Sri Malladi Suri Babu - S Varadarajan - Ganapathiraman _ Ramnad Krishnan's centenary celebrations

[ram1999]

What a beautiful concert that was. 2.45 hours and just about 8 or 9 kritis. beautifully spaced out, no frenzied nerve wrecking raga alapanas and swara singing. IT WAS JUST SHEER MELODY.

1. Bhakti beesha - Sankarabaranam - Thyagayya
2. Sowrashtram - Spencer Venugopal kriti
3. Narada guru swami - Darbar - Thyagayya
4. mArajananim Ashraye - Natakapriya - NCV Krishnamacharulu (A kriti composed for Voleti Venkateswarulu upon his request)
5. Panthuvarali - Ninne nera nammi
6. Mati matiki - Mohanam - Thyagayyan
7. Slokam in Sahana - Begada - Ahiri - Annamayya kriti tuned by Dr. Sreepada Pinakapani
8. Kabirdas Bhajan in pilu (tuned by Voleti venkateswarulu)
9. Ramachandra neeyada - Surati - Thyagayya

Nice interesting short anecdotes mentioned during the course of the concert. The rich honey soaked voice of Ramnad Krishnan was mentioned a several times. And he also mentioned three musicians who had sruti boxes in their throat (Dr. Sreepada Pinakapani, Ramnad Krishnan and Voleti Venkateswarulu)

Ganapatiraman's support was absolute class. After the Pantuvarali kriti Suri Babu asked Ganapatiraman to play the thani which he refused saying he does not wish to break the flow of the music of Suri Babu. When he was insisted to play the thani, he reluctantly played for 2 or 3 mins. Next came Mohanam - The raga alapana was again wonderful followed by mati matiki - one of the favorites of the Pani / Voleti. After the kriti, Ganapatiraman was requested again to play the thani and again he was reluctant saying he wanted Suri babu to sing more.

Varadarajan also was reluctant to play the violin alapana during the slokam part citing the same reasons.

Both Varadarajan and Ganapatiraman were completely soaked in Suri Babu's music and so were the audience.

Ramnad Krishnan had a honey soaked voice. On fautist by name Srinivasan working in AIR Hyderabad advised Hyderabad Brothers to listen to Ramnad Krishnan (as Seshachari had a similar voice). And that is how they both were highly influnced by the style of Ramnad Krishnan in their music, primarily learnt from the recordings.

He also mentioned how Voleti dug out a very rare raga of Ponniah Pillai in Kalyani sung by Rita Rajan from the AIR Chennai Studios and immediately wrote to Rita Rajan requesting for the notations. This was then taught by him in the Sangeetha Sikshana prog. This he mentioned to say that artists like Ramnad Krishnan, Voleti used to dig out rare compositions go the extra mile to learn and teach them.

A beautiful hall Raga Sudha is and the music performed there is indeed special.

[sreebeecane]

is there a recording available?

[ram1999]

is there a recording available?

https://youtu.be/GnE3ZYWXGjI

[sreebeecane]

Is it Mand and Desh before the Ahiri?