himself and attends concerts all over town? The description was hilarious

The part about extensible ears was very reminiscent of HP and TOOTP! Kji has promised to point 'him' out one of these days!

sumathibhuvarahan · Post by **sumathibhuvarahan** » 16 Dec 2008, 08:56

Must have been a different person who was sitting next to Arun. The clone was seen sitting next to Prasanna Venkatraman and giving him a tough time. I was lucky this time, was about eight rows away.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 16 Dec 2008, 13:45

Remember mentioning this rasikA some time ago. Guilty as I am in being expressive when it comes to my gestures, this gent is extreme, and can be dangerous in his enthusiasm if you were sitting anywhere near him--watch out if you sit ahead of him, his hand dangerously extendd, he may knock you off your seat (I am exaggerating a bit)...

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 16 Dec 2008, 13:53

The funny thing is as I headed downstairs, he also got up and followed me and I was thinking "pOccuDa!" - but luckily he was going elsewhere

I also forgot to mention that I had gone to Brahma Gana Sabha in the afternoon to get tickets. Having walked for about 20 mins from the train station I planned to cool off "for a couple of minutes" listening to whatever kutcheri was on. I walked in and my eyes popped open. On the stage, were three "little boys" - a flute concert. They looked absolutely cute and adorable (although Ram tells me the mridangist kid was older closer to 15), and they were delivering some fine music (of course with some calibration done to account for their age)!! All of them I guess came through the Apaswaram Ramji's isai mazhalai thingie and hence looked completely at ease on a concert setting. I ended up listening for about 45 minutes. Till the end I was sort of shaking my head in wonderment at "three little boys" entertaining a bunch of mamas and mamis, in the heart of chennai during season. It was very poignant.

Arun

prashant · Post by **prashant** » 16 Dec 2008, 16:18

What a nice story!!!

Svaapana · Post by **Svaapana** » 16 Dec 2008, 16:50

I remember a concert by Semmangudi years ago at IFAS. He sang a brilliant kambodhi ragam and Lalgudi started his version. My neighbour started humming the alapana himself!. I had tell him politely, "Sir, we know that Semmangudi's music is infectious, but let us listen to Lalgudi's violin".

sramaswamy · Post by **sramaswamy** » 17 Dec 2008, 02:34

Lingering moments of Mukhari

http://thetraces.aminus3.com/image/2008-12-15.html

awesome pictures!

sumathibhuvarahan · Post by **sumathibhuvarahan** » 05 Jan 2009, 18:06

The clone & co in action...

http://www.hindu.com/fr/2009/01/02/stor ... 120700.htm