Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna - Vocal
Akkarai Subhalakshmi - Violin
Patri Sathish Kumar - Mridangam
R Raman - Morsing
- Tambura
Song list:
virbOni (varnam) - bhairavi - aTa - pacchamiriyam Adiayyappa
moyyAr taDam poigai (tiruvempAvai) - pUrvikalyANi - mishra chApu (2/7 eDuppu) - mAnickavAsagar - short R, S
lAvaNya rAma - pUrnashadjam - rUpakam - Thyagaraja
ninnADa nEla - kannaDa - dEshAdi - Thyagaraja - short R, S
Sri kAntimateem - hEmavati - Adi (2 kalai) Muthuswamy Dikshitar (??) - R, N, S, TA
tani Avartanam
shlOkam (starting with the words "bhakta mAtanga gamanam") - vasantA
tAnam - vasantA, ranjani, varALi, nATakurinji
pallavi (STP) - vikasita mukham shuba phala pradam hari Hara sutam // sada bhajeham - tisra jhampa, mishra naDai +4 6/7 eDuppu (aka -1 1/7)
Erumayil Eri vilayADu mugamOnDrE (tiruppugzah) - hamsAnandi, bEgaDa, suraTi - khaNDa naDai - aruNagirinAthar
Live review ... To be updated as the concert goes.
So here I am at MA with plans of hearing Sudha Raghunathan only to find out there has been some last minute rescheduling. So it will be Kunnakudi Balamuralikrishna coming forward for the 4 pm slot. Not only that, there has been some reshuffling in the rest of the team, with the result that Patri and Raman will be playing for KBMK instead while Akkarai Subhalakshmi is on the violin.
A dais ticket brings me up on stage, up close and personal with the artistes, and that's where I prefer to sit given the chance.
The concert is off to a brisk heavy start with the queen of varnams, viribOni in bhairavi. A weighty rendition in madhyamakala, aided by Patri sir's heavy thoppi and superb tone. This promises to be good.
A very short hum of pUrvikalyANi and we are off to the tiruvempAvai, moyyAr taDam poigai. KBMK brings out some choice brighas which fall effortlessly to that muscular voice of his. Nevertheless the overall feel is one of sowkhyam. And here come the swaras on the pallavi. After a long spell in the lower and middle octaves, KBMK goes for some powerful swaras in the upper octave, hitting the upper D2 effortlessly along the way, thundering to finish with a simple korvai. Subhalakshmi's turn now. She's going for a more meditative approach, and finishes tossing the korvai right back in her reply. A sweet and simple finish by the percussion brings this to a close.
The sound system of the Academy goes a long way to enhance the tonal quality on the stage without ever being loud and Akkarai's violin and Patri's mridangam sound fantastic up here.
KMBK goes straight for the next number, lAvanyA rAma. He's taking this one delicately, focusing on the lyrics, even singing the upper sancharas softly. A very sensitive rendition indeed.
Ok, the next raga starts with DNSG. It's kannaDa. KBMK goes for the brigha right away, sweeping a brawny one across the octaves. Ok, ninnAda nEla it is, this one is going to be brisk. And here come the swaras, short and now medium. The long round is focusing on the M for a while, that's fresh. Followed by the thundering upper octave ending with a simple pattern. Subhalakshmi is staying close to KBMK with an engaging and intense reply, playing this rather zig zag raga with a punch of her own. A thundering crescendo to finish it off. 37 min in, and no alapana yet, what will be next?
hEmavati it is. Excuse me, this promises to be engaging. Some very touching phrases, linear and non linear followed by a brigha unleashed before treading up to middle P and beyond. A magnificent long sequence with some exquisite gamakas on the M2 draws the oohs and sighs. Getting more intense as he goes up higher and higher. Subhalakshmi is following KBMK like a shadow. This is a masterclass of an Alapana. Some taan like brighas on the S, the longer the merrier.
