information on Rama Varma
Jayashree Subrahmonia
apparently is a descendant of Swati Tirunal. Have any of you heard
him sing and if so can you give me some feedback on his music and
who his gurus are -- I like to find out a little about an artiste
before I go and listen to him/her. I do like to listen to Swati
Tirunal's compositions and so would like to go for this concert.
Also, speaking of Swati Tirunal's compositions, could anyone post
the lyrics for "Gopalaka Pahimam Anisham". I have heard Neyyatangarai
Vasudevan sing this tillana in Raga Revagupti(?) several times.
Thanks,
Jayashree
--
Jayashree Subrahmonia
IBM T J Watson Research Center
Raja Krishnasamy
Rama Varma, a descendent of Maharaja Sri Swati Tirunal.
He was accompanied by a couple of our local artistes, Shri
Lakshminarayana on the Violin, and Dr. Ramakrishnan on the Mridangam.
This was the first time I ever heard (of) Prince Rama Varma, and I
should say he was very good. He is the disciple of Vecchur Shri
Harihara Subramania Iyer, who learnt music from Shri Semmangudi Srinivas
Iyer. The influence definitely shows.
I got lost on my way to the concert and was about 45 minutes late, as I
entered the Temple Hall. I was instantly impressed by his voice, and
managed to get a front row seat. It was an eloquent Poorvi Kalyani
followed by "sArasAksha paripalaya". I believe this was the first major
kriti for the day. He followed this with "Sri Varalakshmim" and "Naneke
Badavana, Naneke Paradesi" in Bihag. He then launched into a glorious
Alapanai in Sankarabharanam. The violin followed suit, and the kriti
that followed was "Entuku PeddalA", a Semmangudi favorite. His neraval
was a mix of Semmangudi and Madurai Mani Iyer style, and extremely
satisfying.
The thani was quite enjoyable too. The only problem I had was the
volume was way too high, and I ended up with quite an ear ringing after
the concert.
He finished the concert with a few thukkadas, and a Mangalam in
Madhyamavati.
I enjoyed the concert very much, and regretted for not having gotten
there earlier. Prince Rama Varma or Ashwathi Tirunal, has a voice that
is a cross between TNS and Santhanam, good bass and deep.
If any of you folks get a chance to attend his concert, DO NOT MISS IT!
Mohan Ayyar
<stuff deleted>
managed to get a front row seat. It was an eloquent Poorvi Kalyani
>followed by "sArasAksha paripalaya". I believe this was the first major
sArasAksha paripAlaya is set to rAga pantuvarAli.
It is a common mistake to get this pantuvarAli and poorvi kalyAni
mixed up.
pantuvarAli is the 51st melakarta rAga. It has the mayamalavagowla
dhA.
poorvi kalyAni is derived from the 53rd melakarta and has the
higher dhA (as in sankarabharanam). The arO/avarO is
srgmpdps snDpmgrs.
The `pdps' is a prominent phrase.
Cheers
Mohan (Ayyar)
Mohan Ayyar
Mohan Ayyar
>Also, speaking of Swati Tirunal's compositions, could anyone post
>the lyrics for "Gopalaka Pahimam Anisham". I have heard Neyyatangarai
>Vasudevan sing this tillana in Raga Revagupti(?) several times.
>
>Thanks,
>Jayashree
I found this song in the book by Hariharan and Kuppuswamy
"Musical Works of Maharaja Swati Tirunal". This book has nearly
every composition of the Maharaja printed in English without
notation. I feel, however, that they haven't split up the
words in the krithis very well. Anyway I have reproduced the
translation for gOpalaka below. Others who are knowledgeable
in sankrit may wish to correct the word splits, etc.
It is also often rendered by K. V. Narayanaswamy. The book lists
it set to rAga bhUpAla although I have seen it listed as revagupti
in pre-recorded cassettes. It is not a tillana, just a krithi with
solukattu passages. These passages are not given below.
