Abhishek Raghuram @ BRRS, BARC on 3/4/2011

[tyagarajadasa]

Abhishek Raghuram's imagination and creativity brings to mind the genius of three people: TNS, BMK and Kalyanaraman. Yesterday's concert was an excellent display of gimmicks-based carnatic music (not in the wrong sense at all). Throughout yesterday's concert, Abhishek was "innovating" in the real sense of the term.

The opener shankarabharanam varnam was brisk; it was preceded by an almost 5-10 minutes of shruti alignment. I was hoping to hear rA rA mA iNTidAka or jAnaki ramaNa and Abhishek sang the former, do my delight. The kalpana swarams involved nice patterns and "poruttams". When he started the malayamArutam aalapana, I was delighted as, among scalar rAgams, that is a very beautiful rAgam. There were shades of Hindustani, but I have no problem with that! Somewhat difficult patterns like R-D, G-N, etc were executed with ease and charm; the influence of BMK on his music was quite evident here.

tAyE yashodA was rendered in pakka TNS style; he took a semi-slow kAlapramAnam and ornamented the kriti with catchy and bright links; like TNS does. The RTP that followed next was nothing short of brilliant. I would normally get annoyed if anyone sings kAnADa without the weight given to the gAndhAram. I remember frowning as soon as he began; but the gimmicks laden phrases and imagination brought many more AhAs than a possibly weighty kAnaDa would have! The tAnam once again had shades of HM, he increased speeds and used every syllable that a purist would say no-no to; nevertheless, his supreme imagination was what mattered to me here and not mere adherence to rules.

The pallavi line, was "sItApatE nApai nIkabhimAnamu lEda". As expected, he sang neraval in khamas, bringing out shades of brOcEva and sitApati. Then came gAnamUrti, kAntAmaNi and bahudAri in which he sang the word "sitApatE" of the pallavi line like famous Tyagaraja- kritis in these raagams.
This was one thing that did not sound new to me, having heard and read about Charumati Ramachandran's similar attempt elsewhere. Maybe GNB or Kalyanaraman or more probably BMK has done this before? I must accept however that it was an exciting delivery! Especially the quick transitions between rAgams and the super fast swarams, that came after the tani.

One tamizh kriti in sAranga came next - it went like - "kaN kalangudE". This was my pick of the concert! Although it sounded very "ghazalish", it was extremely well rendered with deep bhAvam. I could see Abhishek enjoy immensely while he rendered it!

The possibly disappointing part of the concert was the rendition of brovavamma in nIlAmbari. I felt that too much gimmicks in such kritis, is painful, especially if the listener knows the meanings of the lyrics. Thankfully, this was during the end of the concert.

Then one mami gave a chit for enna tavam seidanai; Im sure she must have written all the rest of tukkaDAs (do I need to name them). But he chose to sing only enna tavam and followed with a mangalam.

The lack of a manual tambura or a mike for the electronic tambura perhaps gave indications of lapses here and there especially when there were loud, off-note sounds coming out of nowhere! Later on I realised that that could have been because of a football match going on in the playground outside the hall!

Anantha R Krishnan gave very nice support on the Mridangam. His tani was spectacular and had many intelligent sollus and patterns. Mysore Srikanth gelled well. His kAnaDa aalapana had everything that Abhishek had left out (most note-worthily, the weight in the gAndhAram), so the overall effect was complete!


---Gokul---

[srikant1987]

Lovely review Gokul!

It is difficult to connect so young a face to your reviews and the ID "tyagarajadasa", something Arasi says about Bilahari! :$

[bilahari]

Great review - thoroughly enjoyed it reading. Thanks, Gokul! Interested in listening to this tamizh sAranga krithi. And I'm completely with you on the importance of the gA in kAnaDa!

[sureshvv]

Then one mami gave a chit for enna tavam seidanai; Im sure she must have written all the rest of tukkaDAs (do I need to name them).

The mami's chit may have been only a small impetus because he sings this in his unique style pretty often.