Now come some GNB style brighas going up high into the stratosphere. What a range and mobility! KBMK settles on the upper P going for mixed voice to go up even higher to the upper N2 and then S! Seamless register change. He's emerged from the clouds as we write. The long passages go on the way down as well, the variety stunning. Another round of brighas swooping the whole range. Finally ending with a dip down in the mandara sthAyi to wrap up a magnificent effort.
Subhalakshmi's turn now. Starting slow and meditative, melody first. That vibrato on the M2, exquisite touches. Anyway, words are kind of hopeless at telling you what the actual music is, but this is good, good stuff. Going for some elaborate phrasing around the upper S with the lower S string being used as a sympathetic drone, which brings a burst of applause. She doesn't spend nearly as much time in the upper octave before a quick descent down followed by the brighas and some S P variya (devoid) phrases. A long brigha before going down into the mandara sthAyi all the way to the lower S before wrapping up a sweet essay. What will KMBK take up as the main number?
Ok fair enough, it's almost always going to be Sri kAntimateem. Quite some rubato inducing brighas in the pallavi to start off. Improvising heavily on Dikshitar kritis (ok, no comments on historical authenticity etc...) almost to the point where it might be neraval is the rising trend these days, as the current gen fills up and embellishes any vacant space they can find
- manodharma abhors a kaarvai? . Getting absorbed into the mood of the song in the anupallavi. Ok, for a while let me just listen. He sings the chittaswaram in two speeds also.What is with the way they set up the mics at MA such that the thoppi sounds this good? It is naturally almost impossible. Oh and KBMK has started neraval on hrImkAra bIjAkara (anupallavi). With this line starting naturally in the upper octave, this is going to be a mEl sthAyi neraval in the slow speed. Some burst of brighas in between very absorbing mEl sthAyi phrases. KBMK using the registers to go to the upper D and beyond, it's almost like a cheat code or an extra gear how much range his register mastery has given him, though it does mean the upper P will be more towards delicate crooning than a fortissimo at full power. Akkarai throws out some astonishing combo of brains and brawn in her replies, playing fast brighas that would have most violinists sweating bullets just listening to it. Applause well and truly deserved. KBMK is going Manakkal Rangarajan almost at the end of every round of neraval, where he always adds "PS : Brigha!". Almost seamlessly we have transitioned to madhyamakala neraval. For all the virtuosity, melody has not at all taken any backseat - the phrases are soaked in rAga and melody and bhAvam. Credit also goes to the percussion for playing sensitively instead of hammering their way to ever louder decibels.
Going on to swaras, two rounds of slow speed swaras, KBMK goes for tisra naDai with the rest of the team following. The trick of sarvalaghu in odd naDais like in this case is to hide the tisra naDai by not going 3-3-3 all the time, requires skill to pull off and make it look effortless. The second round of the swaras begins and proceeds straight in tisra nAdai, 6 notes a beat, racy stuff now. Subhalakshmi is up to the challenge. And now we switch from between chatushra and tisra naDais for every other round. Sarvalaghu over arithmetic. KBMK goes on for chatushra nadai in 2x speed, 8 notes a beat, just like a Tani avartanam for a couple of rounds, incredible speed. A bit of rhythmic math now, and we are moving on to the final phase of the swaras. The kOrvai is long, having all kinds of patterns, and the final round is in tisra naDai. And then a progression on top of that. All the kanakku for an entire concert compressed into this one monster kOrvai, kept us guessing till the ballistic end. Long applause!
And so begins the tani. For the first round Patri plays a round with tdgnt, patterns punctuating every sentence, some nadai variations, intricate math. The ending kOrvai is brisk stuff, concluding with a thundering ending. Now the turn of Sh. Raman on the morsing. Chatushra nadai it is, before moving on to tisra naDai. Quite an interesting ending, slow and steady wins.