_________________________________________________________________
gOpAlaka pAhimAmanisam
bhUpAla rAga, triputa tAla
sanskrit composition of Maharaja Swati Tirunal
P. gOpAlaka pAhimAmanisam tava pAdaratamayi (gOpAlaka)
A. pApavimOchana pavidharAdinatapadapallava (gOpAlaka)
C1. sAdhukathitamradashanasarOsabhIta mAtrvIkShita
bhudharajalanidhimukhbahuvidha
bhuvanajAlalAlitamukhAmbuja (gOpAlaka)
C2. sArasabhavamadahara satIrthya dInabhUsurArpita
pArarahitadhanacayanirupama
patagarAjaratha kamalAvara (gOpAlaka)
C3. sArasarasasuvachana sarOjanaAbha lOkanAyaka
bhUrikaruna tanujitamanasija
bhujagarAjasaya murasAsana (gOpalaka)
____________________________________________________________________
Mohan Ayyar
may...@extro.ucc.su.oz.au
Jayashree Subrahmonia
the book on Swati Tirunal's compositions -- do you know of a place
where I could get it? I would like to get the lyrics for Swati Tirunal's
tillana -- Geeta dhuniku taka dhim..
Can someone enlighten me on sollu kattu. Was the sollu kattu in
Gopalaka Pahimam composed by Swati Tirunal or is it something
that Neyyatangarai Vasudevan came up with??
Thanks
-Jayashree
--
Mohan Ayyar
>Mohan -- thanks for the lyrics.. Thanks also for the information on
>the book on Swati Tirunal's compositions -- do you know of a place
>where I could get it?
Not really. I have borrowed my copy from the Sydney University library.
Maybe you could try a library near you! The Karnatic Music Book shop
is the place to get Carnatic music books. It is in Roypettah, Madras.
>Can someone enlighten me on sollu kattu. Was the sollu kattu in
>Gopalaka Pahimam composed by Swati Tirunal or is it something
>that Neyyatangarai Vasudevan came up with??
>
I don't think Vasudevan wrote it as a number of people have sung it
before him. Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer has tuned a lot of Swati Tirunal
compositions but I don't know about this one.
Two of Semmangudi's famous tunings are dEva dEva in mayamAlavagowla
and bhAvayami in rAgamalika (this one was entirely set to sAveri
by Swati Tirunal earlier).
Mohan
P J Narayanan
Mohan Krishnamoorthy <mo...@theta.mel.dms.CSIRO.AU> wrote:
>I saw this book recently and was quite impressed. However, I
>am not sure how authentic it is. I'd like to believe that I
>know a bit of malayAlam and, like Mohan Ayyar, I feel some of
>the lyrics are a bit suspect (especially in terms of how they
>are split). Perhaps PJN could comment? Sometime back, there
>was an interesting series of articles on Malayalam composers
>by PJN, Srini Pichumani, Ranjani Saigal and Sujatha Krishnamurthy.
>Perhaps some of the above would be able to throw more light.
I have had only a glimpse of Hariharan's book and can't comment on
how faithful its sahityam is.
There are three books on Swati Tirunal's music that pretty much cover
all of his musical compositions. The first one was published in 1948
(I guess compiled by Muthiah Bhagavatar and published by Semmangudi)
and contains most of the popular songs, his navaratri compositions
etc. Then there is a 2-vol set released later (early seventies ?). The
first of those contain more krtis, songs on navavidha bhakti, and his
utsava prabandham describing Padmanabha on all 10 days of the
festival. The second of this set contains padams and "lighter" songs
mostly.
All three books have Tamil, Devanagari and Malayalam scripts, with
musical notation in Tamil. The 1st of the 2-vol set also has meanings
in Tamil and Malayalam!
The set is a must-have for anyone seriously interested in ST's music.
They are available at the Karnatik Music Bookstore, Royapettah.
V. S. Sharma has written a book in Malayalam containing all of ST's
works, musical and literary.
Mistakes can be found in all of these, but I wouldn't say that the
lyrics are "suspect."
PJN
--
---
Robotics Institute, CMU p...@cs.cmu.edu
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
---
Mohan Krishnamoorthy
> I found this song in the book by Hariharan and Kuppuswamy
> "Musical Works of Maharaja Swati Tirunal". This book has nearly
> every composition of the Maharaja printed in English without
I saw this book recently and was quite impressed. However, I
am not sure how authentic it is. I'd like to believe that I
know a bit of malayAlam and, like Mohan Ayyar, I feel some of
the lyrics are a bit suspect (especially in terms of how they
are split). Perhaps PJN could comment? Sometime back, there
was an interesting series of articles on Malayalam composers
by PJN, Srini Pichumani, Ranjani Saigal and Sujatha Krishnamurthy.
