Amrutha Venkatesh - 16-04-2013 Malleswaram Sangeet Sabha

[keerthi]

Date - 16-04-2013
Venue - Malleswaram Sangita Sabha – Rama temple, 9th Cross, M’waram, Bangalore

Amrutha Venkatesh,
Violinist - ?
Mridangam – B.C.Manjunath

The sabha has a long, impressive history wrt carnatic music. It featured Smt. Vedavalli’s debut, as also a 2 year old Chitravina Ravikiran being tested in rAga identification (one of the first of a long series of such demonstrations). However the venue leaves much to be desired – it is in premises of a temple marred by poor acoustic design.

1.?
2. bhavayAmi raghurAmam – rAgamAlika – rUpakam – ST
3. nIvADanE – sAranga – K.ChApu – T – [O]
4. bhaja rE rE mAnasa – karnATaka dEvagandhAri – Adi (2) – MV – [ANST]
5. Speech, vote of thanks.
6. rAma rama – tilang – K.chApu - PD
7. Ahir bhairav tillAna – Adi – DR.MBMK

It was a short concert, beleaguered by a bad hall/mike system, which drowned the singer’s voice in part, and made the mRdangam sound like a wooden board being thumped. However it was memorable for the superlatively impressive performance of bhAvayAmi raghurAmam. Amrutha prefaced it with a comment about it being SWati Tirunal’s bicentenary birthday.

1. The language of this song is not easy to sing, and most singers tend to gloss over sections or make wrong combinations of words. Her pronunciation was impeccable, no padacchEda, whenever she returned to a previous line, it was in a fashion that ensured continuity of meaning and melody. As I heard her sing, I thought, ‘M.D.Ramanathan would have interpreted the song in this way’.

To illustrate, the passage ‘anaghaM pampA-tIra-sangatAnjanEya-nabhomaNi’ wasn’t repeated. Instead she went all the way to AnjanEya-nabhOmani-tanuja-sakhyakaram, pampAtIra-sangatAnjanEya-nabhomaNitanuja-sakhyakaraM vAli-tanudalanam IshaM.

Other examples of meaningful splits - anaghaM Isha-cApabhangaM, not anagha mIsha-cApabhangaM; garva-haraM ita-sAkEtaM not garvaharamita sAkEtaM.

Other examples of such meaningful repetition to highlight sAhitya, or for emphasis – in the dhanyAsi passage – guha-nilaya-gatam ! citrakUtAgata-bharata-datta-etc right to the end (madana-sundarAngaM), instead of a split and repetition at guha-nilaya-gatamcitra! The trick is not even in getting the splitting right; it is splitting the word right, and maintaining the musicality; which was accomplished more than competently.

The only jarring moment (fleeting) was when she returned to the pallavi after on of the caranams, and sang a srG,,, phrase for raghurA- in raghurAmam. I think such a nyAsa on the gAndhAra is out of place in sAvEri, even with a slightly kampita G. It is rank mAlavagaula.

The minor laya variants in the cittaswaram passages, the unusual swarAkSara p-d-g for pataga-vara in mOhana were all welcome improvisations.

2.nIvAdanE gAna was sung in a familiar pAThAntara, at a racy pace. One minor nitpick would be in the pronunciation of samaramuna shauryamba as shamaramuna shauryambu. That’s is how I heard it, at least.


3.The Alapana of D2-Abheri was expansive, and has interesting use of janTai+, in that sss-nnn-ddd-ppp-mmm etc were sung, which is an interesting variation, rare in vocal carnatic music. It is mostly seen in instrumental music, and seen more in North Indian classical music. The violinist gave a competent response to the Alapana. However he wasn’t too judicious in his use of jantas and varjyas, and somewhere in the second stage of Alapana, he played fast phrases that were reminiscent of rItigaula rather than Karnataka dEvagAndhAri – nns ggM nnS nnsggmnnS, gmgrsndmnnS etc.

Amrutha explained the caranam of the AbhEri song word by word, and sang the song well. Neraval was at the pallavi, which is unusual. I have heard neraval for ‘ravi-shashi-kuja-budha’ and for the anupallavi eDuppu before. This was an interesting variant. The first volley of neraval used the nd\mp phrase in a most delectable way. This is a nice sancAra not heard often in the rAga. SwarakalpAna was competent, and the violinist occasionally was struggling to keep up.

Another micro-minor nitpick – In one sangati she sang bhuk –ti mukti-pradam, with an emphasis, followed by a stop at bhuk. A similar unwarranted emphasis in bhAvayAmi raghurAmam, was at in the mOhana segment, at ‘ghaTaja-datt-Anupamita-vaiSNavAstraM’. She noticed, and corrected it the second time round.

All in all, a heartening, pleasant experience. All power to such sahitya-sensitive singing, matched by good manOdharma skills.

[Sreeni Rajarao]

It is such a good start for my day to read about Amrutha's concert eloquently documented by Keerthi.

Keerthi, I hope I will get a chance one day to attend a concert with you so that I can listen to your impressions (after the concert, of course!). Too bad it did not work out in November 2012 when we had planned to attend a concert together.

[srikant1987]

Keerthi, why do you refer to the karnATakadEvagAndhAri as D2-AbhEri? I view D2-AbhEri as a distinct (Ekaika) rAgam to which modern nagumOmu is set. Oh, is there the similar history to bhajarE rE mAnasa as well?

I think such a nyAsa on the gAndhAra is out of place in sAvEri, even with a slightly kampita G. It is rank mAlavagaula.

Lot of people love harping on the kampita-ness of the ga on descent with a generous nyAsam there in descent, don't they?

janTai+, in that sss-nnn-ddd-ppp-mmm etc were sung, which is an interesting variation, rare in vocal carnatic music. It is mostly seen in instrumental music, and seen more in North Indian classical music.

You mean going to each note upwards with a tiny jAru, as opposed to a sphUritam? I recollect MSG's s - p - s phrases here. ^_^

I hope you eventually find out the violinist's name.

Thanks for the documentation.

[arasi]

Keerthi,
You take a review to the ranks of a scholarly work--you never stop me from being amazed at your knowledge of music and other things. Bless you!

We truly are privileged to get reviews from pAmarars (common folks, my kind) to paNDithars (scholars)! One common quality about them though is the desire to share our musical experience with others (that's what sets us apart from the reviewers of newspapers and magazines).We have several scholars here among them, but you are the youngest that I know.
A valuable guide on how to sing a mega-song is a bonus to your review.

Srikanth, someone who is also young and knows his stuff, plays his violin so well, joins in!

Good to hear that Amrutha did very well, however high the standard of those who have written about the concert!

[rshankar]

Keerthi - thank you for that review! And after my discussions about bhAvayAmi and word-splitting in that kRti with you, I am really, really interested in hearing this version!
Smt. Gayathri Girish's version (in a CD called vaishNavam) also sounds wells-split to my (very untrained and distinctly amateurish) ears!

[cienu]

Keerthi - thank you for that review! And after my discussions about bhAvayAmi and word-splitting in that kRti with you, I am really, really interested in hearing this version!

Here it is. Amrutha Venkatesh at Kuthira Malika during the Swathi Sangeethotsavam, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeFAfGyG260
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy-oNFL-7b0

[sais72]

The violinist was Anand Vishwanathan. The concert was part of the Ramothsava celebrations of Sri Rama Mandira, Malleswaram. Malleswaram Sangeetha Sabha concerts are held here quite often but this one was part of the Ramanavami celebrations of the Sri Rama Mandira itself.