Lata at 80: gorgeous rendering of "nishchayacha mahameru"

[AR]

I happened to see a recording of the 50th Maharashtra Day celebrations
a couple of months ago. Lata Mangeshkar was invited to perform live
on the occasion. She sang the song "nishchayacha maha meru" (from her
album Shivkalyanraja, composed by Hridaynath). There was minimal
musical accompaniment, and I must say that she sounded absolutely
wonderful.

She was completely in sur (which is certainly quite surprising these
days) and her voice was steady and melodious. This song is more like a
shloka. There was no percussion and it's a slow, steady tune
throughout. It made me wonder why she sounds so awful in her recent
film songs - is it the sheer speed of the film songs that
she isn't able to keep up with? Or was it just some sophisticated
sound engineering that made her sound so wonderful that day?

Here are the video clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks4FHCpKCJk

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdi53j_lata-shankars-ode-to-maharashtra-da_shortfilms

[kcp]

Came to know from authentic source that it was only lip-sync. The
recording was earlier done in a studio.

Still I enjoyed it very much

[AR]

Was the recording done much earlier (i.e. several years ago), or was
it from the same year? How about Suresh Wadkar's rendition of "omkara
swaroopa"?

Thanks!

[kcp]

It was in the same year/month !

Will ask the source, next week, when we meet !