Sanjay subrahmanyan, The university of notre dame

[kedharam]

Sri. Sanjay subrahmanyan, Sri. Varadarajan, Sri. Venkatesh


KAnadA - nEranamithi, varnam
Gowlai - ThyagarAja pAlayAsumAm, MD
Shankarabharanam - Rama ninnuvinA, Thyagaraja, N, S
Mukhari - ShivakAma sundari, Papanasam sivan, R
RavichandrikA - Niravadhi sukha, Thyagaraja, R, N at mAmava maragatha, S
RTP - Shudda danyasi
Pallavi text : ‘AjA giridhar tUm AjA apnA banAkE mujhE lEjA’, kanda triputa
Thani
Desh - lAlisidaLu magana, Purandara dasar
Desh - thunbam nErgayil, Bharathi dasan
Madhuvanthi - shrutva gunan bhuvana-sundara shrinvatam te. . ., , followed by
‘hE gOvind hE gOpAl rAkhO sharaN ab tO jIvan hArE’
Kamas - mathAda bAra dEnO
Sindu bairavi - iduvO thillai chidambara kshEthram, Gopala Krishna bharathi
Sindu bairavi - thillana, M.D. Ramanathan

First things first ïÂÂ

[kedharam]

ii

[kedharam]

in the pensive melody ‘ ThyAgarAja pAlayAsumAm’ , sanjay uncovered the slightly obsessive quality of the MD’s vilamba kala indulgence, presented it like a meditative dreamscape by molding the composition’s wistful melodies and beautiful lyrics with its sustained tones transforming the organic lyrics into a warm glow"¦
In the rendering of papanasam sivan’s classic, ‘ShivakAma sundari‘, by weaving threads of melody and the overwhelming inner pathos of the raga mukhari, and with impeccable articulation revealed the composer’s anguish by tearing into the melody.
Ravichandrika, the evening’s melody was imperious, in the medium paced alapana, rendered epitomizing the underlying melody, well anchored by classical prayogas as he philandered with ethereal phrases with sensitivity, before his eruption into the composition followed by an avalanche of irresistible tAns revealing his unabashedly Neo-Romantic tone, and he finished the home stretch by gushing out 3 breathtaking chittaswarams, yes, three of them"¦ accompanied with their seamless playing by Sri. Varadarajan and sri.Venkatesh, with sensuous ease and persuasive command and their collaboration was electrifying - a fine portrait of aural fantasy.
Taking a moment to find his voice in Shudda danyAsi, then he found it with a vengeance and as a true border-hopping eclectic, inhabited a charmed territory between the genres - in the spacious alapana one can hear the individual notes and the harmonies between them and he churned out a sparkling thanam with insistently repetitive rhythms drifting through microtonal nuances of the melody, with incremental changes in inflection with the syllables glistening and in the faster tempo bringing the enigmatic beauty. The subdued tension in the thanam was vividly maintained with fragments of melody slowly merging into a comprehensive whole subliminally, another distinctive element of his thanam as he transformed the text of the pallavi, ‘AjA giridhar tUm AjA apnA banAkE mujhE lEjA’ into a dialogue with passionate conviction with Sri.Varadarajan, and sri.venkatesh. In this haunting 30-minute work of plaintive yearning of the ponderous lyrics with fluid phrasings, by blending the genres in a highly personal way, asserted a melodic conversation between music and the text with plenty of mellismatic phrases narrowing the gulf between the genres enhanced by Sri.Vardarajan‘s lovely playing and Sri.Venkatesh’s rhythmic crispness.
After a wonderful thani by venkatesh, sanjay melted into desh thro ‘lAlisidaLu magana’ before slipping into bharathi dasan’s beauty"¦distilled the romantic madhuvanthi"¦concluded with the toe tapping M.D. Ramanathan’s thillana.
The concert was one of a kind of an inter-genre communion"¦

[rshankar]

the holy catholic punniya sthalam, The University of Notre Dame,

Not merely a catholic puNya sthalam, but the mecca of college football as well!!!

