Aparna’s Blog

It was a pleasure to hear the great violin maestro M.S.Gopalakrishnan play the violin. The concert was at Dakshinamurthy Auditorium yesterday. Here’s the list of songs and raagas (I didn’t know most of the songs so I am writing only the raagas for the same):
1. Kambhoji Ata Taala Varnam
2. Siddhi Vinayakam - Shanmugapriya
3. Atana
4. Poorvikalyani
5. Seethamma Mayamma - Vasantha
6. Pakkala - Karaharapriya
7. Behag
8. Khamas
9. Sindhubhairavi
10. Hamsanandi
11. Mangalam - Sowrashtram

MSG and Narmada were accompanied by Karthick on the Ghatam and J.Vaidyanathan on the Mridangam. The concert was excellent as expected. The Karaharapriya alapana played by MSG was superb. I loved the brief alapana of Behag that Narmada played.
I thought the auditorium would be full since this is the only concert of MSG in the whole season. But not many turned up for the concert. I consider myself very lucky to have got an opportunity to listen to him live!

List of songs:
1. Mathe (Daru Varnam) - Khamas
2. Jaya Jaya - Nattai
3. Yagyatulu - Sri Ranjani
4. Maamava Meenakshi - Varali
5. Ma Ramanan - Hindolam
6. O Rangasayee - Kambhoji
7. Kamalacharane - ?
8. RTP - Reetigowlai
(Pallavi - TamarasadaLa Nethri Tyagarajuni mitri)
9. Pullaagi (viruttam) - Sahana, Hamsadhwani, Suruti
Maatrariyaada - Suruti
10. Bare Panduranga - Misra Maand

Accompaniments:
Vioiln - B.U.Ganesh Prasad
Ghatam - N.Guruprasad
Mridangam - N.Manoj Siva

Sangeetha started the concert with a very beautiful song in Khamas, Maathe. Then she went to sing all the songs in quick succession before starting with Kambhoji alapana, the raaga chosen for singing elaborately. Reetigowlai RTP and the last two songs were the ones that I liked in the concert very much. She sang the pallavi in RTP in raagas Kalyani and Kanada also.
Sangeetha’s concert was at 7.30 PM yesterday. It was very sad to see the auditorium almost empty. At the beginning of the concert, only around 100 of us were there in the balcony. By 8.30, almost half the audience had left. An hour later, around 25 of us were only there in the balcony which can actually accomodate a little more than 750 people!
One very big surprising thing in yesterday’s concert was not even a single person’s mobile phone started ringing loudly in the middle of the concert! (Till now there was not even a single concert to which I went where the mobile didin’t start ringing loudly right in the middle of the concert thereby disturbing the performing artistes as well as the others in the audience).

I think the word procrastination was coined especially for me. I always keep postponing things and end up doing all the work in the last minute. Of course, I still manage to complete the work on time. Maybe that’s what has given me the confidence to leave everything to the last minute. I also feel that I work more efficiently in the last minute. The reason why I am writing all this now is I went to three concerts last weekend and still I haven’t written about it in my blog in spite of logging in many times to write it. One reason why I started writing about the concerts I attend is I will have something to write in my blog regularly. But I have gone back to my good old habit of postponing things. (How can I claim that I have gone back to it when I never did stop postponing things?!!) As a result of that, I have already read many reviews/writings about the concerts that I don’t feel like writing about it now.

Ganesh & Kumaresh’s Violin concert was the next one after Prasanna’s concert day before yesterday at the Margazhi Mahotsavam. They were accompanied by Sivaraman on the Mridangam and Sundar Kumar on the Khanjira. The theme of their concert was ‘Shadjam - Adhara Swaram’.
Ganesh first explained what is Graha Bedham and said that they were going to take up Kalyani Raagam for doing the graha bedham in the concert. He then explained how each raaga was arrived at by doing a graha bedham on Kalyani. By shifting the Shadjam to the position of ‘Rishabam’ in Kalyani, you get Harikambhoji raaga. By shifting it to the position of Kalyani’s ‘Gandharam’, you get Natabhairavi raaga; Hindolam by shifting it to ‘Madhyamam’’s position; Sankarabharanam by shifting it to ‘Panchamam’’s position; Karaharapriya by shifting it to Daivatam’s position and Todi by shifting it to Nishaadam’s position. (Hope whatever I have written is correct as this what I understood after listening to his explanation. If there are any mistakes, please do let me know).
He then gave a list of the raagams that they were going to play in the concert. The raagas were all the janyas of the raagas derived by doing graha bedham on Kalyani.
Here is the list of raagams and the song in each that they played:
1. Varnam - Kalyani - Adi
2. Sri Vathapi Ganapatiye - Sahana (Janya of Harikambhoji)
3. Mokshamugalada - Saramati (Janya of Natabhairavi)
4. Manasuloni - Hindolam
5. Narasimha Mamava Bhagavan Nityam - Aarabhi (Janya of Sankarabharanam)
6. Aadaadu Asangaadu - Madhyamavati (Janya of Karaharapriya)
7. ? - Desiya Todi (Janya of Todi)
Sivaraman used 7 different mridangams, one for each song as the shruti was changed in the Tambura for each raaga for doing a graha bedham.
After playing all the raagas, there was the Tani Avartanam. What followed next was Shruti Bedham where they played some Divya Naama Kritis (Ganesh explained what Divya Naama kritis are. They are those that have many charanams and all the charanams are in the same tune) of Tyagaraja.
It was a wonderful concert and an informative one too!

