Rich repertoire of songs
S. SIVAKUMAR
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Both Sankaranarayanan and Thirumoorthy presented concerts highly aesthetic.
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Photo: R. Shivaji Rao
RARE COMPOSITIONS: Sankaranarayanan
Krishna Gana Sabha's Pongal Nagaswara Vizha provides the much needed platform for nagaswaram and the tavil vidwans. Sankaranarayanan's presentation at this year's edition included many rarely heard compositions. For many `Siddhi Vinayakam Jaya Jaya' (Gowlai, Kannadasan) might have come as a revelation. The Kannada composition (`Ninnada,' Tyagaraja) was delivered at a decent pace and Mohanarama (Mohanam, Tyagaraja) that followed was played in the precious vilambakala.
The main raga was Kiravani (`Devi Neeye Thunai,' Papanasam Sivan) where the fine elaboration invited enthusiastic participation from Venkateswaran (accompanying nagaswaram). The stridency in the tone of Sankaranarayanan was maintained to fine effect. The fund of songs included `Sujanajeevana' (Khamas, Tyagaraja), `KannanVarum Azhagu,' `Om Namo Narayana' (Karnaranjani, Ambujam Krishna), Thambulava (Reetigowla, Purandaradasa) popularised by MLV, and a tillana (Madhyamavathi, Ramani).
Impressive acumen
Thiruvallikeni Thirumoorthy presented an afternoon concert accompanied by Dakshinamurthy (nagaswaram support). He began with `Paadi Magizhndhidum' (Jeevanthika, Dandapani Desikar) with daring kalpanaswara that spoke of a rare acumen and then played `Orajoopu' (Kannadagowla, Tyagaraja). He too seemed to have a lavish and fertile reservoir of songs. `Arivudayor Panindhu' (Chakravakam, Gopalakrishna Bharati) and `Mayilvaahana' (Madhuvanti, Muthu Thandavar), had the prefatory alapana.
The raga alapanas for Chakravakam, Madhuvanti and Hindolam had a distinct maturity with gamakas pervading the three registers and were rendered with ease and in a flawless manner even at the higher octaves.'
Dakshinamurthy chose to play a passive role. Govindarajan and T.P.Radhakrishnan were the accompanying Tavil vidwans for Sankaranarayanan. The thani itself at first demonstratively standardised the kaalapramana with a few rounds. On the one side the beat corresponded to misram (seven counts) and the other (kutchi) side corresponded to different sollus alternately — an attainment in laya that deserves emulation. It was quixotic that a thani of this stature had an extremely shortened final arudhi.
Deenadayalan and Sethuraman provided laya support on the tavil for Thirumoorthy and showed how they have different capabilities where compression of sollus was performed to the maximum imaginable.
Thiruvallikeni Thirumoorthy
They filled up pauses (akshara karvais) progressively in their various rounds and subsequently closed the pauses to complete the cycle in the most systematic manner.
The tavil vidwans played tirelessly with total involvement producing different strokes and combinations.
The vidwans put on play their expert knowledge of laya (tempo) and tala (musical time). The transfer of the avartanams from one tavil vidwan to the other was so seamlessly done that it appeared that only one tavil was on stage.
These two nagaswara vidwans exploded the myth that the general repertoire is rather limited and that they only played certain songs. The corpus of songs at their command was actually amazing. It is acknowledged that the raga elaboration of nagaswara vidwans is the most expressive ever heard and that it is gloriously stylistic. Perhaps it can be attributed to the serene ambience of the temples, where the wind instrument is widely played, that builds and develops musical minds.
Both Sankaranarayanan and Thirumoorthy presented concerts rich in aesthetic value.
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