[kedharam]

rshankar,

i lured my room mate with that incentive - to have a darshan of their foot ball stadium and the 'touch-down' jesus kOvil...

[rshankar]

rshankar,

i lured my room mate with that incentive - to have a darshan of their foot ball stadium and the 'touch-down' jesus kOvil...

And not the 'college football hall of fame'? OMG!!

[kedharam]

And not the 'college football hall of fame'?
No, there was no time...it was obsessively raining... may be due to fact that this was the first time in 13 years that this holy town had a carnatic vocalist perform...i heard in the back ground chatter...

[harimau]

RTP - Shudda danyasi
Pallavi text : ‘AjA giridhar tUm AjA apnA banAkE mujhE lEjA’, kanda triputa

"¦.

Quite a while back, I asked what would be the reaction if the Duelling Abhangists sang "some crap like Megh Malhar" during the ragamalika swarams and followed it up with 'Bhooth Motey' instead of the original pallavi line. (Words in quote were in my original post and someone acually objected to my calling Magh Malhar crap.)

That day may not be too far!

'AjA giridhar tUm AjA apnA banAkE mujhE lEjA’ absolutely demands 'Bhooth Motey'.

I have been observing an interesting sociological phenomenon over the last couple of decades. Somehow or other, South Indians have been developing an inferiority complex when they compare themselves to people from north of the Vindhyas.

You can see this in the pages of "The Hindu" (which should be renamed "China Today" in my opinion). When English has borrowed a loan word from Tamil and you can see it used in "The Dawn" of Karachi or "The Statesman" of Calcutta to describe a temporary covering erected to protect an area -- namely, "pandal" -- "The Hindu" regularly uses "shamiana" even when it is very clearly a pandal.

Let me proclaim it loud and clear here: Nobody can make you feel inderior without your consent.

Those of you who feel the urge to genuflect in front of the Northies need to see a psychiatrist.

Did Bade Ghulam Ali Khan ever sing "Thullu mada vetkai"? So, why 'AjA giridhar tUm AjA apnA banAkE mujhE lEjA’?

[rajeshnat]

Desh - lAlisidaLu magana, Purandara dasar
Desh - thunbam nErgayil, Bharathi dasan

Is the first one by Dasar , a ugabhooga or is that a krithi . If that is a krithi why two desh's in succession.

Kedharam
Thanks for taking time to go to sanjay's concerts and reviewing . Last year ravichandrika in parthasarathi swami sabha was top notch. I am assuming suddha dhanyasi pallavi line was hindi as notre dame may have had more north indian crowd than a typical south indian crowd. May be the organizers themselves would have been north indian folks. Hence the pallavi line in hindi.

harimau,
The reason above may not resonate with you, but I guess this is one off concert where sanjay took that pallavi . Incidentally suddha dhanyAsi is as much a HM raga as a CM rAgA.

[kedharam]

Well, after the chaste stream of kAnadA, gowlai, shankarAbaranam, ravichandrikA, mukhAri, shudda danyAsi, and the thAnam, they expected him to cross the border"¦(later I found out that 95% of them are north Indians)"¦ and the vocalist surprised them with the pallavi, ‘AjA giridhar tUm AjA apnA banAkE mujhE lEjA’, "¦I am glad they sat raptured by the music of the three Tamilians in vEshtIs and it was fun to watch the artistes drink water out of ‘chombU’ "¦pretty comfortable with their roots I thought"¦Thyagaraja, MD, Papanasam Sivan, Bharathi Dasan, Gopalakrishna Bharathi, Purandara Dasar, M.D. Ramanathan below the Vindhyas belt"¦ the vocalist i presume was forced to hop the Vindhyas and churn out a bhajan (request) and the pallavi (again a request)"¦quite confidence in their art...this is wahat i observed...well, for those of us who devour ‘ mOLagU kOzhambU’ and ‘ malAi kOftA’ with the same ardor, it was a treat"¦not sure abt others...

