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Vocal : Suryaprakash
Violin : MA Sundareshwaran
Mrudangam : Thanjavur Ramadas
Narration : Vidushi Bharathi ramasubban with right touch of guidance and support by Smt Gowri ramnarayanan
Concert duration/Day : 2 hrs and 40 mins /Saturday
Concert Type : Nirvana (no concert to follow)
Occassion : Tribute to Madurai Mani Memorial
Hall : ambalam,kalakshetra colony
Oli chamber concerts have a special charm. What you hear is a mikeless unadulterated music. There is intimacy with rasikas and most importantly the team work of performing musicians are more felt as they have to be extremely watchful in getting every sangathi right, if I could say there is "watchful presence"
I have had a chance to attend 6 months back an oli chamber concert of V sumitra at rasvihar. While rasvihar is an enclosed hall, but Ambalam has the size of say 1/3rd of a ragasudha , with two ends having kind of open air effect , the ambience for a rasika is better at ambalam (as I have more natural breeze), but the vocalist has to pump in with more sustained power . Incidentally for a open throated musician like suryaprakash it just comes naturally and shows he is one of the fewest who can sing without the clutches of mike that too in a semi open air hall.
Vidushi Bharathi ramasubban gave crisp introductions for every aspect of MMI. And for every crisp snippet of context , there was a sound backup of musical content. Ms ramasubban gave an introuduction of HMB's influence, manodharmam of MMI , how mmi's intermediate silences vs fragments added charm for his music, MMI's thamizh isai , the sentiments of mmi like taking only mangalagaramAna krithis , laya patterns of MMI seguing with ragamAliga swaras, thukkkadas of mmi etal. Every introduction by vid bharathi was crisp,succint and had a heavy tanglish (thamizh and english was liberally used , sorry Nick you must have got only half of that :tmi: ). I particularly also liked when Smt Gowri Ramnarayanan added a snippet of anecdotes where she read from snippets of amarar kalki review of MMI(Smt gowri is such a gifted speaker
).Putting the prose context aside let us move on with musical content:
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1. vAgEEShwari vAni saraswathi (RS,N,S)- saraswathi - HMB
4 mins neraval in "neeve jeeva shakthi neeve gnana murthi??"
and 2 mins swaras
2. evaroora ninnu vinA (R,S) - mohanam - T
4 mins alapana without violin return and 4 mins of swaras
3A. Snippets of kharaharapriya alapana by suryaprakash to indicate logical progression of mmi sangathis where despite there is fragments, there is also a wholesomeness for every subset of patterns.
3B. pAmAlai ini UNDO (N)- harikAmbOdhi - Psivan
brief neraval in "thamizhnadu sei thava pazhanai vandavar"
4. sogasu jooda tharama (R ,S) - kannadagowlai - T
5 mins alapana and 2 mins violin return
4 mins swaras
5A. meenAkhsi mE mudham (R N S T)- gamakakriya - MD
15 mins alapana and 5 mins violin return
14 mins neraval in "madhurApuri nilayE mani valayE"
5 mins swaras
5B. tani for 5 mins
The start in saraswathi brought in early excellence and from there on there was no looking back. Saraswati contours was meditative with an early neraval in neeve jeeva shakthi just bought in total teamwork. Mohanam was lovely the chisel of short cycle burst of alapana and swaras with an extremely brilliant support by Ramadas(mikeless lovely nAdham) added intense virtuosity that was very much there with the team.
Then Smt gowri ramanarayanan read in thamizh the snippets of review by amarar kalki and how MMI was considered not that perfect then and how many felt MMI used to have fragmented sangathis . Suryaprakash particularly took an example of how MMI handles where in he gave a contextual example of how a series of small steps leads to a vishwaroopa sangathi effect .
The filler was not the usual breakneck kannadagowlai (ora jupu), but instead it was mildly tempered sogasujuda tharama . Particularly more than the swaras I was particularly happy to hear an alapana of kannadagowlai.
The concert peaked at the right time . Right peak time to me is the main or the RTP and indeed it was a fine gamakakriya (with pa da sa distinct prayogam). He built a mini gopuram layer by layer in gamakakriya during alapana , with a crisp return by MAS it was perfect . With a brilliant madhurapuri nilayE neraval - topped with exceptional sahithya clarity, weight and throw of his voice and most importantly patterns were very very original.There was not an iota of any mimicking from any 1960 golden period vidwans . Swaras were measured in main , but with minimal violin return it was a brilliant demonstration of vidwat by Suryaprakash.
