Abhishek Raghuram - HNB - Patri @ Dallas IFAA Aug 27

[shankarank]

Might have missed an item or two - may be a vaRNam - as I was late by about 30 - 35 min.

2? ninnE Bhajana - nATTai - Adi - tyAgarAja

3. varalakshmi namOstutE - rUpakam - Mysore V. - AS
- the usual syncopated entry into caraNam (vAsudEva) was done as caturaSra triSram ( tadhin-dhinna takadhin-dhinna) by Patri

4. dhanyuDevvaDO - malayamArutam - desadi - tyAgarAja A(extensive), N (@vara maddala) , S
- it was a two avArtna neraval to capture the complete sAhitya line. Lot of nice incrementally progressing mutaippus by Patri. For a madyama kAla kriti, he dwelt at length on lower kAla svarams, kArvai based and even sounded neraval style.

5. dEva SrI tapastIrthapura nivasA - madyamAvati - vilOma miSra cApu. - tyAgaraja's LalguDi pancaratnam. (AST)

6. ArabhimAnam - rAgamalika - Adi - tarangampAdi pancanata Iyer

7. Bhajamana tunga tIra virAjam - Adi - yamunakalyANi.

8. yAmihE - AshTapati - miSra naTa bhairavi ( I gather this from somebody else in a post concert whatsApp discussion - as I had to step out!)

Abhishek and team were in top form and provided Dallas with a feat and a feast. malayamArutam was virtuosity personified - he was a BMK, in melodic sphere - and suddenly a super singer appealing to millennials. And so was madyamAvati - where he will pause with a bhavam phrase only to resume his super singer mode - and a drop dead landing on Ma or Ri like BMK. Used his voice range to enthrall the audience.

I liked the two Avarta neraval cognizant of sAhityam for dhanyudevvaDO - very expresssive - and it was not a neraval just to do the art of neraval.

HNB's parur style was quite a match for Abhishek and he returned a more bhavam laden madyamAvati to fill the need ( if some looked for it!). And matched him in all his rhythmic excursions.

Patri's emphasizing for the dEsadi flow of dhanyudevvaDO was majestic - with a simha garjana pharans and toppi that roared! And vilOma cApu main in madyamAvati, was a "kid in a candy shop" opportunity to showcase his accompaniment and tani. Tani had many kOrvais in caturaSram before he launched into a triSram with 3 times 7 ( miSra split) per Avarta, majestically. Then proceeded to split as 3 4(s) and 3 3(s) before settling for the triSra naDai!

Also did a short miSra naDai before concluding.

Many known TNS fans and imitators in the front rows egging him on - a great treat for Dallas!

[bhakthim dehi]

Composer of the krithi dhanyudevvado is Patnam Subramania Iyer.

He sang the krithi deva sri tapastheertha in vilomachapu? It is customary to sing that krithi in misrachapu. Do we have any other school rendering Saint Thyagaraja's misrachapu compositions in vilomachapu?

[narayara000]

Deva Sri is always sung in Viloma Chapu

[Lakshman]

In my Index the tALA listed is tripuTa.

[melam72]

Given that Abhishek Raghuram is a descendant of the Lalgudi lineage, one would expect him to sing it in Triputa talam.

Perhaps the mistake lies the கோடூர பார்வை of the reviewer...

[narayara000]

https://youtu.be/MR3d8vNEr1s?t=24m33s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YKuKvYR9Us

In these videos Abhishek Raghuram and Lalgudi Jayaraman both render in Viloma Chapu

[shankarank]

triputa is tALA name marked in most tyAgarAja songs in TSP book itself. That may not mean much today.

For the speed Abhishek sings, even miSra cApu ( the vilOma version here) is too fast enough! vEra enda vidvAnum toindu tuppaTTA Ahiyiruppar ( any other vidvan would have sagged mid-stream like a tuppaTTa!). He didn't even have the time to do the samam with two taps!

There are two tragedies.

1. First we don't recognize the work done during Golden era - the lived experience of KGS rasikas who listened and made it a lived experience of music - the madayamakAla and the great musical experiment, and we are hung up on some relic version somebody played in a viNA eons ago in their house and unleash some biblical bias of some original stuff! Whacthamacallit ( What I might call it) the V. Sriram historian syndrome!

2. Second, we reduce tALas to some counting scheme and fail to recognize the angas for what they signify and fail to see that the cApu tALa captures the saSabda kriyas of some underlying tALA

So we argue over all this - silly!

[rajeshnat]

It is a dream team but I thought Abhishek could have gone more ,dallas should have a biggie concert. It is so dry in California almost forgotten CM .Looks like abhi-hnb-patri are going to make it to LA and Bayarea on sept 09th and 10th respectively . Looking forward to read more reviews especially from Mahavishnu (10th) .

[shankarank]

Well you see the whatsapp group was suggesting that there could have been a varali pallavi! But this is a Sunday concert - after a Saturday somewhere else - and a city like Dallas cannot afford the enhanced Saturday rates! - I am told. Well I have to be blamed as well. I am not spreading the word beyond... I am trying but conversations are difficult. To be honest I am getting to learn from some people that they do read my comments here! But myself shy to tell them specifically.

Second for Abhishek the treatment he gave to both the malayamArutam and madyamAvati is more than two pallavi's put together - as is generally usual for him - and especially with a power accompaniment of HNB and Patri. A Pallavi is redundant in his concert. He doesn't need to sing one - and some artists shouldn't sing one for the opposite reasons!

Well most seem to want a Pallavi for the heck of it - fixated on it's forms! tAnam for example!

Abhishek did receive a larger audience in a larger auditorium than the last time he was here - but he is not yet there at the level of established YACMers.

The association does have a core set of people who become members irrespective of whether they can come to all concerts or not - but Dallas is a victim of its own success with too many events locally - especially with the dance teens heating up to it's peak population levels, there is so much going on!

[sridhar]

He did sing a Pallavi in NJ - a very elaborate one in NattaKurinji. But that was the main item of the evening. This was also an abridged concert, may be a sign of times - gone are the 4 hour or even a three hour concert these days