Arm-chair commentary does not do any good"¦.oops, I am sorry"¦we, the rasikas have the constitutional right to spew out arm-chair commentary"¦

The artistes I am sure are indebted to you for your unsolicited medical advice as well"¦3 cheers!

[kedharam]

why two desh's in succession.
he saw a couple of tamilian faces and the transition seem soooo natural...lovely rendition...

[rajeshnat]

kedharam,
I am happy that my speculation that the crowd is north indians is just right. So you are saying that the first desh is a krithi and not a ugabhooga or slokham right

[kedharam]

rajeshnat,
lAlisidaLu magana is a krithi

[prashant]

the holy catholic punniya sthalam, The University of Notre Dame,

Not merely a catholic puNya sthalam, but the mecca of college football as well!!!

Boo! Go Boilers!

[arasi]

Kedharam,
Thanks for your merry-go-round of a review. The music no doubt inspired you to write these reviews. If you attend another one of Sanjay's concerts, bring it to us too.

Rajesh,
You were spot on! Most students (the audience) were from the north.
As for two Desh pieces, what's wrong with that? We don't complain when there are two sweets in a feast--starting to sound like kedharam It was listener's request or perhaps Sanjay wanted to sing a bit more of the rAgam at that point--since it was a tukkaDa, there was no room for neraval or svarams. I am saying this because in one of the BengaLuru concerts, he sang three sindhubhairavi tukkaDas in a row, didn't he? I am not bothered by that so long as they are all different in their mood.
That niravadi sukhada at Parthasarathy Sabha was remarkable. I didn't know you were there!

Harimau,
Where does it place CM's songs in sanskrit? How many folks speak it, at least understand it? I love sanskrit songs (you do too, of course). While it is great if you can undrstand the words in a song, the more the languages, the merrier. Your argument that northerners don't sing our krutis (some do sing CM rAgams), so why should we?--is like saying, somone didn't greet me, so next time I see him I will give him a glare. We have a couple of mental health experts on the forum and I don't think they consider being open-minded a mental deficienY. Hindi is our national language too.
Moreover, the line is emotive, unlike some trite pallavi line.

[sureshvv]

I have been observing an interesting sociological phenomenon over the last couple of decades. Somehow or other, South Indians have been developing an inferiority complex when they compare themselves to people from north of the Vindhyas.

Once again in typical fashion, you miss the point entirely which is that we take the best from everywhere and make it our own.

Did Bade Ghulam Ali Khan ever sing "Thullu mada vetkai"?

The next Bade Ghulam Ali Khan will... You can't stop a good thing.

[annamalai]

Harimau,

Ustad Abdul Karim Khan has recorded LPs of Rama Nee Samanam - Karaharapriya, Ente Nerchina - Saveri, ....

In modern times, Amjad Ali Khan has rendered Sogasuga Mridanga Talamu (sree ranjani) at Thiruvariyaru Aradhana - which has caused some consternation with some carnatic artists - however, a different topic.

Tirupugaz is difficult tamil and even for musicians form TN. How many can sing - Muthaitharu .... like Seergahi Govindarajan.

[Svaapana]

As for two Desh pieces, what's wrong with that? We don't complain when there are two sweets in a feast--starting to sound like kedharam

Incidentally Sanjay sings the PD krithi in ragamalikai (Desh, Kapi and Jonpuri, I think)

[s_hari]

When RTP can be sung in tamil, sanskrit, telugu, kannada, (haven't heard one in malayalam!!), why not hindi? We do sing thillana/bhajans/abhang in marati/hindi... As long as one doesn't over do it, it is fine....Was the pallavi hindustanish or carnaic-ish? We also had carnatica brothers singing RTP in french and other European languages very recently...Harimau - where were you then?

Adding to other hindustani musician playing carnatic stuff, i have heard Pt Hariprasad chaurasia playing vatapi ganapathim....

