Fitting tribute to doyen
GARIMELLA SUBRAMANIAM
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Aptness marked Vipanchee's event organised to fete M. Balamuralikrishna.
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RARE DEPARTURE: A treat from Balamuralikrishna. Photo: V. GANESAN.
The felicitations on Monday to the multifaceted musical virtuoso Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna in connection with his 75th birthday were truly momentous. His myriad musical creations, show-cased by children, vidvans and vidushis of Vipanchee School of Dance and Music, is the greatest tribute that could have been paid to one of Carnatic music's greatest doyen.
Prince Ramavarma of Travancore set the tone for the celebrations as he rendered ``Ayya Guruvarya," with a sense of devotion and humility as befits a distinguished disciple.
Unique varnam
The group of 75 children and senior artistes then sang the padavarnam in Gambheeranattai, exuding enormous passion and precision. Explaining the uniqueness of the varnam, B. M. Sundaram, senior most disciple of Balamuralikrishna said that the choice was guided by the recurrence of the gandharam in 75 instances.
Priya Jayaraman could not have asked for a more apt composition to accompany her abhinayam than ``paripari nee padame" in Hamsadhwani, with highly rhythmic phrases in the pallavi and an equally impressive chittasvaram. The identical Tamil kriti ``Pirai aniyum peruman" by Balamuralikrishna is noteworthy for the same reason.
When Kalluri Muralimohan sang his tribute to his guru, ``Murali ganamu mujjagamulanu muripinchuna alarinchuna," listeners would have recalled another Telugu tribute to Balamuralikrishna popular in the 1970s. The talavadya ensemble conducted by the ghatam wizard Vikku Vinayakram featured the panchamukhi tala system innovated by Balamuralikrishna. The impressive vocal support was a match to the zestful duo encounter between mridangam, ghatam and kanjira.
It was striking that none of the new ragas created by Balamuralikrishna was featured in the programme until then. But as his wont, the great maestro did present a Kalyani-based ragam in tribute to the day's chief guest, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms J. Jayalalithaa. ``Jeya jeya jeya lalite! Vibudha janachaya kalpalate! Jayostute!" ran the pallavi in the ragam named after the Chief Minister. It was a rare departure when Balamuralikrishna gave a vocal recital at a function to felicitate him.
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