Guess who? - 1

You are looking at a picture of a 

very famous carnatic musician, 

one who would count among the 

best in the century. Can you 

guess who?  For a hint, scroll 

one post below. For the answer, 

scroll two posts below.

T M Krishna: John Nash of carnatic music?

The music was stunning; but regrettably so were the eccentricities.

TMK’s concert on January 14 for Kalaivizha 2016, at Kamarajar Memorial Hall, Teynampet, provided ample grist for anybody who wanted to profile him either as ‘eccentric’ or ‘genius’.

The music was unexceptionably brilliant, completely out of the ordinary. The Begada alapana and the padam, Yaarukkagilum Bhayama, seemed to be the main fare, even though technically the crown should be fitted onto the head of the Kalyani varnam, Vanajakshi, for the tani was attached to it. There was a Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda, Priye Charusheele, rendered in Mukhari, and between the opening piece, Thyagaraja Swami’s Sahana composition Emmana and the Priye Charusheele, came an explosion of multi-raga tanams, which TMK and violinist R K Sriramkumar took turns to lead each other…well, even the most fastidious adherent of tradition would have to admit, was bloody good! It was one of TMK’s finest concert. Ten days down the line, the Begada continues to buzz around my ears.

But the concert also seemed to throw up disturbing questions. Why does the man, so insanely talented, behave like a fruitcake?

For better part of the concert, he sat half-turned towards left, facing violinist R K Sriramkumar, who was seated next to him. RK was sitting next to TMK, facing the audience, and so the singer was turned away from them. Nothing wrong there, but it did create a sense of disconnect between the singer and the people who had gathered to listen to him. On a few occasions, TMK fell into silence, pausing for longish durations—during which periods there were nothing to listen to except the violin’s bow running on the string and the mridangam’s gentle tap-tap—his eyes closed, face expressionless, like a vague somnambulist. During one of such schizophrenic pauses, he rubbed his palms over his face and eyes, like a man stirring himself out of stupor. And, an hour-and-a-half into the concert, he asked the organisers, sounding vague and distant, till what time he was expected to sing. (It is to the credit of his fine music that someone in the audience shouted, “till 11.30” – the time then was around 8.15 in the evening.)

At one point, when he had taken the singing to a crescendo, there was an instant applause from the audience, but TMK, still eyes closed, grimaced, waved vigorously with both hands and said, “kai tatti keduthudadinga” (don’t upset it by clapping.)

TMK’s chin-up nonchalance and disregard for tradition is fine if there is a purpose behind it. When Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar established the kutcheri format that has since become the norm, it was to bring carnatic music in sync with the times. But if you sing a Sahana piece very elaborately, neraval and swaras and all (and oh, neraval at one point and swaras at another), and then after the audience has had its full and has applauded heartily and is eagerly awaiting the next treat, you pick up again Sahana for tanam? I mean, there seems no purpose behind vandalising guidelines of tradition and in the absence of a purpose it does appear that TMK is merely trying to act out his iconoclasm, rather aggressively, so as to say ‘I shall do anything I please’.

It is not so much the demolition of tradition that is disturbing—in fact, it is not disturbing at all. It is the attitude. Why? Why, after picking up a varnam in the middle of a concert, has to append kalpana swaras to chittaswaras? (The swaras were at the point of the last chittaswaram sequence, pa ma ga ga ri ri sa ri ri.) Why does this accomplished artiste, whose music can shock-and-awe and command respect, need any antics at all? Why – and what – is he so desperate to reform? As the Americans say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—and there is nothing wrong with carnatic music today, so why fix it? Why does this accomplished artiste, whose music can shock-and-awe and command respect, need any antics at all?

Attention-seeking behaviour and exaggerated sense of self-importance seem to have become defining traits of TMK. One well-known instance is his agonizing over a belief that carnatic music is Brahmin-oriented, even as there are outstanding examples of non-Brahmin carnatic celebrities—MS, MLV, Palani Subbudu, Yesudas, Madurai Somu and a whole lot of Nadaswara vidwans, including muslims Sheik Chinnamoulana Sahib and his son Kasim—and when carnatic music is entirely open to anybody to take up. But there are other instances too. Remember when there was a spat between reviewer V Subramanian and Sowmya, TMK jumped in, uninvited, saying “I agree with Sowmya”? Or, his fulminations at the holding of the Season festival, using words such as “vulgar” and “insensitive”? 

As far self-importance, check-out his website, www.tmkrishna.com. Here is an excerpt from it: “Krishna’s pen is sharp, his words blunt. He thinks upon and writes about issues affecting the human condition and about matters musical.” I’m not sure if these are his own words, or someone else’s. In any case, they exist in his official website.

The January 14, 2016 concert was sparsely attended. The hall wasn’t even half full. I hope that it does indicate dwindling popularity. I hope the fact that it was a Thursday and was a priced concert, explains the thin attendance.

For, regardless of his oddities, his music is nothing short of great.

