Suguna Varadachari at Nada Inbam on 31st Dec

[Jigyaasa]

Accompanists:

Avaneeswaram Vinu (Violin), B. Ganapathyraman (Mrudangam), H. Sivaramakrishnan (Ghatam)

Song list:

vanajAkshi – kalyANi varNam – khaNDa aTa
rAmA nine namminAnu – husEni – Adi – Thyagaraja
nAmorAlakinchi – dhanyAsi – rUpakam – Veenai Kuppaiyar – A, N, S at nannu kAva rAdA
vazhi maraittirukkude – nATTakurinji – mishra chApu – Gopalakrishna Bharathi – A, S at sivalOkanAdan
shrIdhara pAhi – jayantashri – rUpakam – Mysore Vasudevachar
nI pAdamulE gatiyani – bhairavi – Adi – Patnam Subramanya Iyer – A, N, S, T at shrI panchanadIshvaruni rANi
Ehi mudam dEhi shrI krushNa – Anandabhairavi – Adi – Narayana Theertha
Bhaja rE gOpAlam – yamunAkalyANi – Adi
pavamAna
shriyah kAntAya – shlOka – madhyamAvati

The dhanyAsi Alapana was beautiful and the kriti extremely rare! Shrimati Suguna said that the Karaikudi vina brothers, Subbarama Iyer and Sambasiva Iyer, used to play this song. The lyrics were very sweet. The nATTakurinji Alapana was burnished gold despite a few voice-related hiccups. The violinist's response was also very competent. The eDuppu for the kalpanaswaras was quite challenging and the violinist faltered once.

The bhairavi Alapana was reposeful and well-structured. The Patnam kriti flowed effortlessly and the neraval was one of the most comprehensive I've heard in a long time. While neraval is given step-motherly treatment in a number of concerts, this was one instance to the contrary.

A great way to end the year... I only wish it was a longer concert with an RTP thrown in!

[Nick H]

The percussion department played their part with great mutual understanding, and with enormous sensitivity to Suguna V. They did a really excellent job.

[srikant1987]

Ditto to Nick. Ganapathy Raman is really wonderful.

Ditto to Jigyaasa on the bhairavi neraval. Basically, it was a Suguna V-mami-class concert. I'm sure keerthi will write about how Suguna V mami's krti renditions ensured that every line had a complete meaning.

Vinu's gamakams were extremely neat. His bowing was forceful and he used a good length of the bow. His ga's and ni's in bhairavi especially were buttery smooth. Not many violinists do them like that. Indeed, I liked the ni's more than Suguna mami's.

Didn't especially want an RTP, but heavier post-mains would have been welcome. There was a kAmbhOji, khaNDacApu song before the Anandabhairavi.

[MV]

I came in at Huseni and left during Mangalam. I spied you at the other end Nick H-totally engrossed! Now I can put a face to the name. Scholarly concert inspite of voice let down. Violin was great and percussion was sensitive to the ambience. Great way to finish the year.

[srikant1987]

Vidya Kalyanaraman and Aishwarya Shankar provided vocal support to the krtis.

[Jigyaasa]

There was a kAmbhOji, khaNDacApu song before the Anandabhairavi.

Indeed! I missed mentioning it.
naDamADi tirinda - kAmbhOji - mishra chApu - Papavinasa Mudalayar

Fantastic lyrics!

[sankark]

A great miss..

Some time ago I got a Neyyatinkara Vasudevan's concert recording (believe it was from sangeethapriya) - it features a fantastic nA morAlakinchi.

[bilahari]

Wasn't naDamADi tirinta in khaNDa cApu?

It was a beautiful concert by Smt. Suguna Varadachari, and again my first experience listening to her. I am a sucker for husEni and was happy to hear rAma ninnE. She sang it with remarkable sparseness, though I do wish she had prefaced it with an alapanai or sang more swaras. Indeed, her dhanyAsi ragam was sparkling, and I enjoyed the kriti too.

Having heard GKB's vazhi maraitirukkudE in tODi and nATTaikurinji, I am not sure which version I prefer - both seem to do a lot of justice to the import of this beautiful composition. After that lovely alapanai and emotive rendition of the composition, I'm not sure the faster kalpanaswaras were necessary.

The bhairavi was a masterclass through and through. An alapanai rich in gamakas, a rare kriti, and a true demonstration on neraval singing, which reminded me of Smt. SV's lecdem at MA last year. The way the neraval was structured, ascending every so gently and with mEl kAla passages in a comfortable speed, was really admirable.

I was hoping for a pallavi and was disappointed that there wasn't one. While Smt. SV's voice did give way occasionally, there was so much depth in her music! Also, Smt. SV's way of singing oscillated gamakas like the nishAdam (niy-yi-yi-yi-yi) in bhairavi seemed just a tad jarring to me because of the emphasis given on each oscillation, but that's just a minor personal preference.

