Madurai TN Seshagopalan@Ayodhya mantapam on Mar 29th, 2015
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Vocal : Madurai TN Seshagopalan
Violin : Delhi Sundarrajan
Mrudangam : Trichur Narendran
Kanjira : BS purushottaman
Vocal support : TNS Krishna
Tambura support : Tambura Vaidhyanathan
Concert duration/Day : 2 hrs 45 minutes(07:10 pm to 09:55 pm) /Sunday
Concert Type : Nirvana (prime evening concert , no concert to follow)
Sabha/Hall : Ayodhya mantapam , west mambalam
Crowd : ~400 (peak)
Ticket : Free
Occassion : Rama navami celebrations
1. ??? (S) - KAnadA - ???
2. para brahma swaroopamE (S) -gowlipantu?? - Arunachala kavirayar
3 mins swaras
3. jagadA nanda (R) - nAttai- T
6 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return
4. rAma nAma mE dudhi - desh - tjr sankara iyer
5. dunmArgacharA(R,S) - ranjani - T
8 mins alapana and 5 mins violin return
13 mins swaras
6. bantureeti (N,S) - hamsanadam - T
3 mins neraval in rAma nAma manE
8 mins swaras
7. mokshamu galadA - saramati - T
8A. enduku dayarAdurA(R N S T) - todi - T
14 mins alapana
and ?? mins violin return
neraval in tyAgarAja vinuta tAraka carita for 6 mins
swaras for 14 mins
8B. tani for 12 mins
9A. very brief slokham - janaki prAma mantram
9B. rAma mantrava japisO - jonpuri - PD
10. rAma sundara ???? - bhageshri?? or behag??? - ???
11. thillana ...pannaga sayana??? - bilahari???? - ariyakudi???
12. shree ramachandranukku - madhyamavati +??? - Arunachala kavirayar
13. shree kantaya ..sreenivasaya mangalam - shurutti
Madurai TN Seshagopalan@Ayodhya mantapam on Mar 29th, 2015
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rajeshnat
- Posts: 10123
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04
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rajeshnat
- Posts: 10123
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04
Re: Madurai TN Seshagopalan@Ayodhya mantapam on Mar 29th, 2015
The concert was advertized to start at 07:00 pm. As i went in around 07:10pm the mikes were just getting adjusted . I had to park my car few streets away on a sunday, thank god being sunday you still managed to get one. Venkateshwara POLI stall is quite a landmark for many ,giving run for money for Ayodhya mantapam, VK - I ordered some thing for INR 25 , not pOLi this time .
Ayodhya mantapam is a wonderful venue for concerts and rama navami are generally special.Maharajapuram santhanam in late 80's is very memorable and one about 8 years back when vijay siva -vittal paired with Palghat raghu and abhishek raghuram in kanjira. I wish I had a mobile like what I had today, that photo click would have been memorable and priceless now especially the two percussion artists- abhishek and raghu sir.
The audience texture in west mamblam is still very much nearly the same pazhaya mambalam . The rasikas age group is nearly the same with a lot of them in their prime young days of 65+ making up the big chunk. While I see few elderly upcoming vidwans/vidushis whose age is below 18 , there is always many in that below 18 age ,where they end up putting talam .Their faces are registered in me now, I am pretty sure I am going to see few of them as vidushi and vidwans in 5 years time. Historically there are few names whom i have seen as kid rasikas ,then later I have recognized their face as an artist. Lord Rama is surely the most easiest ishta devata for any musician to sing thematic concerts and rama navami usually defaults a lot with Sadguru Thyagaraja compositions- but one has to give it to vidwan tns who gave a does of more unknown krithis as the list testifies the same.
As I went in to the ayodhya mantapam, I just saw that i did not take my pen bit lazily walked and came back. In that delay lost the first half of kAnadA . I donot know what he sang in kAnadA but swara prastharam towards the end was quite a great start. The next was a rare krithi in thamizh , the raga contours was exactly gowlipantu to me and i just love and adore the raga. I just googled to find that the para brahma swaroopamE is by AK and I certainly enjoyed - there was that right charge for the concert - not 100% sure if the raga is gowlipantu.