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Hint for 'Guess who? - 1'

This picture should tell you who he is.

If you still can't guess, scroll one post below to know who.

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G S Mani: A great artiste, unfairly overlooked for Sangita Kalanidhi award

I first heard Mani-sir on August 15, 1983—it was at Music Academy mini hall, with T Rukmini and Srimushnam Raja Rao. The main piece was Bhairavi—Syama Sastri’s Sari Evaramma. Yesterday (January 10, 2016) I again heard Mani-sir at Astika Samajam. The main piece was the same Bhairavi. 

Thirty-three years down the line, the vocalist’s voice had not lost even a tiny fraction of its timbre. Also, it was one of the finest Bhairavi alapanas I had ever heard, built-up at a leisurely pace, with long karvais on each note—an exemplary style, and vastly different from what rules today, which is to take off into a flurry of brikhas like a monkey touched on the backside by a hot-iron rod. Mani-sir took a moment to explain that the raga had influence of many nadaswaram Bhairavis he had heard during his formative years.

The concert was such a lovely one. It offered the listener so much. There was an elaborate vivadi—the 71^st Melakarta, Kosalam (Koteeswara Iyer’s Kaa Mugha). There was a rare raga—Padma Deepam, derived from the Hindustani rag Patdeep. Padma Deepam takes the swaras – sa, ga, ma, pa, ni, sa and descent the same as its mother raga, Gowri Manohari. Mani-sir sang a brilliant composition, his own. Then there was Thyagaraja swami’s Vijayavasantham, a derivative of the 54^th Melakarta, Viswambari. Nee Chittamu Naa Bhagyamayya was another piece that Mani-sir had sung on August 15, 1983. Then there was Ganavaridhi (Thyagaraja Swami’s Dayachudageeti). For those who wanted some familiars, there was a Kanada (own composition) and the good old Bhairavi. In between, there was a grand Suruti, with an elaborate, full-fledged alapana, followed by his own piece. And then, there were some scintillating thukkudas, including a Chandrakauns (naalai varum endre—his own), at my request.

The concert had something for every taste! 

As I was listening, I was wondering why Mani-sir was being overlooked for Sangita Kalanidhi. His merits are obvious, but to just recount:

• He has been a performing Carnatic musician for over 60 years
• He is well-versed in Hindustani music too
• As is well known, contributed hell of a lot to film music
• He has composed over 300 songs in Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil

Few have served Music as much as Mani-sir. Yet year after year, he is overlooked for the Sangita Kalanidhi award.

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Answer to 'Guess who? -1' 

Yes !

Lalgudi Sir ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

But I would partly blame him too. He doesn’t sing enough kalpana swaras, and rarely sings neraval—though he is capable of doing both exceedingly well. For some strange reason he believes that singing swaras in elaboration is not necessary—but the listeners (me included) expect that. While that is no reason not to recognise his merits, it is a small and avoidable gap in his music.

Mozart Vs Thyagaraja Swami, in my book, Silence of the Cicadas

In my just-released novel, Silence of the Cicadas, I show (through one of my characters) why Mozart is nothing compared with our Saint Thyagaraja Swami. Reference to carnatic music is confined to just a few pages in the book, and this discussion figures in those pages. Here are the relevant extracts:

AM I RIGHT?

The strange style of Lalgudi G J R Krishnan

Mr R Thyagarajan, founder and (till recently) Chairman of the Shriram group of companies, an ardent fan of carnatic music for over seven decades, is an atheist. However, God for him is one person – Lalgudi Jayaraman. Thyagarajan-sir proudly calls himself a ‘Lalgudi extremist’, and loves Lalgudi’s music to such an extent as to aver that there is no need for anyone to listen to anyone else’s carnatic music.

Not surprising, therefore, that Mr Thyagarajan should have continued to love Lalgudi G J R Krishnan’s music, which he sees as an extension of the elder violin maestro’s. Thyagarajan-sir feels Krishnan’s style of alapana is, apart from being “refreshingly different”, is also highly intellectual and imaginative.

If GJR Krishnan’s performance at the Music Academy this season is truly a sample of his bow play, then I strongly disagree with Mr Thyagarajan. Intellectual it may be, but good it was not. For, Krishnan’s style appears to be to build the alapana almost entirely relying on micro-short phrases, each containing not more than four notes—the Todi at Music Academy was really one such alapana. The result was a raga essay that sounds more like a child rubbing its palms on an inflated balloon. It is somewhat like a person giving a speech, resolving that each sentence would not contain more than four words.

Since I haven’t heard Krishnan much, particularly in the recent years, I do not know if the Todi is a sample of his style, but Mr Thyagarajan says it is. I doubt it, because Krishnan played a Rasikapriya later in the concert, which was not as much a chain-of-small-links as the Todi was. (A better contrast to the Todi-style was provided by Krishnan’s sibling, Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, who played a superb Madhyamavati, building up the alapana, brick by brick, with long phrases. It was a treat to listen to her.)