I went to Guitar Prasanna’s first concert of the season at Chettinad Vidyashram that was held as part of the Margazhi Mahotsavam. He was accompanied by Prapancham Ravindran on the Mridangam and Umashankar on the Ghatam.
He started the concert with the popular Dikshitar kriti, Maha Ganapatim in Nattai raagam, after playing a brief alapana of Nattai. He then played an alapana of Denuka raagam and did a Graha Bedham and played the raagas Chitrambari and Shanmugapriya. He then followed it up with the Tyagaraja kriti, Teliyaleru Rama in Denuka. The next one was Raghunatha in Swararanjani raagam, a composition of Ramnad Srinivasa Iyengar. He then played an alapana of Mohanam and did a Graha Bedham and played the raagas Madhyamavati and Suddha Dhanyasi. Kadambari Priyayai, a Dikshitar krithi, was the one he played in Mohanam and this was followed by the Tani Avartanam. The final piece of the concert was from Prasanna’s latest album, Electric Ganesha Land, called ‘Bowling for Peace’. On the whole, the concert was a fabulous one.

I went to Sanjay Subrahmanyan’s concert at Sivagami Pethachi Auditorium yestereday. I had called the previous concert as one of Sanjay’s best. Now I am at a loss for words to describe yesterday’s concert! Should I call it one of his ‘bestest’?!! It was sheer pleasure to attend such a wonderful 3-hour concert after a long time!
Here’s the complete list of songs sung by Sanjay:

1. Nadathanumanisam - Chintamani
2. Raghunayaka - Hamsadhwani
3. Geeti Chakra - Kannada
4. Arulvaai Angayarkanniye - Darmavati
5. Aadum Deivam - Kambhoji (Main piece)
6. RTP - Hamsanandi
Pallavi: Karuninchara - Ragamalika (Sahana, Saveri, Suddha Danyasi, Nalinakanti, Bhahudari)
7. Pagaivanukku Arulvai - Ragamalika
8. Kulam Tarum(Viruttam) - Ragamalika (Shanmugapriya, Behag, Sindhubhairavi, Sama)
Narayana Nalinaayaka - Sama
9. Ganta Mani - Kanada
10. English Notes - Sankarabharanam
11. Mangalam - Sowrashtram

Accompaniments:
Varadarajan - Violin
P. Satish Kumar - Mridangam
Bangalore Rajasekar - Morsing

The Kannada raaga alapana that he sang before singing the Dikshitar krithi ‘Geeti Chakra’ was superb. Incidentally, that happens to be one of my favourite songs sung by Sanjay! The joy of hearing your favourite singer sing your favourite song in a kutcheri is something that cannot be described in words!
The Kambhoji alapana was so beautiful that it left you wishing that he would sing it for some more time (It was less than 10 minutes in duration). The Pallavi ‘Karuninchara’ which he sang in different raagas and that too in the tune of popular krithis like Énta Nerchina, Manavyala and Brova Baarama, made it even more enjoyable.
Varadarajan, on the violin, was excellent as usual. (Since Varadarajan plays for both Sanjay and TMK regularly, I think I would have attended more number of Varadarajan’s concerts than Sanjay’s and TMK’s). Bangalore Rajasekar on the morsing and Satish Kumar on the mridangam, made the Tani Avartanam a thoroughly enjoyable one.

I am going to write yet another post on ‘Guru’. On Sunday, CNN IBN showed an exclusive programme on the music of Guru. Mani Ratnam, Gulzar, A. R. Rahman, Abhishek & Aishwarya spoke about the music and clippings of the songs were also shown. One song which was completely left out by all of them was ‘Baazi Laga’. When even some hard-core Rahman fans themselves are saying that Baazi Laga is one song that is not upto Rahman’s standard or something like that, I wonder why not even a single word was mentioned about that in the programme.