Perhaps some of the above would be able to throw more light.
> It is also often rendered by K. V. Narayanaswamy. The book lists
> it set to rAga bhUpAla although I have seen it listed as revagupti
> in pre-recorded cassettes. It is not a tillana, just a krithi with
> solukattu passages. These passages are not given below.
Isn't gOpAlaka pAhimAm a padam?
Yes, KVN renders this quite frequently...
Aren't bhUpAlam and rEvaguptI essentially the SAME! Aren't they
merely janya rAgAs of different mElA-s? But yes, I too have seen
the rAgA of gOpAlaka listed as rEvaguptI and not bhUpAlam.
Ciao for now...
/Mohan
-------
Mohan Krishnamoorthy, CSIRO, Div of Maths and Stats (OR Group),
(Off) Bayview Avenue, Clayton 3168, Australia.
Or: Pvt Bag 10, Rosebank MDC, Victoria 3169, Australia.
(Res) 7, Wanda Street, Mulgrave, VIC 3170, Australia.
Phone: (Off) +61 3 542 2263; (Res): +61 3 560 3305
Fax: +61 3 542 2474; email: mo...@mel.dms.CSIRO.AU
SUBU Ramasubramanian
|> In article <2rucl9$c...@news.dmpe.CSIRO.AU>, mo...@theta.mel.dms.CSIRO.AU
|> (Mohan Krishnamoorthy) wrote:
|>
|>
|>
|> Popular bhUpAlam S R1 G3 P D1 S S D1 P G3 R1 S
|>
|> Theoretical bhUpAlam S R1 G2 P D1 S S D1 P G2 R1 S
|>
|> rEvaguptI S R1 G3 P D1 S S D1 P G3 R1 S
|>
|> Baseline: Maayaamaalava Gaula S R1 G3 M1 P D1 N3 S S N3 D1 P M1 G3 R1 S
I would like to know if there is some history too. But I wonder why
you called it as theoretical bhUpalam. I have heard renditions of
the "theoretical bhUpalam" by S R Janakiraman, MLV, Hyderabad brothers
and T N Seshagopalan. It looks like schools of carnatic music are
divided in distinguishing between these two.
Subu
Viswanathan Krishnan
>
> I would like to know if there is some history too. But I wonder why
> you called it as theoretical bhUpalam. I have heard renditions of
> the "theoretical bhUpalam" by S R Janakiraman, MLV, Hyderabad brothers
> and T N Seshagopalan. It looks like schools of carnatic music are
> divided in distinguishing between these two.
>
> Subu
Sure, I used the word "theoretical" casually:-) We need a better word! But
Subburaya Shastri has strong words (!) for the alternate ("popular") school
of thought as seen in the following note from L. Ramakrishnan to me, which
did not appear on the net. (maybe problems with the mailer?) I am taking
the liberty to post it on his behalf.
-----------------------------------------------
From: L Ramakrishnan <ra...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.music.indian.classical
Subject: Re: bhUpAlam and rEvaguptI: Differences
With reference to what Viswanathan Krishnan and Kumaran Santhanam term
the 'theoretical' bhUpAlam (S R1 G2 P D1 S, S D1 P G2 R1 S), I supply the
following notes from Subburaya Sastri's sangIta sAmpradAya pradarshinI
< Janya of Bhinnashadjam (mElam 9)
bhUpAlam is an upAnga, audhava, rakti rAga. It bestows auspiciousness
(mangala)
to those who render it at dawn. Musical novices that are ignorant of the
tradition of bhUpAla as laid out by rAmAmAtya and vEnkatamakhin sing this
rAga with the antara gAndhara (sic). If one renders it (thus) erroneously,
the rAga will not yield any of the benefits it can. On the other hand, if
one
sings it with the sAdhAraNa gAndhara, as prescribed by the lakshaNakAras,
it
confers all forms of prosperity >
unambiguous, eh? :-)
Songs in this (original) form of bhUpAla include
'KadanakkanData' - lakshya gIta of vEnkatamakhin
'sadAchalEshvaram bhAvayE' - kRti of MuttusvAmi dIkshitar, a prelude to the
abhayAmbA series
'tandEyAgidAyI' - kRti of purandaradAsa
and several others.
