Hyderabad Brothers @ Music Academy: 26-12-08

[vijay]

After a week of a rather eclectic season I find that I have heard Sanjay and TNS only once and other favorites like Vijay Siva, TMK and Sangeetha Sivakumar, not at all! Strange, then, that the Hyd Bros have notched up two entries in my concert notebook.

Apart from the improbability of being able to hear the brothers outside the season’s ambit and the excellent concert I heard at BVB last week, cramming my schedule with the siblings from Daroor can be attributed to the following items that caught my interest in the souvenir song-list;

Korina Varamu - Ramapriya
Balagopala - Bhairavi
RTP - Hamsavinodhini

The first brings forth very pleasant memories of one of the first carnatic tapes I acquired which includes a very fine rendition of the krithi by the brothers.

The second was too see how Seshachary’s virile musical mind would approach a raga that gives very limited scope for scalar interpretation unlike ragas Kalyani, Thodi or Shankarabharanam which can be seen as both scales and ragas. Even Voleti treated the raga with a lot of caution.

The last item - well, I just wanted to know what in heaven’s name they had in mind when they chose it for a Pallavi!
After Ramapriya, I was congratulating myself on my choice. With a fine alaapana handled largely by the elder and riveting nereval-swara section (at Sarivari Lolanannu), there was not much to complain about, except for a very minor slip during the swaras when a PDS was thrown in which threatened to invoke Purvikalyani for just a second.

Bhairavi scored about 75%. The alaapana stuck to the books and Balagopala was rendered very sensitively (although even this standard krithi required the services of the wretched notebook!). However the season’s toll on Seshachary’s was amply evident - the power of his Harikambhoji at BVB was missing considering which, Raghavachary could have assumed a larger role. After some engaging kanakku-vazhku in the swara section, the brothers ruined the finale with a busy and breathless korvai.

M Lakshminarayana Raju ushered in tisram right at the beginning of the tani, capping off a fine evening at the helm of the rhythm section with a beautiful koraippu in chatushram and tisram and a 2 avartha korvai from idam, combining the 2 nadais. Somayajulu was on the ghatam.

With 3.75 concerts having been poured down my ears and a ringing headache brought on by an impending cold and insensitive acoustics, my interest in Hamsavinodhini, was strictly academic. After listening to the Pallavi, I think I would have felt the same even if I were as fresh as a daisy - there is really no reason to promote this raga from the tukkada section. The brothers’ formula for propping up this "raga"

[bilahari]

Thanks for the elaborate review, vijay. Was neraval done in Balagopala?

[vijay]

No Bilahari - it was in neeradha neela shareera...

[annamalai]

I was at this concert. I liked Hamsavinodhini - RTP. TMT, MLV used to sing a Narayana Theerthar tharangam - Charanam Bhava Karunamaya Guru Dheena Dayalo in Hamsavinodhini.

The best pieces were after the pallavi

Valapudasa - Varali - Kshtregna
Ettanai sonnalam - Saveri
Thillana - Pahadi - Lalgudi

When the musicians keep looking at the book constantly, it does have a stunted effect on music production. In contrast, Valapudasa when rendered by T. Brinda leaves a meditative mood.
Ettanai sonnalum used to rendered by T. Jeyammal for the dance of T. Balasaraswathi.

I liked the Pahadi thillana.