[mahavishnu]

Gokul, Thanks for your lovely review.

I wish I had been there, atleast to listen to the "ghazalish" Saranga. What song did he sing in Malayamarutam?
Suresh is right. Abhishek does enna thavam quite often; with a combination of intricate and explosive sangatis.

[tyagarajadasa]

@mahavishnu:

He sang manasA eTulOrttunE! I was hoping for dhanyuDevvaDo, but it was a treat nevertheless because its long since I have heard it.

@mahavishnu and sureshvv:

Yes, the enna tavam seidanai was indeed sparkling. He gave shades of brindAvani while singing "sanakAdiyar" and I loved it!

@shrikanth:

It is difficult to connect so young a face to your reviews and the ID "tyagarajadasa", something Arasi says about Bilahari!

Shrikanth, if 1987 is your birth year, then we are of same age!


----Gokul----

[bilahari]

Srikant is indeed born in 1987. So that makes three of us!

[tyagarajadasa]

@ bilahari:

I always thought you were a Prof or something from UC-San Deigo!

[rshankar]

@ bilahari: I always thought you were a Prof or something from UC-San Deigo!

LOL! Not for anything else, but because I know how young he is!!

[rajeshnat]

Lovely review -tyagarajadasa. We always go "gA gA" from the days of MMI's kAnadA.

[vasanthakokilam]

India won their first world cup when you were -4 years old.. You three are less than half my age..When you were born, I was already looking for my third job Where is srinivasaraghavan when we need him, to make you three feel old!!

[mahavishnu]

yes, the forum is fortunate to have such talented young members.
I guess Abhishek Raghuram would be about the same age as the lot of you.

[arasi]

Bilahari, Srikant and Gokul,
VK is right. Don't Srini, mridangam kid and Aishwarya make you all wonder if old age is approaching ? How old is Satya by the way? Gokul, your cousin, another fellow member is a bit younger too, I guess.

[tyagarajadasa]

Arasi,
Indeed Sriranjani is younger to me by two years. But she never makes me feel older I have a chamattu kuTTY cousin here at Mumbai (you must seen him sit behind me in some of my videos in youtube that were posted earlier) who definitely makes me feel older; because he learns from me

Abhishek, from what I know is around 25.

[srikant1987]

Gokul,

Your description of the pallavi made me remember this concert of V Bharath Kumar's (Vidushi Suguna Varadachari's son) http://me-and-music.blogspot.com/search ... th%20Kumar (The Music Club concert).

[tyagarajadasa]

Shrikanth,

That indeed looks very much like what Abhishek did, except that he did not change the words of the pallavi while he did the raagamalika exercise! So, when he sang bahudari, he still sang sItApatE.....but the word "sItApatE" he rendered like "brova bhArama"! That was indeed cool! Especially when he sang in khamas, just like the line "sItApatE...." from brOcEva.

BTW, what Bharath kumar has sung- was that not what Smt Charumati did somewhere and was discussed heavily in the forum? I remember reading it!

[srikant1987]

but the word "sItApatE" he rendered like "brova bhArama"! That was indeed cool!

Oh -- I thought there was a ("rare") Tyagaraja kriti with sItApatE in pallavi in bahudAri.

Well, in this case, I find Bharath's idea cooler. There are kritis with kamala lOcana, pankaja lOcana, rAjIva lOcana in their pallavis in D, K and M respectively -- and a (somewhat lesser-known) khamAs kriti beginning as kaDai kaN pArvai adu pOdumE. kamala, pankaja and rAjIva are synonyms for sarasija too.

Especially when he sang in khamas, just like the line "sItApatE...." from brOcEva.

T's sItApatE came first, brOcE vArevaru rA came later.
---
I don't think too much emphasis is needed on the gA for kAnaDa though. It has many other beautiful prayOgas that are uniquely its. Indeed, a very stretched gA can bring Hindustani shades (so I'm amazed how Abhishek managed to get HM shades without it!). Also [citation needed ], in CM, we oscillate the ga between ri and ma, where as H musicians have a higher lower-pitch, roughly G2 itself. Prof TN Krishnan also uses G2 as the lower-pitch many times.

