Smt. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam concert at PS High School

[Sundarnrao]

Smt.VS’s gig entrust emphatic establishment of atypical pensive excellence, thoughtful disposition and awe-inspiring limpidness all the time. The doyen from Dr.S.Rajam Sir’s pedigree buoyed her puissant prepotencies with her amazing tunefulness, expressive renditions of all compositions, masterful improvisations and spiritual devotion.

The first presentation chalamela varnam ordained a demonstration of the supernal sovereignty that one gets only through adoring adroitness in their own right. Intensifying the impulsion with second recital brova bharama (bahudari), smt. VS decorated a dawdling development of the raga( alaap, sargams, bol-taans, choot-ki-taans) to delineate the deserving concavity to remuneratively engender ingenious handling of all manodharma statements.

Smt. VS’s third piece mathangi sri raja rajeshwari (ramapriya) explored unfarmed itineraries of raga-colors that one may have heard. Her conscientious exposition, deliberate demonstration of signature/key phrases & multihued embossing of pompous passages frilled the excellence of this singer-mastero. Fourth song Kaalai thookki nindraadum (yadhukula kambhoji) symbolized a complete musicianship of smt.VS, where the characteristic sketches of manodharmas (alaap, behlawas, bol-baants, krintans khatkas) were highlighted with clarity, hallucination and luminosity. Notably, her vocal-precision and alignment to an extraordinary droning of tanpura was dealt at a gargantuan aplomb. Tanpura droning in smt.VS’s concerts always ensures a specially added ambiance through a sublimely silhouette playing filled with constancies around sound-frequency in a magically spaced cadence.

Her dulcet voice, impervious practice, life-time dedication to music was duly reflected with perfect balance in the fifth recital kamala charane -- where Smt.VS manifested extreme musical potential to every aspect of presentation fitting to GNB's "drut" framework . Her amrita-behag emotions and lyrical expressions further guaranteed her commitment & control on the poetic proportion. Enormous ovations attested for the Kafi based Sixth recital Pakkala Nila was a modest mark of Smt.VS’s competency to protract the creative jostle (sargams, harqats, alaap, bol-vistaars, behlawas, vistaars with soots & meends, bol-baants, bol-alaaps, many varieties of taans etc). Some of the paltas and pirats were matchless.

Seventh bandish prabhu mero preethama (charukesi) mounted a profound performance with inimitable aesthetic lay-outs and the rasikas were overawed with Smt.VS’s elevated exuberance. Eighth presentation Vrutham (Shankmukapriya -> chandrakauns -> rasika priya) followed by Arulseiyya (rasikapriya) authenticated smt.VS’s command to engage rasikas with absolute absorption and insured a very fitted colors on the improvisational cycles. Smt. VS's finale bandish mangalam was also crowned with able spontaneities and explicatory singing.

Accompanists (Shri. Purshothaman on kanjira, shri.Bhaskar on violin and sri.subramaniam on mridangam) were tight all through and added great balance to the overall concert today. Shri.Bhaskar padded phenomenal harmonic-colors and melodic-counterpoints to VS during all her improvisational cycles. He also insured to add his embellishments within the defined framework of manodharma colors that smt.VS painted. This further added a new dimension to the concert. Smt. Subramaniam and Shri. Purushothaman were brilliant as sangathkars. Their artistic wavelength to add colors to both smt.VS and Shri.Bhaskar was exemplary.

[kbryant]

lol

[CRama]

Sudarnrao I request you to provide the song list in the beginning so that people who do not know English can know what are the songs sung by Smt VS.

[sirsub11]

I am beginning to wonder if this guy, Sudarnrao is for real, or is he simply having us all on ? And what's with the VS obsession ? Is there no other artist who can protract the creative jostle, or produce matchless paltas and pirats, or buoy her puissant prepotencies ? Surely there's another musician out there, somewhere, who can give us a gig entrust emphatic establishment of a typical pensive excellence ? To say nothing of the thoughtful disposition and awe inspiring limpidness all the time.

Tell you what. Even I, a mere amateur, had I but practiced imperviously and was blessed with a dulcet voice, would surely have had no trouble embossing pompous passages, or come to think of it, delineating the deserving concavity to remuneratively engender ingenious handling of all manodharma statements. Doubtless a dose of mild substance abuse would would have highlighted my clarity with hallucination and luminosity, which I could have carried off with gargantuan aplomb.

Under the circumstances, it comes as no surprise to me that the accompanists were tight all through.

[sureshvv]

C'mon guys... Go easy... He is the quintessential rasika

[rajeshnat]

The concert was held yesterday - 21st November,2011 in the evening slot beginning 06:30 pm as per the calendar .

