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Accompanied by mysore shrikanth- violin and neyveli venkatesh -mrudangam. This concert was held in gokhale institute hall,karpagambal nagar ,mylapore under nadOpasAnA.
1.varnam - vanajAkshirO(rAga sketch) - kalyAni - poochi
2.jagadAnaNda kArakA(RS, N ,S) - nAttai - T
5 mins neraval in "jaya jAnaki prAna nAyakA jagadAnaNda kArakA"
8 mins swaram
3.venugAna lOluNi (R ,S)- kEdAragowlai - T
6 mins alApanai, 4 mins violin return and 5 mins swaras
4. deva deva jagadEEshwara (R N S) - poorvikalyAni - ST
8 mins alApanai, 6 mins violin return , 3 mins neraval and 6 mins swaras
neraval in "padmanAbha vasamE hrithi mAdhava"
5. sakala graha bala nEEnE - atAnA - PD
6A. kamAlAmbikE (R N S T) -tOdi - MD
10 mins alApanai , 6 mins violin return,6 mins neraval and 9 mins swaras
neraval in "sakala lOka nAyikE sangeetha rAsikE ambA"
6B. tani for 6 mins
7. karunai cheivAn tamAsam krishnA (malayalam) - yadhukula kAmbOdhi -??
8. tumaNi mAdhathU suTRum - hameerkalyAni - thirruppAvai
9. mulla pOO maLar aNbAn thelluveNdeN (malayalam) - sahAnA -ST??
10. bhagyAda lakshmi bhArammA - madhyamAvati - PD
11. neenAma roopa mUlaku - sowrAshtram - T
I have heard few youtube clippings , with he getting a prime evening slot in academy for atleast 1 to 2 years , I was hunting to hear this vidwan. This 'phD scientist' with a DR to his title has not dropped his musical professionalism at all because of that.
Though I am not a scientist,in all these years , for the senior slots of artists , I keep a regular tab mentally with a X and Y axis , where X axis stands for sowkhyam and Y axis stands for high energy classical carnatic aggression. In that imaginary graph for all these years I associate Y being high to very high , X being medium to high with atleast 4 artists who are my favourites (3 male and 1 female).
There is another present musician whose X is high to very high , Y being medium to high that musician is my all time present favourite #2 who is vijaysiva(I have to name this artist just to bring this review). To an extent magicians like madurai mani iyer and to an extent semmangudi achieved ,that sweet spot of both very high X and Y balance, perhaps all the present musicians have to callibrate their music towards that,it may be a journey that these musicians will just try to make it, but I am keeping my fingers crossed
. To me to a great extent this scientific XY graph is just to illustrate and bring sreevalsan menon in the bracket and segment where he is quite close to vijaysiva in many aspects most noticably the diction and sequence of songs in multiple languages and a sense of equanimity and balance to all numbers .
sreevalsan started with a fairly good shruthi sowkhyam with a very good round of kalyAni varnam. The nAttai was a cracker, I think he sang exactly the same way s_hari had explained in his bangalore review, in the sense not singing swaras , exhausting the neraval with just the lines of the pancharatna ,then starting a round of swaras of this krithi and ending up with the usual nAttai flourish.
The contrast and sequence from nAttai to kedaragowlai, the questioning rAga swaraoopam was a bit of procrastination,but still on time to enjoy with a nice round of swaras. The next poorvikalyAni was a cracker , i guess that being swati it just comes too natural to him, nice round of controlled aggression and an excellent krithi rendition, I wish he added more neraval (but there was 3 neraval in total may be I should not complain) the swaras were excellent in poorvikalyAni. The fast number was not a usual a super fast number before main , it was a bit slow atAnA but nevertheless the questioning bhavam that came in late for kedaragowlai came right from the beginning.
Todi was a very melodious rendition, it did not have too much of nAdaswara piDi, but nevertheless classicism was intact. The MD krithi was sung with high sangathi weight and came out excellently, neraval was very good with a nice round of swaras.
Tukkadas had a slighly overlapping zone of rAgas like hameer, yk kAmboDhi and sahAnA , but nevertheless the contrast of different language like thamizh and malayAlam and with me hearing rare malayalam numbers was fitting to the occassion that too with this singer coming from the malabar land had a touch of ayurvedic massage.
Musicians have to strive in singing a sanskrit,telugu , thamizh and kannada languages is my usual crib, this musician topped with 2 malayalam also just pushed in all the other 4 languages too,nevertheless every number was sung with considerable ease, it was not sung just for the sake of registering .
About the mridangist :
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Neyveli venkatesh was the main karanakaratha for this concert to hit high excellence. His play was superb in all counts , particularly the use of thoppi just embellished the melody and balance of menon's voice . The tani was brief and I am not complaining.
The violinist shrikanth had neat return but he could have tuned the violin better or played with a more apt press , the nAdham was not so sweet .
Finally :
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In the last 6 months I have tried 3 artists from land of malabar all for the first time, Shankaran nambuthri had a bit hyper aggression, prince verma was hypo aggression, sreevalsan fitted exacly in between this two to give a cracker of a concert.
Few shortcomings:
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1. sequence of sahana,yk kAmbOdhi and hameer was perhaps not the best it fell in the same zone and there was overlap in muse, perhaps a fast number say aravinda padamalar in kApi(I am sure very likely he knows that as he is from that school) instead of hameer would have done the trick.
2. 1 is minor , this shortcoming is bit major . Menon Can try to reach more mEl kAla swaras and can bring more swara prasthana magic.
Overall a balanced (major X axis and minor Y axis ) scientist menon just rocked . It was an excellent concert and it was great first impression.The concert was for 2 hours and 25 minutes with no interruption.