Srikumar V. Gopalakrishna
|>
|> pantuvarAli is the 51st melakarta rAga. It has the mayamalavagowla
|> dhA.
|>
|> poorvi kalyAni is derived from the 53rd melakarta and has the
|> higher dhA (as in sankarabharanam). The arO/avarO is
|> srgmpdps snDpmgrs.
Just clarifying that both the Aro/Avaro have the same Dhaivatham
(chatusruthi dhaivatam) in PoorviKalyAni.
So it should be
S R1 G3 M2 P D2 P S ;; S N3 D2 P M2 G3 R1 S
Janyam of Gamanashrama !
Srikumar
Viswanathan Krishnan
(Mohan Krishnamoorthy) wrote:
> Aren't bhUpAlam and rEvaguptI essentially the SAME! Aren't they
> merely janya rAgAs of different mElA-s? But yes, I too have seen
> the rAgA of gOpAlaka listed as rEvaguptI and not bhUpAlam.
>
> Ciao for now...
>
> /Mohan
There appear to be two different versions of bhUpAlam: let us call them,
theoretical and popularly known versions.
The popularly known bhUpAlam and rEvaguptI are essentially the SAME. But
the popularly known bhUpAlam differs from the theoretical bhUpAlam as seen
in the arohana/avarohanas.
Notation: Same as Kumaran Santhanam's earlier posting of ragas
(reproduced):
R , D | M | G | N
------------------+--------------+----------------+--------------
1 = Shudhdha | 1 = Shudhdha | 1 = Shudhdha | 1 = Shudhdha
2 = Chathushruthi | 2 = Prathi | 2 = Saadhaarana| 2 = Kaishika
3 = Sathshruthi | | 3 = Anthara | 3 = Kaakali
------------------+--------------+----------------+--------------
Raga Arohana Avarahana
----- -------- ----------
Popular bhUpAlam S R1 G3 P D1 S S D1 P G3 R1 S
Theoretical bhUpAlam S R1 G2 P D1 S S D1 P G2 R1 S
rEvaguptI S R1 G3 P D1 S S D1 P G3 R1 S
Baseline: Maayaamaalava Gaula S R1 G3 M1 P D1 N3 S S N3 D1 P M1 G3 R1 S
As can be seen above, the theoretical bhUpAlam takes sAdharana Ga, instead
of anthara Ga (or Mayamalavagowla Ga). Clearly rEvaguptI has the same
Arohana/avarOhanas as the popularly known bhUpAlam.
It is not at all clear why this confusing distinction between the popular
and theoretical bhUpAlam. Does anyone know the history of evolution of
these ragas? Is it to create some barriers to entry for the common man -
some secrets for the insiders :-)? Any insights into this would be most
welcome.
Curiously yours,
Viswanathan Krishnan
PS: Interestingly, Kumaran's listing of ragas gives the Arohana/avarOhana
of bhUpAlam as the theoretical version, which is different from rEvaguptI.
PPS: In a discussion, a friend of mine was pointing out that this is
explained in more detail in the Sangita Sampradhaya Pradharshini(?)...
Sri Gopalakrishna
From the little I know, I do perceive that Bhoopalam when it takes
Antara GandhAram instead of SAdhArana GandhAram becomes essentially
rEvaGuptI. Classically called as Janyas of MAyamAlava Gaula, they could also be
Janyas of VakulaBharanam ...etc or their Prati Madhyama equivalents
(PanthuvarAli, NAmaNArAyaNi etc).
The doubts I have is really in what essentially is the difference in these two
rAgAs - is it in the jIva swarAs ? I am sure there exists a difference.
Of course the other possibility exists that Bhoopalam in its essence really
takes sAdhArana Ga and so is basically different.
Another question is in the oft asked question of Janya-Janaka classification.
Why are these two rAgAs called mAyAmAlava Janyas and not something else (say
kAmavarDhini (panthuvarAli) for arguments sake ).
Can some knowledgable people throw some light ?
Srikumar
