"palumAru cirakAlamu paramAtmuni pAdamulanu" - thus started Sri T.M.Krishna's concert yesterday at the fort high school grounds. He was accompanied by Sri H.N Baskar, Arun Prakash and Purushottam on violin, mridanga and khanjira respectively. This gave a lightening start to the concert after a heavy rain on a Saturday evening. Tyagaraja's mAyAmALavagauLa kriti concluded with neraval and swaras at sarasiruha punnaga.
The next song - Tyagaraja's Ela nidayarada also started at anupallavi bAlakanakamaya after a short sketch of atANa.
This was followed by a short raga delineation of kalyAni. The song that followed was a composition of Pu.Ti.Narasimhachar, a famous Kannada poet and playwright. The lyrics of the song - 'nagna vipina nagna gagana tapo magna medhini' describes mother nature in winter. The chill of winter has rendered the forest (vipina) and the skies (gagana) naked. 'Manju musukida biLichidaLila madhu mAdhava garbhiNi', describing how nature becomes pregnant after the chilling winter and gives birth to varied life forms, was taken up for nerval. The song, sung in slow tempo, was rendered superbly. It was remarkable effort to sing a Kannada poem in a classical concert with such authority and weight, breaking the monotonous nature of a Carnatic concert, filled with compositions on Gods and Goddesses. Hope it sets a trend to explore more poems, with varied themes like nature, art , culture, history, etc and adapt them to classical music. The song concluded with swaras sung in the chowka kala. Check out a TV program clipping of the song below.
A brisk Ora jUpu jUcEdi nyAyamA in kannada gouLa composed by Tyagaraja was the next one to follow.
Then came a scholarly elaboration of kAmbhoji with a equally skilled reply from Bhaskar. Dikshitar's shrI subrahmaNyAya namaste was sung brilliantly with neraval at vAsavAdi sakaladEva vanditAya varENya. Tani followed the nerval skipping the swaras. This was a bit of disappointment for TMK fans like me who were probably eagerly waiting for some breathtaking swara prastaras.
The organizers wanted to honor the artists with customary speech after this but TMK requested to move it to the end.
RIthigauLa was chosen for RTP. The highlight was the taana, which was sung in all ghana ragas concluding in RIthigauLa . Then each ghana raga was taken in order - nAta, gauLa, Arabhi, varALi, shrI and coming back to RIthigauLa. At this stage I was wondering how a percussion accompaniment would add more color to this. It was as if Arun Prakash heard my thoughts, and started playing mridnaga for taana, but it was almost at the concluding part. The pallavi - dasharatha bAlarAmachandrayya dayanidhE mAm pAhi - set to khanda jAti tripuTa taLa was short and was decorated by swaras in hameer kalyAni spanning four complete octaves. A very short second tani of the concert concluded the RTP.
jANarO, a jAvali in kamach, Sadaashiva Brahmendra's broohi mukundhEthi in jhanjhooti, Tulsidas's bhajan - sri rAmachandra krupALu bhajamana in yaman kalyani were the next ones to follow. TMK requested everyone to stand up and concluded by singing the National Anthem. The artists were honored by Captain Gopinath.
Overall it was a superb, awe-inspiring concert, with lots of innovation, opening avenues to unexplored frontiers.
The next song - Tyagaraja's Ela nidayarada also started at anupallavi bAlakanakamaya after a short sketch of atANa.
This was followed by a short raga delineation of kalyAni. The song that followed was a composition of Pu.Ti.Narasimhachar, a famous Kannada poet and playwright. The lyrics of the song - 'nagna vipina nagna gagana tapo magna medhini' describes mother nature in winter. The chill of winter has rendered the forest (vipina) and the skies (gagana) naked. 'Manju musukida biLichidaLila madhu mAdhava garbhiNi', describing how nature becomes pregnant after the chilling winter and gives birth to varied life forms, was taken up for nerval. The song, sung in slow tempo, was rendered superbly. It was remarkable effort to sing a Kannada poem in a classical concert with such authority and weight, breaking the monotonous nature of a Carnatic concert, filled with compositions on Gods and Goddesses. Hope it sets a trend to explore more poems, with varied themes like nature, art , culture, history, etc and adapt them to classical music. The song concluded with swaras sung in the chowka kala. Check out a TV program clipping of the song below.
A brisk Ora jUpu jUcEdi nyAyamA in kannada gouLa composed by Tyagaraja was the next one to follow.
Then came a scholarly elaboration of kAmbhoji with a equally skilled reply from Bhaskar. Dikshitar's shrI subrahmaNyAya namaste was sung brilliantly with neraval at vAsavAdi sakaladEva vanditAya varENya. Tani followed the nerval skipping the swaras. This was a bit of disappointment for TMK fans like me who were probably eagerly waiting for some breathtaking swara prastaras.
The organizers wanted to honor the artists with customary speech after this but TMK requested to move it to the end.
RIthigauLa was chosen for RTP. The highlight was the taana, which was sung in all ghana ragas concluding in RIthigauLa . Then each ghana raga was taken in order - nAta, gauLa, Arabhi, varALi, shrI and coming back to RIthigauLa. At this stage I was wondering how a percussion accompaniment would add more color to this. It was as if Arun Prakash heard my thoughts, and started playing mridnaga for taana, but it was almost at the concluding part. The pallavi - dasharatha bAlarAmachandrayya dayanidhE mAm pAhi - set to khanda jAti tripuTa taLa was short and was decorated by swaras in hameer kalyAni spanning four complete octaves. A very short second tani of the concert concluded the RTP.
jANarO, a jAvali in kamach, Sadaashiva Brahmendra's broohi mukundhEthi in jhanjhooti, Tulsidas's bhajan - sri rAmachandra krupALu bhajamana in yaman kalyani were the next ones to follow. TMK requested everyone to stand up and concluded by singing the National Anthem. The artists were honored by Captain Gopinath.
Overall it was a superb, awe-inspiring concert, with lots of innovation, opening avenues to unexplored frontiers.
3 comments:
Nagna vipina, Nagna gagana was fantastic....... A blend of the rich music melody and rich literature by pu.ti. na is excellent.
Here i am sitting at the very same venue and listening to ngna vipina .. by TMK
I also listened to this song 2 days back. Can someone please upload the full lyrics?
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