-hari

[arasi]

Annamalai,
You said what was going to! How many CM vocalists can mouth tuLLu mada vETkai, leyt alone tougher hymns in tamizh?

Harimau,
I have to repeat: pOmaiyya! umakku ellAmE viLAiyATTudAn!

(for those who do not know the context: my wondering in the Hyderabad Bros concert review as to why andhra vidvAns have a penchant for nAn oru viLaiyATTu bommayA when they include a tamizh song in a concert. Harimau commented which made me say the above
Tiruppugazh? Leave it to the tamizh vids, the ones who are brave!

[raj-123]

Kedharam,
Great reviews. Based on your attendence I am just curious roughy how many people were in attendence in cities you listened like Purdue, UIUC, ND etc? Just wanted to see audience strngth and pulse are. In the california bay area, tickets are usually sold out and people are standing, sitting on stage sides. Sanjay concert had around 500+ in the audience in san jose.

[kedharam]

raj-123,
"Great reviews"

[mahesh3]

folks, what is sanjay's east coast plan during thanksgving? i would appreciate if someone has the list of concerts he plans on giving during this time...

[fuddyduddy]

he is singing at pomona temple on nov 26th (4pm) and cmana/iacrf, nj on nov 29th. not sure where he sings 27, 28th.

[harimau]

Well, after the chaste stream of kAnadA, gowlai, shankarAbaranam, ravichandrikA, mukhAri, shudda danyAsi, and the thAnam, they expected him to cross the border"¦(later I found out that 95% of them are north Indians)"¦ and the vocalist surprised them with the pallavi, ‘AjA giridhar tUm AjA apnA banAkE mujhE lEjA’, "¦I am glad they sat raptured by the music of the three Tamilians in vEshtIs and it was fun to watch the artistes drink water out of ‘chombU’ "¦pretty comfortable with their roots I thought"¦did you read the song list"¦Thyagaraja, MD, Papanasam Sivan, Bharathi Dasan, Gopalakrishna Bharathi, Purandara Dasar, M.D. Ramanathan below the Vindhyas belt"¦ the vocalist was forced to hop the Vindhyas and churn out a bhajan (request) and the pallavi (again a request)"¦such confidence in their art...well, for those of us who churn out or devour ‘ mOLagU kOzhambU’ and ‘ malAi kOftA’ with the same ardor, it was a treat"¦

As a nod to the North Indian rasikas, the concert could have featured ragas common to Hindusthani and Carnatic traditions such as Brindabani/Brindavana Saranga, Kedar/Hameerkalyani, Malkauns/Hindolam, Yaman/Kalyani, Suddha Kalyan/Mohanakalyani, Ramkali, etc. The North Indian audience would have enjoyed elaborate alapanas in any of these ragas. In fact, that was precisely what T V Sankaranarayanan did in a tour early in his career and one could see some cultured people in the audience writing down the notes of the raga so that they could identify the raga -- after all, the characteristic pidis are different from the Carnatic idiom. There is no need to serve malai kofta with masala dosai, though one sees an abomination called paneer dosa at Saravana Bhavan.

Arm-chair commentary does not do any good"¦.oops, I am sorry"¦we, the rasikas have the constitutional right to spew out arm-chair commentary"¦

Then there would be no reply to your original post. Arm-chair commentators from places such as San Jose and Boston are posting responses to your original post but you do not have a snide comment about their constitutional rights seemingly because they do not dissent with your views.

The artistes I am sure are indebted to you for your unsolicited medical advice as well"¦3 cheers!

I actually meant the advice for the general audience which seems to lap up abhangs, bhajans, the Blind Monkey Song, the Snake-Dance Song, "Madu Meikkum Kanne", "Vishamakkara Kannan", strange pallavis, etc. Thank you for pointing out its applicability to the arists themselves. That point certainly had escaped me.