Avaneeswaram Vinu was quite good on the violin, and there were several Parur touches in his bhairavi that were pleasing but not entirely integrated into the rest of his essay. He played sensitively for kritis and gave crisp responses overall.

B. Ganapathyraman played so beautifully that evening, and he was especially good playing for kritis. H. Sivaramakrishnan and B. Ganapathyraman had great camraderie and blended together so well. The percussion was truly a treat.

This was a fitting end to the season for me.

[keerthi]

SuguNa Varadachari sang an excellent concert, and there were some elements of finesse and maturity in the treatment of the kRtis and ragas that were testimonial to her impressive pedigree and years of musical sAdhana.

Meaningful playing around with the sAhityam - coming back to mADu everytime while singing the pallavi of vazhi maraittirukkiradE; singing muktA before the hAra, and tyAga- before the rAja-mAnasa for the madhyamakala passages in the two caranams of rAma ninne; made for sumptuous content - both lyrical and musical. The swarakalpana singing was exemplary, and was highly intelligent and highly aesthetic at the same time. Music of the heart and music of the head melded into one, in the huseni.

nI pAdamule had the Musiri stamp all over it. There is a certain slow build-up style of singing neraval that Musiri did very well. SV has absorbed that to perfection.

I echo bilahari's dislike for the (yi-yi-yi)style kampita and AndOlita gamakas, but it was a minor disturbance. The rest of her singing made up for it amply.


Bilahari, while the song is listed in some books as dEsya/ dEsika tOdi, the tODi tune for vazhi maraittu.. is a dupe, taken off koluvamarEgadA by PApanasan Sivan, for the Cinema version of nandanar caritram. the natakuranji version is at least 80 years old.

It was lovely to hear naDamAdi tirinda - which has all the weight of a padam. The bhajan style end pieces were unremarkable. I would have loved to hear a rAgamAlika vRttam/ slOkam / pAsuram instead.

The best way to describe Smt. SuguNa's music, is to use Sangeeta Kalanidhi R.K.Srikantan's words. He said this to her (twice)after one of her recent Cleveland performances - "Romba ossatiyAna sangItam".
[Anecdote courtesy Uday shankar]

I can only parrot that observation of his.

[srikant1987]

the tODi tune for vazhi maraittu.. is a dupe, taken off koluvamarEgadA by PApanasan Sivan, for the Cinema version of nandanar caritram.

Bilahari's going to really resent this.

[mahavishnu]

I thought the tOdi tune was set by Dhandapani Desikar and the word Sankara was added to the pallavi line to change the talam from the original misra chapu. Since PS was the composer/music director/orchestrator for many songs the film, it is not clear if he actually came up with the tune.

I heard this in Sanjay's podcast special on MMDD from a couple of years ago.

[sankark]

Dhandapani Dikshitar -> Dhandapani Desikar? Or is there someone by name Dhandapani Dikshitar?

[mahavishnu]

sorry, my typo. edited now.

[harimau]

Political Correctness reared its ugly head in the song "Vazhi Maraithirukkuthe".

The anupallavi as penned by GKB goes "Pavi paraiyan intha ooril vandum". It was sung as "Pavi Nandan intha ooril vandum".

Sanjay Subramaniam does the same thing.

The 1942 movie "Nandanar" has the lyrics with the censored word intact.

Shades of folks in the US trying to ban "Tom Sawyer" because the word "nigger" appears in it!

And just like Black Americans calling each other "nigger", we have a political leader whose self-chosen name used to be splashed on the walls in Chennai: Krishna Paraiyanar.

[rbharath]

Suguna Varadachari - Avaneeswaram Vinu - B Ganapathyraman - H Sivaramakrishnan

Nada Inbam
31st Dec 2011. 6:15 pm

vanajAkshi – kalyANi varNam – khaNDa aTa
rAmA nine namminAnu – husEni – Adi – Thyagaraja (S)
nAmorAlakinchi – dhanyAsi – rUpakam – VK (RNS)
vazhi maraittirukkude – nATTakurinji – mishra chApu – GKB (RS)
shrIdhara pAhi – jayantashri – rUpakam – MV
nI pAdamulE gatiyani – bhairavi – Adi – PSI – RNST
naDamADi tirnda - kAmbhOji - kaNDa cApu
Ehi mudam dEhi – Anandabhairavi – Adi – NT
Bhaja rE gOpAlam – yamunAkalyANi – Adi
mananilai ariyEnaDi - bhAgEsrI - Adi - Neela Ramamurthy
nI nAma rUpamulaku - saurAshTram - Adi - T
shriyat kAntAya – shlOka – madhyamAvati