[fduddy]

verbal Diarrhea !!!!! to say the least ...

[annamalai]

i am not surprised - rasikas forum has so many posts with either jaw-dropping reviews filled with all superlatives, or negative posts almost bordering on slander by the ever vigilant Ariyakudi police patrolling sabhas with tayir sadam with vadu manga dubbas

Reading some of the reviews of concerts in this forum - and watching the match today - and there are so comparisons of Kirk Edwards to Greenidge or Darren Bravo to Brian Lara. Brian Lara was able to play the slashing square drive to a double century against Muralitharan on the pump, on the tracks @ Srilanka turning square. But Darren is a talent for sure, high backlift, ... and we are eager he should succeed and become the next Lara, but one should also wait - until he plays Steyn @ South Africa or Jimmy Anderson @ Nottingham.

[hamirkalyani123]

Wow!!! what a comparison annamalai. For a moment, I thought did I type cricinfo by mistake...

Going back to Sundarnrao's reviews I don't think there is anything wrong there. Only thing is, it would be good if he posts all the items that were sung first before the poetic reviews, which I initially thought I was the only not making head/tail out of it, but there are others as well.

I am confused about the accompanying artists. Initially he said Sri Subramaniam on the mridangam (Is it Skanda Subramaniam?) and later on he says Smt. Subramaniam if you read the last paragraph.

All in all, it would be good if Sundarnrao posts the items along with all the artists first before his poetic journey into the concert...No offense really otherwise, since we need such reviews along with the comparisons to cricket to keep this forum exciting...

[arasi]

Yes, we all bring our own different versions of reviews or comments about concerts and they reflect our own tastes in music.

Annamalai,
Tayir sAdam, vaDu mAngai in the tiffin carrier--like veTRilai chellam--I like that! Though the cricket jargon and player names are beyond me, I do get your drift. 'Don't compare or eulogize' are good tips. Reviews bordering on slander are even worse.

The pity of it is, I don't hear Vijayalakshmi S's good music come through all, in the fog of this reviewer's utterings. As I said before, in him (her?), I find a very promising romance novel writer, another Barbara Cartland, perhaps?

[pvs]

with due respect, this review sounds like a string of words from the GRE vocabulary workbooks! what is impervious about her practice? or gargantuan about her aplomb? beats me! Instead of 'insufficiently illuminated', 'dark' conveys it better sometimes. shaking my head...

[harimau]

Tayir sAdam, vaDu mAngai in the tiffin carrier--like veTRilai chellam--I like that!

Ada ennatthe solvenungo
vadumangai ooruthungo

vadumangai oorattungo
thayir sadam ready pannungo.

PS. It is not often that one gets a chance to post a dabbankutthu film song in a Carnatic music forum!

[mohan]

Here's a brief paragraph by paragraph translation:

Dr Vijayalakshmi Subramaniam always gives an excellent performance – the concert at Mylapore Arts Academy on 21 November was no exception.

A disciple of S. Rajam, she sang all the compositions beautifully.

She commenced with the chalamela varnam and followed this with brova bharama (bahudari), which was preceded by a slow alapana.

This was followed up by a colourful rendition of mathangi sri raja rajeshwari (ramapriya). The alapana preceding Kaalai thooki (yadhukula kambhoji), was marked by its close alignment to sruti. The presence of the tambura gave a provided a serene ambience to the concert.

GNB’s Kamala Charane (Amrita behag) was full of emotional content. A dazzling Kharaharapriya alapana was next and had beautiful gamakas and brighas. It was well-received by the audience. Pakkala nilabadi followed.

prabhu mero preethama (charukesi) delighted the rasikas. She then presented a virutam in shankmukapriya, chandrakauns and rasikapriya followed by Koteeswara Iyer’s Arul Seiya Vendum Ayya. Dr Vijayalakshmi concluded the concert with the mangalam.

H. N. Bhaskar (violin), Poongalam Subramaniam (mrudangam) and B. S. Purushotham (kanjira) provided excellent support. Bhaskar’s manodharma complemented the vocalist’s. The percussion team was awesome.

[varsha]

translation from english to english ?
some poetic licence , indeed.

[mohan]

translation into plain English, varsha

[ravir]

On a different note and without meaning any offense, Mohan's paraphrased ( tempted to use the word 'bowdlerised' ) version reminds me of SVK's concert reviews in "THE HINDU". A denizen of the net has posted a series of critiqued posts on his blog which can be accessed here : http://www.nonoscience.info/2008/11/16/ ... s-lecture/

[mohan]

Good pick up RaviR - it was written in the late SVK's style! Glad you picked it up!