[harimau]

When RTP can be sung in tamil, sanskrit, telugu, kannada, (haven't heard one in malayalam!!), why not hindi? We do sing thillana/bhajans/abhang in marati/hindi... As long as one doesn't over do it, it is fine....Was the pallavi hindustanish or carnaic-ish? We also had carnatica brothers singing RTP in french and other European languages very recently...Harimau - where were you then?

Adding to other hindustani musician playing carnatic stuff, i have heard Pt Hariprasad chaurasia playing vatapi ganapathim....

-hari

Legend has it that when the maharaja (samoodhiri) of Calicut asked a vidwan to enunciate his words more clearly, the vidwan took the opportunity to sing a pallavi but continued to mumble. When the king asked for the words to the pallavi, he is reported to have said, "Samoodhiri thavidu thinnu" (The king ate the chaff").

So, there you have your pallavi in Malayalam!

Harimau does have strong objections to abhangs, bhajans, etc., replacing Tiruppugazh, slokas and virutthams. In fact, he considers these to be nothing more than USPs (unique selling propositions) used by artists to differentiate themselves from the crowd. One would presume superior music would be generally the prescription for differentiating oneself from the crowd but the current crop doesn't seem to like to take the more difficult path.

[kedharam]

Comparing blind monkey song and snake- dance song to a roughly 90 minutes exploration of shudda danyasi"¦

who needs to sprint to a psychiatrist is clear"¦:)

[Sundara Rajan]

I am with Harimau on this subject. Where is the need to POLLUTE panjAmrutham with pAgarkkAi(karEla for the hindi walas/ bitter gourd for others) although it is good for the diabetics and may be liked by some ?

[arasi]

Harimau,
If you happened to see the thread on the nEllaiappar temple thread (General Section, Ramasubramaniam narrates an interesting story about tanjAvUr rasikAs ridiculing HMB because he was not from their own grounds which the Trinity treaded. Of course, the rasikAs from that area felt superior too. This was in the olden days. Now, is it Mylapore? Are you from either of these places?
From your posts, I know that music which is highly classical but is safe guarded like grandmother's old jewelry is the only kind you favor while others like to see new healthy growth and innovations in it. While you deride new venues, they adore and revere the old just as much as you do.
Old always makes way for the new. We do not live the way our fathers did. If they lived a quality life and we do too now, it does not mean that we live exactly like them. Does not mean that we have rejected them either! We continue in their footsteps inspired by them, but do not stick to every detail of their lives because we are smart enough to know that they did not ape their parents in literally everything that they did! Innovations are part of life and of artistic expression, aren't they?
Take DKP for instance: tradition personified--pioneer among brahmin women when it came to singing on stage. A vocalist who grew up on MD's music but sang tamizh songs with gusto, that too of a revolutionary poet, bArati--and sang them in the new medium of movies! She kept her art alive by renewing it with new modes while staying with her heritage. While elders of this generation are keeping up with modern technology, keeping pace with today's advancements, how about those who are young? If they do not add to what other generations of musicians have been doing all along, the next generation has to rescue it from atrophy!
If a generation of artistes just repeats what their predecessors did, the art is preserved, but what about growth? Innovations are not always successful. Some may fail. Others contribute to art's healthy development.
Are you by any chance from the set of supreme rasikAs who still relate to the old times and place (kAvErik karai) and consider the rest of rasikAs as 'kaRpUra vAsanai teriyAda...from the backwaters'?
A few on the forum from that area are anything but the remnants of the old elite from that wonderful part of TN. I don't know your age, but you know the stage of life I'm in.
All I can say is, yes, old is gold, but new can turn out to be platinum and until it's proven otherwise, I will look out for any new innovations which are promising...

[s_hari]

Harimau does have strong objections to abhangs, bhajans, etc., replacing Tiruppugazh, slokas and virutthams. .