I totally agree with you that for kAnaDa, especially an RTP, it's welcome to let one's imagination free (except for the leash with aesthetics on the other end)! As opposed to nIlAmbari and brOvavamma.

[tyagarajadasa]

for kAnaDa, especially an RTP, it's welcome to let one's imagination free

I hold this true for anything, not only RTP ....even nIlAmbari or mAnji for that matter, so long as composiitons are not deprived of the composers' intent and bhAvam. I mean, when u sing a line like tAmasamu sEyakanE paritApamulanu pariharinci, doing gimmicks is not justified unles they add value to the meaning of the words! But when you do Alapana, Id love to hear something new and fresh!
On the same note, I would love to hear a detailed nIlAmbari by someone. I know Shri NSG has sung an RTP (sadly missed it) ; any other recording available?

----Gokul----

[vasanthakokilam]

>But when you do Alapana, Id love to hear something new and fresh!

Gokul, I am very much game for that as well. I am also wondering that in the CM context, what would be such a lakshaya based framework for a raga alapana? Is there even a way to talk about boundaries?

[rshankar]

brOcE vArevaru rA

Srikant it should either be split as 'brOcEvArevaru rA' or 'brOcEvAr(u) evaru rA'

[srikant1987]

http://thyagaraja-vaibhavam.blogspot.co ... -raga.html

brOcE is a full word. Nonetheless, you could still argue that the vAru should be attached to brOcE rather than evaru. :$


I chose this way of splitting because it gives shorter words without a bracketed u.

[priyashekar]

I heard that the organisers were unhappy with him for finishing in short time in Barc . For next day concert in Dombivili he arrived late by more than 1 hour and sang for just 1 and half hour and leaving a very bad taste in our mouth.Is there no discipline for him?We are eager to listen to music and he does this to us .Even Sudha ,Sanjay and Nithyashree who are big artistes and sang in dombivili never showed such behaviour and always were on time and sang for more than 3 hours and very disciplined.Are the youngsters thinking too much of thmeselves?

[vasanthakokilam]

priyashekar, before we start questioning his disipline etc., let us find out more details about that.. More often than not, arriving late can be due to a whole host of factors not in one's control. Not that I know anything about this case, but let us find out more before we pass judgements.. just to be fair.

[tyagarajadasa]

Dear Priya Sekhar,

Once when I was called to perform at Dombivli Sabha, I reached 2 hrs late for a 3 hr concert . May be I have set a record in this! I have beaten TNS in this respect -> yeh 8) .The reason - unexpected traffic. I left home at Thane, which is about 1 hr away from Dombivli by road, at 4:30 o'clock for a concert which was supposed to start at 7 and reached at 9! We were stuck in the middle of a heavy jam; we were not able to move right, or left or behind! Can you believe it! Luckily the mridangist was with me, that saved a lot of embarrassment. This experience has been sooo nightmarish that I shudder to think of going to Dombivli ever since.

Now you will tell me, that I should have come by train! You know how crowded it is on Sunday afternoons from Thane to Kalyan -> even first class is almost full. And I think Abhishek must have sang on Gudi Padwa when it must have been all the more crowded. And in this April heat, one cannot really expect the artistes to have an uncomfortable travel before a concert no?

Pl understand that Dombivli is quite far from the city. Ideally, the organiser of that sabha should arrange for the artistes' travel. It is really difficult to predict traffic on both the routes that take us from Mumbai city to Dombivli! Pl do not put the blame on the artistes when such things are out of their control. May be they left home late; if that is the case, take him to task; if it is traffic; then there is nothing the artistes could have done.

About the BRRS sabha concert -> the concert was full in itself. Abhishek sang for full 3hrs! Dunno why there was dissatisfaction.

---Gokul---