Vidwan Palghat Raghu Rememberance Day

[arabhi01]

A Fitting tribute was paid to the legendary musician Vidwan Palghat Raghu on 2nd June 2014 at Arkay Convention Centre. It was good to see a lot of musicians in the audience for the evening's concert. I heard that the program was hosted by Trivandrum Balaji, a highly talented musician and a disciple of the great Sri Palghat Raghu.

Carnatica Brothers K N Shashikiran and Ganesh gave a superb performance for the evening along with M A Sundaresan on the violin, Mannargudi Easwaran on the mridangam and K V Gopalakroshnan on the Kanjira. Mr.Das who apparently is an expert in mridangam repair and maintenance was honored.

Moving on to the concert list, the brothers began the Kucheri with the Kanada Ata Tala Varnam and sang songs that had the word "Raghu" in them. The highlight of the concert was the Ragam Tanam Pallavi which was explained very well by Shashikiran and the audience enjoyed as much.

Varnam -Kanada-Ata-Ramnad Srinivasa Iyengar
Jaya Jaya - Nattai-Kanta chapu-Purandaradasa
Hiranmayerm-Lalitha-Muthuswami Dikshitar-Rupakam(R,N,S)
Bhajare Manasa-Abheri-Adi-Mysore Vasudeevachar
Sarasa Samadhana-Kapi Narayani-Adi-Thyagaraja(S)
Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi - Rasikapriya-Tisra Jampa Mishra Gathi
Pavadi-??(dasarapadam)
Pancharaga Panchatala Thillana- darbari, bilahari, Kapi, behalf, Madyamavathi- Adi, Rupakam, Kanta Chapu, Mishra chapu, Sankeerna Chapu- Chitravina Ravikiran
Thirupugazh-Valaji-Sankeerna Chapu-Arunagirinathar

Needless to say the raga alapanas, thanams and kalpana swaras that the duo and M A Sundaresan exchanged were a class apart. So were Mannargudi Easwaran and K V Gopalakrishnan.

Now I am going to try and write what I understood from the explanation Shashikiran gave about the concept of the Pallavi

"Priye Layapriye Sangeethapriye mridanga meru palghat Raghu"

The date of the concert was 2.06.14

Keeping that in mind, the eduppu was or start point was after 2 subunits corresponding to the Date 2nd and the arudhi karvai was 6 corresponding to the month. Each subunit has 14 counts in misra nadai 2nd speed corresponding to the year.

All the "priye" i.e priye, layapriye and Sangeethapriye has the ratio of 2+6. The multi-speeds was in two different formats one yathi pattern and the other word by word.

Now moving over to the melodic aspect, the ragas that they had chosen for the ragamalika sounded great and had an interesting logic as well. The ragas in the ragamalika was a sequence of multiples of 14 in the melakarta system. The ragas were:
14- vakulabharanam
28- harikambhoji
56- shanmukhapriya.

In each of these they sang swaras patterns with appropriate poruthams for the eduppu in different speeds.

Well, the concert was a fitting tribute to the legend!

[Nick H]

I am so glad to see a write-up of this concert, and to be able to see the pallavi explanation, most of which failed to remain in my head at the time.

My subjective, non-technical contribution...

It was an astounding concert. I felt that it was unique in the literal sense of the word. In fact, I felt that it was incredible experience, watching something new being created, something that had never been done before, ever. This was edge-of-the-seat stuff, even in a musical world where much is improvised on the spot.

I'm an uneducated "rasika." I don't understand raga. Even so, a good raga malika is one of my favourite things in a concert, and I appreciate how each one, and its return, is complete in itself, and how the artist makes a progression, sometimes very subtle, from one to another. It is a very beautiful and skilled form of creativity.

In this instance, I felt, expressed as a headline: Carnatica Brothers Play The Numbers Game --- And Win! There was not so much a subtle progression as a series of exciting surprises, but of course, each was still complete in itself.

A numeric idea was turned into something incredible and creative by all the artists on the stage, working together and taking obvious delight in doing so. The contribution of the accompanists was exemplary, especially M A Sundaresan and Mannargudi Easwaran, who turned each successive challenge into beauty. K V Gopalakroshnan was right there, too, without even a bead of sweat.

The audience was bit on the small side. it is just a shame that many who would have enjoyed such a wonderous event were not there --- but perhaps they watched the webcast. I hope that the video will be made available on Youtube or Arkay's site, as this really was a unique treasure of a concert.

I left the venue emotionally and physically charged. Exhilarated to the point of actually feeling a little shaky! Unique concert, unique effect. It is a good thing that I had a five minute walk to my car.

[rajeshnat]

Pancharaga Panchatala Thillana- darbari, bilahari, Kapi, behalf, Madyamavathi- Adi, Rupakam, Kanta Chapu, Mishra chapu, Sankeerna Chapu- Chitravina Ravikiran

On behalf :-* of arabhi01 - quick correction Pancharaga Panchatala Thillana- darbari, bilahari, Kapi, behag, Madyamavathi- Adi, Rupakam, Kanta Chapu, Mishra chapu, Sankeerna Chapu. Nice musical concept carnatica brothers on pallavi - keep it going.