Geetha Ramanand - Revathi Murthy - Adamya Ramand - ?

[srikant1987]

Geetha Ramanand and Revathy Murthy - Veena duo
Adamya Ramand - Mridangam
? - Ghatam
14 July 2012
for Tarangini Arts Foundation
@ MES College, Malleshwaram

varNam in dhaivatam-less pantuvarALi
raghunAyaka - haMsadhvani - Adi - T (RS)
rA rAma iNTidAka - asAvEri - Adi - T
shrI sarasvatI namOstutE - Arabhi - rUpaka - MD (RS)
AditALa composition in kadanakutUhalam
ETi janmamidi (?) - varALi - mishracApu - T (RNS)
evarimATa - kAmbhOji - Adi - T (Rt, likely NST)

It was a beautiful concert. I chose to attend it despite a couple more concerts mentioned in The Hindu (like Aishwarya Vidya Raghunath's vocal recital).

The pUrvAnga of the varNam was rendered in slow tempo, and the uttarAnga in second speed.

Everything about haMsadhvani was so measured. GR left the AlApanai in between to RM, and she completed it very nicely. Svaram exchanges were absolutely flawless, and the cooperation, the seriousness, they all fell perfectly in place, with RM finally playing a -rhythmically interesting finalle, and GR joining in with the pallavi. It was so neat and succinct that it was marvellous, mouth-gapingly so, just for that!

It was nice to hear an asAvEri, even as just the composition, in the concert.

Arabhi again was very nicely handled. Both vidushis demonstrated their command and understanding of the rAga, and Smt Revathi's swarams in it were so rich in rAgabhAva.

The varALi too was very good, but somehow didn't fall as well in place as the haMsadhvani or Arabhi.

It was almost tragic that it got late for me after the tAnam, since it was evari mATa, which is one of my favourite kAmbhOji krtis in the world. It too is becoming very rare in the face of O rangashAyi which I find rather stretched. On second thoughts, kAmbhOji itself seems a little rarer these days ... Maybe I should have sit through the krti alone and left as N/S began.

If only they had dispensed with the kadanakutUhalam! That composition too had ciTTai swarams, which are played two times, and take up too much time. The tempo they had chosen for it, too, was not invigorating.

The percussionists accompanied songs and manOdharma appropriately.

Kudos to Tarangini Arts Foundation on their choice.

[bilahari]

Thanks for the report, Srikant.

Was the kadanakuDukalam the ubiquitous raghuvamsa sudha?

Evari mATa is such a complete and fulfilling kAmbOji! For succinctness, mA jAnaki is beautiful as well.

On the matter of the conciseness of the hamsadhwani, I have often found vainikas in general to be remarkably restrained in everything from ragam to kriti to neraval to swaras. One is often left wanting more, but never less!

[srikant1987]

No, it wasn't raghuvamshasudhA, I can recognize raghuvamshasudhA.

What you say about vaiNikas is right. This hamsadhwani didn't have me badly longing for more either (especially since an asAvEri was coming ).

[Lakshman]

It must be one of the following:
gAnam pozhivAn kaNNan-N.S.Chidambaram, giripriyam gangAdharam-Muttiah Bhagavatar,
kuvalayAkSi kushalam-GNB, mangaLa varadAyaki-GNB, MohanakriSNa jagan-GNB, nIkEla dayarAdu-Vasudevachar, vandEham shivE-Odeyar.

[keerthi]

1. is most likely Mysore VasudEvAcArya's varNam in mandAri - 'vanajAkSa'.

2. Kadanakutuhalam song could be 'nIkEla dayarAdu rAmacandra' of the same composer.

[srikant1987]

Thank you, keerthi and Lji.

It must have been the Vasudecacharya varNam most probably.

kadanakutUhalam song ... well it could have also been the HMB or Jayachamraja composition. It had the +1.5 eDuppu, iIrc (just like raghuvaMshasudhA). Would've been nice if they announced -- especially want to know if the varALi piece was indeed ETi janmamidi.

As an aside, the crowd was reasonably big and about 80-90% of the seats were occupied. A dozen more people and someone would've had to stand.