Kolkata Vijayaraghavan@STVS on July 09th,2011

[rajeshnat]

Kolkata Vijayaraghavan@STVS on July 09th,2011
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Vocal - Kolkata Vijayaraghavan
Violin - "Violinlover" R Raghul
Mrudangam - V. Rajasekar
Duration/Day - 2 hours and 5 mins/Saturday

1. nera nammiTi - kANadA - Poochi
2. sugunamulE cheppukONti (N,S)- chakravAkham- T
neraval in "snAnAdi su karmambulu vEda dhyAnambu" for 3 mins
swaras for 3 mins

3. sangeetha gnanamu (R , S) - dhanyAsi - T
5 mins alapanai and 3 mins violin return
4 mins swaras
4. bhuvinidAsudanE - shreeranjani - T

5. eNNagAnu rAmabhajana(R,NS,S)- paNtuvarAli - BR
9 mins alApanai and 5 mins violin return
6 mins swaras
6. Emani pogaDudurA - varuNapriyA - T

7A. nannu pAlimpA (R N S T) - mohanam - T
10 mins alapanai and 6 mins violin return
neraval in "karamuna shara kOdaNDa kAntitO "for 5 mins
3 mins swaras
7B. tani for 9 mins

8. hariguna - mArubehAg - meerA bhajan
9. tomthru dAni tanana "..kannA karmughil vannA" - hameerkalyAni - TNS
10. pavamAna

For any rasika to attend the concert at Shree thyagaraja vidwath samAjam is quite a trace of the historic mylApore. The rasika is a 21 st century rasika ,usually driving a 20th century car and as he takes a turn from RK Mutt road into that road that leads to the sabha , he drives thru a 19th century poochi Srinivasa Iyengar era road or may be those houses and roads were there from thiruvalluvar days of mylapore. It is a nightmare to reach the spot and to find a parking slot was probably only slightly easier than the apollo mission to moon endeavour.

The samajam is lovely , you have a bronze idol of sadguru thyagaraja swami and as I settled it was a big sabha with less than 3 rasikas for a 3 member performing team. The sabha patron walked up to the dias and said "Sundal eLLAm kuduthu pAthom , appavum inga kootam varalai" and also assured when you start quite a few retirees will come and alas he was right the crowd tripled to a peak strength of 10.

Kolkata vijayaraghavan is the disciple of TNS . Usually it is a wellknown fact that every performing disciple takes the prototype of a guru and after a period of time metamorphosises as a his/her own type of musician. VijayarAghavan is still in the phase 1 as almost every sangathi only showed how closer he was to TNS.

The start was nice in KanadA , there was a distinct change of speed and he sang quite a bit of swaras in kAnadA ,the excitement could have been better if he landed well within the percussion patterns .WIth chakravAkham he sang quite well to start with , his neraval was just too short and swaras were not that well presented.

DhanyAsi alApana turned out to be the best so far and there was lot of sowkhyam , his krithi rendition and swaras were definitely better compared to what preceded before. The filler shreeranjani was just ok . The detailed alapana of PaNTuvarAli was sketched very much like shri TNS, quite a bit of vocal power with quick brigas was done . He did not have that much stamina to sing a detailed neraval and the swaras were just ok. Overall his strength appears more in alApana but he certainly loses considerable steam especially in the neraval and swaras .

Mohanam was the main and I would say the pick of the day was his mohanam alApana , Usually all musicians sing nannu PalimpA without neraval and it was quite good to hear a rare neraval in this krithi, swaras appeared to be built well to start with , he finished so abruptly as though it was a jaya tv concert. In the tukkadas there was only TNS variety the hammeer was better than the mArubehag.

The violin lover R.Raghul played wonderfully, one can see he is really shaping as his guru MC. Same ahA appreciation for every sangathi of vocalist and his play had proportion and good shruthi sowkhyam.The mridangist had a lot of enthu , he complained he did not have the feedback , but there was a lot of out of line play with the vocalist.

Overall This is my first concert of kolkata vijayaraghavan.I felt he has to get little more aesthetics to give a well rounded experience , it was a bit of offcolor days of TNS to me . His strength is in alApana and in general the stamina is not that much in neraval and swaras . Perhaps he may have had a off key day,hoping to have a better second experience of him.

Overall a good concert.

[mahavishnu]

Thanks for that review, Rajesh. I haven't heard Sri Vijayaraghavan in a long time.
Nice to see a good performance by our forumute Sri Raghul.

[sureshvv]

#6 veera vasantham?

[rajeshnat]

#6 veera vasantham?

Is Veeravasantham asampoorna equivalent of varuNapriya or is that a janya? I was thinking of the former and hence put Emani pogaDudurA - T as varunApriya. Few other experts can clarify

[mahavishnu]

I am no authority on this, but the SSP refers to mela 24 as veeravasantham per Venkatamakhi's taxonomy. The raga lakSaNA mentioned there seems identical to the structure of the Tyagaraja composition "Emani pogaDudurA".

Thus, Rajesh's justification for calling Emani pogaDudurA as Varunapriya makes sense, although we have no way of knowing how St Tyagaraja interpreted the ragam.

Perhaps, Keerthi or other SSP experts can confirm.