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The flute artist KV Ramanujam was accompanied by MA Sundareswaran - violin and thanjavur kumar - mridangam and was organized by shanmughapriya sabha
I think I just fall in the 99% majority of rasikas who generally go to vocal concerts and not go that much to other instrument based concerts because I have choice being at madras to prefer vocal over instrument on any given day. Incidentally I may have listened to 6 or 7 concerts of only one vidwan Flute ramani and listened to very last 15 or 20 minutes of other flute artists during kutcheri season where another vocal artist concert follows.Possibly if Shri KSG is playing I would go to every one of his concerts.
It was close to 06:40pm and as I was nearing adyar I thought there is just two choices today one is a vidwan in rAgasudha (another new upcoming vidwan I guess) , but that concert starts at 06:00pm, then there is just one choice of KVR .Is KVR a young flautist like shruthi sagar or is he a contemporary to ramani , but he looked right at the centre of Shruthi sagar and ramani, perhaps the best age where aesthetics and vocal power are both at its peak.
1. viribOni (varnam) - bhairavi - Pacchimiriyam Adiyappa
2. pranamAmyaham (S) - gowlai - MV
3. Anandaamruthavarshini (R ) - amrithavarshini - MD
4mins alApanai and 3 mins violin return
4. ninnuvinA nAmadhEndhu - navarasakannada - T
5. marivEra dikkevvaru (R S)- lathAngi - patnam
7 mins alApanai , 4 mins violin and 5 mins swaram
6.nI pAdamE gati nalinAkanthi (Raga sketch) - nalinAkAnthi - GNB
7A. pakkala nilapadi (R N S T) -kharaharapriyA - T
15 mins alApana, 5 mins violin , 5 mins neraval in charanam and 8 mins swaram
7B. tani for 5 mins
8. rAma nAma payasakke(Raga sketch) - desh - PD
9. barusE badariyA - sudda sArang - Meera
10. mAnasa saNchararE(Raga sketch) - shyama - SB
11 Across
. --------- - sumanEsaraNjani - KV ramanujam (his own)12. mAmava mAdhava - neelAmbari - NT
13. brief alApana of madhyamavat
The first viribOni was played well by all, but I felt MAS was too loud along with mridangam and it looked like KVR was accompanying MAS concert . I suggested to the mikeman to reduce the volume of violin, the mike man said that if I do it now , the artist will scream at me. But it turned out at the end of viribOni that the flautist did not "on" his mike as told by mikeman,though MAS was prompting to KVR that the mike has a loose contact, I believe the mikeman version as there was no loose contact and there was only lost contact
.KVR played throughout the concert with only one flute , and as the mike was on, there was exceptionally high nAdham and shruti suddham and all of a sudden from gowlai onwards kVR - MAS appeared like a KSG-AK duo(almost 70 to 80%), both supremely confident with a high clarity of classical exchange.
Gowlai swaras were excellent , amrithavarshini was played beautifully (I just love this prathi), it did not rain outside but with Shri TRS walking in (I am amazed at this age he comes to almost all concerts that I go, atleast our tastes match), it must have been a great rain inside atleast for the artists.
After taking longer blow in amrithavarshini with very less fingering , it was ulta in ninnuvinA , kind of a krithi and rAga that appears it was tuned by thyagaraja more for the instruments, Lots of fingering was attempted in that line kanulaku noni sokha santhONe???.....
The next was a straight lathangi , i usually think for few minutes that it is kalyAni and then only map to lathangi. There was lot of velocity in his play during lathangi and the velocity continued with GNB's nalinakAnthi.
Flautist Flautist Flautist do they generally play a vistaramana main like a vocalist . Atleast they are forced to do that in kharaharapriyA . The alApana for the first half was careful manoeuvre in madhyamakAlam and then flute had a lot of nAdaswara piDi in the second half (every one whether an instrumentalist or vocalist has to take a leaf out nAdaswaram to perform kharaharapriyA ). The krithi with neraval and swaras had impeccable shruthi suddham with high level of clarity.
Tukkadas were varied , desh was splendid with a brief alApanai, barusE in sudda sArang does not give me the same great effect as barusE in basant of santhAnam or latest ranjani gayathri. shyama was very contemplative, the next is his own krithi in sumanesa ranjani, he did not announce the starting line only told it was his own krithi , that makes me wonder if it was a new manipravalam one starting in latin and ending in greek, sumanesaranjani was not as great as say a SKR rendition .neelAmbari was splendid what a masterpiece krithi of NT, never had an occassion to hear anyone yet botching up, he was in a zone of extreme contemplation and all rasikas were happiest, the testimony was that we all clapped after few seconds of silence.
The violinst MAS was excellent to outstanding , he usually intrudes slightly more when the main artist is in play, but yesterday I did not find it that way, perhaps that being flute he had to restrain. All his returns were splendid exactly proportionate and lifting the vidwat of the flautist . As I said it was near KSG-AK effect. Tanjore kumar played very good and on a long tiring day after work , it is just very good to hear a very short tani, I yawned twice or thrice and it was gone and I woke up the most when neelAmbari was played
.There was just one slip that was very noticable with KVR. Some time during the swaras of kharaharapriya he attempted little bit of kannakku, few sangathis bombed but MAS came to his rescue playing during his turn and putting thalam loud enough so that KVR does not slip(flautist have both their hands occupied so the slip is perhaps little understable)
It turned out to be an immensely satisfying and an excellent concert for 2 hours and 10 minutes .