TNS came up next with the alapana of nattai , the difficuly was there for me to concentrate not because of any distractions , but more because the voice was quite troublesome and the alapana raga swaroopam at times going quite weak . There was quite a lot of abrasiveness in that nattai alapana but with the pancharatna krithi the contours changed well and I liked his rendition. It was roughly 8 pm or so the first exodus started and I was bit worried when he sang rama namame in desh thinking if he is winding quickly to give way for any function like a discourse . My head turned towards Lord rama - if TNS lets me down what do i do with cm in chennai , Lord Rama never let me down . The desh krithi was not that high in emote and there was also not that much of shruthi steadfastness that i noticed , the desh was definitely not besh.
TNS sir has vidwat which all of us know , but there are some special moments where vidwat meets voice jeer and he takes to you for a great ride of exclusive carnatic exoticness where sangathis are the currency of joy. The best indeed came up in his submain ranjani this is the mahavidwan TNS that i seek. Ranjani alapana had nice brigas expecially towards the second half and i and many lapped it up with a long round of applause . The expected krithi dunmarga chara was well done and the swaras were really wonderful. I like musicians to sing longer swara pattern than rather hiding under the canopy of violin return and that was the case in ranjani and hamsanadam.
Fast fillers with long swaras with minimal violin return is a kohinoor diamond of CM- if you look around 95% of musicians donot sing it at all , they are worried that they will lose energy and are worried if that fast filler with long swara pattern cannibalizes the energy they need for rendering main krithi or pallavi. TNS paired with his son TNS Krishna and the patterns in bantureeti with rama nama manE in neraval was nothing much to crave but the swaras were lovely- creative bursts chiselling to create a wholesome grandeur of hamsanadam raga devathai.
Saramathi start was in anupallavi . I like this krithi mokshamu galada , personally I think sadguru Thyagaraja showed all of us a sense of purpose where emotive lines with bhakthi is a prerequisite to surely meet the bhava. In mokshamu galada, there is always a distilled essence in it (saram athil). Mokshamu galadA in saramathi - it hits your heart right away. TNS rendition was quite good but the emote was not consistent with bhakthi and energy. Possibly I just left my home after hearing TK rangachari rendering mokshamu galada and a day back heard TRS rendering mokshamu galadA.
From todi I had more share of disappointment in the concert . His voice was bit depleted there and I felt his rendition was not carrying the musical aesthetics that well. Todi alapana start was bit shaky in his first minute of alapana and only when DS played - few micro strips the todi was asserted .The todi alapana continued well but overall it was not satisfactory. The todi krithi sahithyam were not that clear and with it the raga devatai did not align in a sweet spot .I could not latch his todi in my tonal frame of reference in a consistent fashion. Neraval was bit short but well done , but in swaras there were quite a few laya somersaults that showed more abrasiveness in aesthetics . I thought post few baltis with those laya centric touches he will latch back with some lovely raga patterns in todi- which usually he does but it was not this time . TNS has himself set a very high standard in todi main , but he caught up law of averages in this todi.
In the tukkadas he was bit rushing to complete or may be the organizer made him to rush.I had difficulty in generally liking any of his tukkadas. The raga swaroopam in tukkadas was not aurally clear and even if clear at times it just ends up bit suggestive .
Delhi sundarrajan play was good in parts , there was a bit of nAdham missing but he showed his class more in the swara patterns where he brought his share of enjoyable swiftness in both alapana ,neraval and swaras . I wish him good luck to bring in back the joy that he gave us when he paired with TNS/TVS in 90's.
Trichur Narendran had a nice nAdham and went well for most of the songs with noticeable resonant chappu - I felt he could have played bit more faster especially for hamsanadam fast number . BS purushottaman gave able support and there was sufficient rotation in swaras where he could comfortably assert . I did not pay that much attention in tani(venkateshwara poli stall filling was not enough).
The concert is free and the volunteers of the ayodhya mantapam come up with the money tray and I wanted to put INR 100 and I checked my wallet and just put Rs 50 as i did not have a 100 INR note , rest were two 1000 INR rupee notes. ATM's are killing the actual intent of rasikas contribution (Attn Vasanthakokilam -- chennai rasika spends INR 25 for food and INR 50 for music , unlike chicago ramanavami rasika who grew up in west mambalam who spends USD 29 for food and USD 25 for music ).
The rama navami series in ayodhya mantapam just started . You have few more artists lined up. 3 gayathree's , suguna V, Vijaysiva, Lalgudi siblings and few more names i cannot recollect now. Apart from 7pm slots, the 5 pm slots are also great with many great names.They have their usual harikatha and namasankeerthanam where they have few slots. They go till april 13th or 14th,2015. It is difficult for me to hit that spot on a working day, but i will give a try for atleast few.