You got the context wrong. I didn't say that Tiruppugazh replaced by Ahang/bhajan etc. My point was bhajan were predominantly in hindi - including swathi compositions like vishweshwara darshana in sindhu bhairavi, dhanasri thillana etc.. When these kind of hindi compositions can be sung in concerts, why not hindi RTP? Ofcourse, one need to exercise restraint and not sing some khyals/thumri's etc in carnatic concerts...And remember, RTP is typically a showcase for manodharmam, and words may not matter... Hope you have heard Tiger's pallavi lines like uppuma kindadi penne, nanraka. (Hey lass, stir the uppuma well.), and katharikkai vanga vayendi tozhi. (Come with me to buy brinjals, O friend.)....

reference - http://www.parrikar.org/miscellany/unus ... avi-themes

-hari

[rajaglan]

Hindi language RTP...not often sung by Sanjay. May be that he decided to get an enlarged audience for CM/him. I would have preferred a main by Sanjay in SD and the song be Saamodham chintayami. But I may stay back considering the fact that Sanjay is good at singing RTPs and after all the RTP has more raga bhavams (melodies) than emotions of a language.

Also to tocuh on HM: I feel our vidwans can sing better music while singing HM than the HM vidwans singing CM music. There is no comparision to CM which is rich in sahityams at the same time scope for enough creativity and the ability to impress a rasika. . I somehow have a feeling that If you make a sum of all HM rasikas in the world , it cannot even equal the CM rasikas in chennai city only.

The only complaint that i got from HM rasikas about CM is that CM is too fast as they are used to HM's long slow alapanas.

[KSJaishankar]

In the HM vs CM debate, why do we have this overwhelming need to "justify" CM ... be it statements like "more CM rasikas in Chennai than HM rasikas all over the world" or "CM singers handle HM better than HM singers handle CM"?

The second statement in particular tickles me quite a bit. We know that YACM used to (maybe they still do) a organize cricket match with teams drawn from among the YACM members. Now I guess Unni (who was seriously contending for a place at the Ranji level, I believe), Sanjay, TMK, Vijay Siva, Ravi Kiran or any of the others can I guess hold a bat better than, say, Tendulkar can sing an RTP in Kambhoji ... does this make our carnatic stars "superior" to Tendulkar? I know the comparison in exaggerated, odious, irrelevant, out-of-context, yada yada yada ... that is just my point ... WHY COMPARE?

The two systems have some common roots, and vestigial similarities, but they ARE different art forms, with different aesthetics. Personally, I am not able to enjoy a vocal HM concert, but can reasonably appreciate instrumental music in HM. In CM, I any day prefer vocal music, though I have no knowledge of Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam, and only a superficial understanding of Sanskrit and the Tamizh used by composers more ancient than say Gopalakrishna Bharathi.

My incapability to appeciate does not belittle the art form... and it is true when you look at it from the other side too. Most HM rasikas, even artistes, have this smug and condescending attitude towards our music. That does not take away from CM's place under the sun.

For a plethora of reasons, which scholars much superior to me have researched, HM has achieved this unique position of snobbishness, while claiming a much wider audience. I remember a colleague of mine going to a Bhimsen Joshi concert in Mumbai, just because she wanted a tick in the box to tell her grandchildren many years later. I cannot imagine her feeling the urge to do a similar check in the box for say Balamurali (who has probably managed the pan Indian appeal better than any CM musician bar MSS).

Now, my bet is that the percentage of rasikas in an average HM concert who understand what is going on would be significantly lower than a similar percentage in an average CM concert. That does not take away from the fact that its is much easier to fill an auditorium in most places, in India or abroad, with a marquee HM name than a marquee CM name. Before we get all sanctimonius about filling auditoria not being the aim of CM (refer Nidhi Chaala Sukhama), let us be clear - for our CM (or HM) practitioners, it is their prime, if not only, source of income. If we cannot sustain the system economically, it will cease to attract the best talent, and part of sustaining the system economically is for the practitioners to appeal to a reasonably wide swathe of rasikas ... the ones who cannot stand "Maadu Meikkum Kanna" or the snake-dance song, to those who go to a concert to listen ONLY to these!

Jaishankar

[Always_Evolving]

Great post KSJaishankar. Wah-re-wah kya baat!