Sanjay at Toronto; a report
Subbarayan Pasupathy
Sri Sanjay Subhramaniam gave a good 3-hour vocal concert at Toronto
on 12 April, 97 under the auspices of Bharathi Kala Manram. He was ably
supported by Smt. Sandhya Srinath on the violin and Sri R.Srinivasan on the
mridangam. With more modulation and a more rounded style than in his last
visit, Sanjay once again communicated his imaginative approach and
enthusiastic interpretation of our Classical music. The accompaniests
gave him their complete cooperation, thus making the afternoon concert
thoroughly enjoyable.
Sanjay uvaacha :-) ( R=raga alapana, N=neraval, S = swara kalpana )
1. saami ninnE-panthuvaraaLi-shatkaala narasayya
2. manasaa-malayamaarutham-thyagaraja (S)
3. kanukoNtini-bilahari-thyagaraja (RS)
4. thaNigai vaLar-thOdi-papanasam sivan
5. chakkaniraja-karaharapriya-thyagaraja (RNS)
6. Mridangam solo
7. Edhayyaa gathi-chalanaattai-kOteeswara iyer
8. RTP-varaaLi- khanta thriputai
"ambikai, paradhEvathai, varaaL idhO
sruthi layamodu " (roughly meaning ..Here comes Goddess with
sruthi and laya ..) ( note the clever insertion of Raga name in the
words )
9. nirupamaana-behag-Ramanad Srinivasa Iyengar
10.sonnadhai seydhida-raga mala
11.virutham -raga mala
12. aadiya paadhaththai-surutti-gopalakrishna bharathi
13. kaNdEna gOvindhanaa-chandhrakauns-purandharadhas
14. kaaNi nilam-raga mala -subhramanya bharathi
15. chidhambaram pOgaamal-senchurutti-gopalakrishna bharathi
16. thillana-kamas-pattanam subramanya iyer
17. mangalam.
---------------------------
* My thanks to Sanjay for giving us a chance to hear this interesting
pallavi. This was a small modification of the pallavi originally sung by
Sri T.N.Seshagopalan around 1975 , which went as
"ambikai, jagadhambikai, varaaL idhO,
sruthiyodu layamum tharaaL idhO. "
* Sanjay did an excellent, bhava-filled viruththam. Singing a viruththam or
a sloka, under the constraints imposed by the words and meaning of the
verse, is an art and , in my experience, the best expositors of this art
were the Thevaram Odhuvars like Sri Lalgudi Swaminathan, who passed
away recently. The worst performers have been many of the concert artists
of yester years who simply used the sloka or viruththam as a vehicle to
do short alapanas of a few ragas. I am thankful to young artists like
Sanjay who are doing justice to this "constrained optimization" problem ;
I remember Sri T.R.Subramaniam saying in one of his lec-dems that singing
such viruththams/slokas is an extremely good way to develop one's ability
in raga elaboration.
S.Pasupathy
pas...@ecf.toronto.edu
Dakshin
>The worst performers have been many of the concert artists
> of yester years who simply used the sloka or viruththam as a vehicle to
>do short alapanas of a few ragas. I am thankful to young artists like
>Sanjay who are doing justice to this "constrained optimization" problem
;
>I remember Sri T.R.Subramaniam saying in one of his lec-dems that
singing
>such viruththams/slokas is an extremely good way to develop one's
ability
>in raga elaboration.
> S.Pasupathy
>pas...@ecf.toronto.edu
Slokas are usually in Sanskrit which seems to be the most optimal
language we all know of. So I can't imagine further optimization on it,
unless you mean someone has done a better job of presenting them.
I don't know of a case where slokas can enable elaboration of ragas that
are pentatonics and above much
less as an extremely good way. They do make sense for beat/tala (by their
inherent rhymes) which is usually not associated with raga alapana.
Am I missing something?
Dakshin Gandikota