I was personally glad when mahavidwan TNS sang almost till 9:55 pm and his sincerity in presenting such a spread of krithis all centered on Lord Rama was wonderful that too with crowd dwindling to lower double digits post 9:15 pm. The entropy side was slightly high , but that coming more in second half for a change was quite unexpected.
Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours and 45 minutes.
Ayodhya mantapam is a wonderful venue for concerts and rama navami are generally special.Maharajapuram santhanam in late 80's is very memorable and one about 8 years back when vijay siva -vittal paired with Palghat raghu and abhishek raghuram in kanjira. I wish I had a mobile like what I had today, that photo click would have been memorable and priceless now especially the two percussion artists- abhishek and raghu sir.
The audience texture in west mamblam is still very much nearly the same pazhaya mambalam . The rasikas age group is nearly the same with a lot of them in their prime young days of 65+ making up the big chunk. While I see few elderly upcoming vidwans/vidushis whose age is below 18 , there is always many in that below 18 age ,where they end up putting talam .Their faces are registered in me now, I am pretty sure I am going to see few of them as vidushi and vidwans in 5 years time. Historically there are few names whom i have seen as kid rasikas ,then later I have recognized their face as an artist. Lord Rama is surely the most easiest ishta devata for any musician to sing thematic concerts and rama navami usually defaults a lot with Sadguru Thyagaraja compositions- but one has to give it to vidwan tns who gave a does of more unknown krithis as the list testifies the same.
As I went in to the ayodhya mantapam, I just saw that i did not take my pen bit lazily walked and came back. In that delay lost the first half of kAnadA . I donot know what he sang in kAnadA but swara prastharam towards the end was quite a great start. The next was a rare krithi in thamizh , the raga contours was exactly gowlipantu to me and i just love and adore the raga. I just googled to find that the para brahma swaroopamE is by AK and I certainly enjoyed - there was that right charge for the concert - not 100% sure if the raga is gowlipantu.
TNS came up next with the alapana of nattai , the difficuly was there for me to concentrate not because of any distractions , but more because the voice was quite troublesome and the alapana raga swaroopam at times going quite weak . There was quite a lot of abrasiveness in that nattai alapana but with the pancharatna krithi the contours changed well and I liked his rendition. It was roughly 8 pm or so the first exodus started and I was bit worried when he sang rama namame in desh thinking if he is winding quickly to give way for any function like a discourse . My head turned towards Lord rama - if TNS lets me down what do i do with cm in chennai , Lord Rama never let me down . The desh krithi was not that high in emote and there was also not that much of shruthi steadfastness that i noticed , the desh was definitely not besh.
TNS sir has vidwat which all of us know , but there are some special moments where vidwat meets voice jeer and he takes to you for a great ride of exclusive carnatic exoticness where sangathis are the currency of joy. The best indeed came up in his submain ranjani this is the mahavidwan TNS that i seek. Ranjani alapana had nice brigas expecially towards the second half and i and many lapped it up with a long round of applause . The expected krithi dunmarga chara was well done and the swaras were really wonderful. I like musicians to sing longer swara pattern than rather hiding under the canopy of violin return and that was the case in ranjani and hamsanadam.
Fast fillers with long swaras with minimal violin return is a kohinoor diamond of CM- if you look around 95% of musicians donot sing it at all , they are worried that they will lose energy and are worried if that fast filler with long swara pattern cannibalizes the energy they need for rendering main krithi or pallavi. TNS paired with his son TNS Krishna and the patterns in bantureeti with rama nama manE in neraval was nothing much to crave but the swaras were lovely- creative bursts chiselling to create a wholesome grandeur of hamsanadam raga devathai.
Saramathi start was in anupallavi . I like this krithi mokshamu galada , personally I think sadguru Thyagaraja showed all of us a sense of purpose where emotive lines with bhakthi is a prerequisite to surely meet the bhava. In mokshamu galada, there is always a distilled essence in it (saram athil). Mokshamu galadA in saramathi - it hits your heart right away. TNS rendition was quite good but the emote was not consistent with bhakthi and energy. Possibly I just left my home after hearing TK rangachari rendering mokshamu galada and a day back heard TRS rendering mokshamu galadA.