2nd round, some heavy thundering fireworks. The clarity on the fastest strokes....brilliant. I think it's in sankeerna naDai or still tisra?(some proper rhythm expert may clarify). Next we have a 1000 waala in tisra naDai, and even on the morsing it is possible to do some extremely fast strokes. Ok we return to chatushram for the last part of the kuraippu. Nice gait to start off the faran section. Now the standard Adi talam mohra, but majestic. kOrvai is 2 avartanams long, ending in 3 x t,d,gnt. Splendid stuff. And they thunder on to a splendid finish and applause. I'll be frank, no words can ever properly do any sort of justice to a tani, but I intend to do a bit more than the standard newspaper template review.
A sketch of vasantA, going all the way to the upper S and some furious brighas. What's cooking next? A shlOkam. Source of lyrics isn't something I am really knowledgable in, so someone fill me in. God, he's testing out the entire 3 octave range of his voice and every register in the book, growling down vocal fry to the lower S before shooting back up into space again. Back to sowkhyam and some passages around the upper M. Going for some serious taans, endless, both on the breath and imagination! Even some vibratos. KMBK is pushing his voice and his imagination to its limits. Subhalakshmi's turn now, almost unfair to expect any violinist to reply fittingly to such virtuosity, given how much harder it is on the violin, but she's playing a masterly essay of vasantA, while not going to absurd extremes. Besh besh.
Ooo, a tAnam?! So what is this new creature, a shlOkam tAnam pallavi? (STP?)
. First round, mostly lower and middle octave exploration. Subhalakshmi is playing a super sweet tanam. Second round is going for the upper S with lots of tanam special pattern work. Now heavy jhArus. Excellent effort. Well well, Subhalakshmi goes for tAnam in ranjani!! Will the pallavi be in multiple ragas? KBMK starts the next round in varALi to end in appluase. Subhalakshmi has gone for nATakurinji. Good! Ok now we are backtracking, as KBMK comes back the ragas in reverse order, switching instantly. Already back at vasanta in 1 min. Ending with a dip into the lower octave, well done team.With only 20 min on the clock, what's the pallavi like? Starts in vasanta. Can't figure out the tala at all...help! Ok mishra naDai... Seems to be tisra jhampa, with an eDuppu way out, maybe at 4 6/7th, actually on the last bit -- how do they even keep the beat, let alone improvise neraval on such a long and tricky pallavi? And then there's neraval and trikalam. I give up...
How is Subhalakshmi even able to reply properly to something like this? And now naDai changes... My head's spinning. There's no compromise on melody though, the pallavi flows very well -- in fact, by listening to the pallavi you could have never guessed that it was set to such a complex tala and eDuppu. The kOrvai on the final swaras is every bit as complicated as you can imagine (and then some) by this point, but not a trace of difficulty as KBMK just sailed through it. Laya seems to run through every cell in his body. What he and his team have done in just the 15 min between 6:10 and 6:25 with the pallavi defies adequate description. Though the pallavi was sung only in vasantA and did not go into the other rAgas. RTP creativity and challenges are at an all time high with the current generation of musicians, and there is a "Best Pallavi" award for the win, so fingers crossed.PS : Technical explanation ahead -- Ok I did confirm that the eDuppu was 8 beats before the end so it is indeed a +4 6/7 aka a -1 1/7 whichever way you like to see it. What I mean by those fractions is -- In mishra nAdai we have 7 notes a beat. Tisra jhampa is a 3+1+2 = 6 beat pattern (1 laghu, 1 anudhrutam and 1 dhrutam). The mishra naDai is rendered as a subbeat with the same pattern of mishra chApu on each of the main beats. If samam eDuppu is on beat 1, then the starting of this pallavi was after 6 notes past the fifth beat and one note before the sixth beat of the tala, which when seen backwards, makes it 8 notes before the end of the tala.
But the whole art of laya is to make it effortless, put the melody first over mere arithmetic, and he totally nailed it.
A couple of phrases in hamsAnandi and it's Erumayil, the tiruppugazh. Going through bEgaDa and suraTi, KBMK wraps up a superb concert at 6:29 pm sharp. What a masterclass it was! KBMK has done it. He has made virtuosity and melody and rhythm fuse seamlessly into his style, and this is no mean feat.