From todi I had more share of disappointment in the concert . His voice was bit depleted there and I felt his rendition was not carrying the musical aesthetics that well. Todi alapana start was bit shaky in his first minute of alapana and only when DS played - few micro strips the todi was asserted .The todi alapana continued well but overall it was not satisfactory. The todi krithi sahithyam were not that clear and with it the raga devatai did not align in a sweet spot .I could not latch his todi in my tonal frame of reference in a consistent fashion. Neraval was bit short but well done , but in swaras there were quite a few laya somersaults that showed more abrasiveness in aesthetics . I thought post few baltis with those laya centric touches he will latch back with some lovely raga patterns in todi- which usually he does but it was not this time . TNS has himself set a very high standard in todi main , but he caught up law of averages in this todi.
In the tukkadas he was bit rushing to complete or may be the organizer made him to rush.I had difficulty in generally liking any of his tukkadas. The raga swaroopam in tukkadas was not aurally clear and even if clear at times it just ends up bit suggestive .
Delhi sundarrajan play was good in parts , there was a bit of nAdham missing but he showed his class more in the swara patterns where he brought his share of enjoyable swiftness in both alapana ,neraval and swaras . I wish him good luck to bring in back the joy that he gave us when he paired with TNS/TVS in 90's.
Trichur Narendran had a nice nAdham and went well for most of the songs with noticeable resonant chappu - I felt he could have played bit more faster especially for hamsanadam fast number . BS purushottaman gave able support and there was sufficient rotation in swaras where he could comfortably assert . I did not pay that much attention in tani(venkateshwara poli stall filling was not enough).
The concert is free and the volunteers of the ayodhya mantapam come up with the money tray and I wanted to put INR 100 and I checked my wallet and just put Rs 50 as i did not have a 100 INR note , rest were two 1000 INR rupee notes. ATM's are killing the actual intent of rasikas contribution (Attn Vasanthakokilam -- chennai rasika spends INR 25 for food and INR 50 for music , unlike chicago ramanavami rasika who grew up in west mambalam who spends USD 29 for food and USD 25 for music ).
The rama navami series in ayodhya mantapam just started . You have few more artists lined up. 3 gayathree's , suguna V, Vijaysiva, Lalgudi siblings and few more names i cannot recollect now. Apart from 7pm slots, the 5 pm slots are also great with many great names.They have their usual harikatha and namasankeerthanam where they have few slots. They go till april 13th or 14th,2015. It is difficult for me to hit that spot on a working day, but i will give a try for atleast few.
I was personally glad when mahavidwan TNS sang almost till 9:55 pm and his sincerity in presenting such a spread of krithis all centered on Lord Rama was wonderful that too with crowd dwindling to lower double digits post 9:15 pm. The entropy side was slightly high , but that coming more in second half for a change was quite unexpected.
Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours and 45 minutes.
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rshankar
- Posts: 13754
- Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26
Re: Madurai TN Seshagopalan@Ayodhya mantapam on Mar 29th, 2015
parabrahma svarUpamE is Sri AK's introduction of how the divine brothers came to be born...to translate literally from the words in the kRti, he describes how these divine entities appeared on earth, having halted in the wombs of daSaratha's queens for a while!
IIRC, Smt. Nithyashree sings this in a different rAga.
IIRC, Smt. Nithyashree sings this in a different rAga.
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mahavishnu
- Posts: 3341
- Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 21:56
Re: Madurai TN Seshagopalan@Ayodhya mantapam on Mar 29th, 2015
Rajesh, glad you could catch a good-old Ayodhya Mandapam kutcheri! I think VK is an Adyar man, if I'm not mistaken. Me on the other hand, am a 100% West Mambalam product.Ayodhya mantapam is a wonderful venue for concerts and rama navami are generally special.Maharajapuram santhanam in late 80's is very memorable and one about 8 years back when vijay siva -vittal paired with Palghat raghu and abhishek raghuram in kanjira.
To add to your list, other than the amazingly popular Maharajapuram Santhanam kutcheris (when even the buses going on Arya Gowdar road had to stop), I also had the privilege of hearing U Srinivas here for the first time to amazingly large and appreciative crowds. And in the late 70s to a very young Seshu himself with LGJ!
None of us owned cameras then, although Sri Ram Samaj used to publish photos of the concerts in their souvenir books.
Ravi: Thanks! I did not know that was AK's introduction. Was it the intro then for the whole Ramanatakam? How appropriate for Rama Navami.parabrahma svarUpamE is Sri AK's introduction of how the divine brothers came to be born