I wish Krishnan changes his style. It needs no mention that he, perhaps owing to being a Lalgudi scion, is exceptionally talented violinist. He can easily change his style—all it calls for is his willingness to do so.

His brilliant play was evident in all parts of the concert other than the Todi. The composition that followed the Todi alapana, Syama Sastri’s Ninne Namminanu, as well as a Kalyana Vasantham filler (Saint Thyagaraja’s Nadaloludai) were numbingly beautiful. As I mentioned in my review of the concert for The Hindu (http://m.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/befitting-a-lalgudi-scion/article8050189.ece) the violin almost spoke the words as he was playing Nadaloludai.

Sangeetha gnanamu…..bhakti vina?

Mylapore resident S Sivaramakrishnan, who has been listening to carnatic music with a religious fervour for half a century, often points to the difference in the colour of two Thodi’s he heard in the concert halls within days of each other. The Koluvameragada that Seetha Narayanan was like meditating, it filled him with peace. The other Koluvameragada, sung by a more accomplished, more famous, next generation artiste “was much better in terms of technical brilliance” says Sivaramakrishnan. “But it lacked that soothing aspect that Seetha Narayanan’s had.”

Sivaramakrishnan’s experience is but a sample of the reality today. As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, the 2015 saw a soothing, meditative Kiravani by Malladi Brothers, which was their ode for the Chennai flood victims. It was a no-frills, no-wild-imagination, fancy-brikha kiravani, but it stood as one of the best kiravanis ever head. On the other hand, a highly imaginative Mayamalavagowlai by Abishek Raghuram failed to produce that effect.

Is the core of carnatic music shifting from being devotional and meditative to more of technical excellence and egregious display of talent? Is the renaissance of ‘Namasankeerthanam’ the market’s response to this shift?

Few disagree, but views vary on whether it is necessary to hold on to ‘bhakti’ or just leave music to evolve the way it society demands. True, the revered saint-composer, Thyagaraja, stressed that music without bhakti can never be ‘sanmargamu’, or the ‘good path’, but fewer and fewer are today in pursuit of any ‘path’, and look to carnatic music more for entertainment.

Mylapore resident, nanogenarian, Vittal Rao, says music is no more for sanmargamu (the noble path), but sammanamu (award).

Veena artiste Balakrishnan Kannan, sets great store by ‘bhakti’. “Entertainment is the primary responsibility of a musician, but still,” says Kannan, who begins his concerts with a veda- recital, “entertainment should not be at the cost of the supreme meditative power of our music.”

For a diametrically opposite view, we come to R Thyagarajan, founder of the Shriram group, a big patron of carnatic music and a confirmed atheist. Deep devotion may open up creativity in a composer, but linking bhakti with carnatic music, says Thyagarajan, is “undesirable”.  With advances in science, man’s needs keep getting fulfilled and his ‘need’ for God declines. If music is entwined with devotion, it will lose its appeal when ‘devotion’ declines in the society, feels Thyagarajan. Besides, ‘bhakti’ weds you to words and lyrics, consequence of which is preference for vocal music, to the detriment of the instrumental. “Pure music shouldn’t have anything to do with words,” he says.

Between Kannan and Thyagarajan lies the world of carnatic musicians, musicologists, patrons and connoisseurs, each with a different preferred mix of meditative appeal and intellectualism.

Vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan represents the mid-point. “Our music is steadily staying in-between,” he says. “I do sing a lot of emotionally-charged songs and intend to get behind the mood of the lyrics,” he says. Yet, while on alapana and kalpana swaras, Gurucharan likens himself to “an explorer in a forest of notes”.

It might appear logical to assume that while older people bhakti-centric music while the not-so-old love the more cerebral, flashy, splash-on-the-canvas kind of creative music, but a quick sample shows that such profiling is not valid.

Samyukta Ranganathan, a ‘junior’ vocalist (and daughter of singer Aruna Ranganathan), an alumnus of Columbia University, carnatic music has an inherent tendency to be “extremely cerebral”, with alapana, calculations, nereval and so on. “I feel that emotion and devotion that was perhaps the original purpose of the compositions may get muddled underneath these feats of concert singing today,” she says. For her, the “main emotion” is devotion. “It is hard to sing a song that doesn’t draw out your emotions,” she says. On the core of emotion should be an overlay of intellectualism (or, vidwat).

What does our Sangita Kalanidhi Sanjay Subramanian say? Sanjay, never known to be a bhakti-guy, excused himself from replying to questions relating to bhakti. (“Not my cup of tea,” he said.) However, in an earlier, e-mail interaction with me he had observed that carnatic music had always afforded space for both manodharma (imaginative intellectualism) and meditation. “If manodharma (imaginative intellectualism) is the extreme left and meditation is the extreme right, I can be described as slightly left of centre.”

Well, while no musician will truly tell you, like Thyagarajan, that there is no need for the keeping up the meditation quotient, any regular at concert halls knows that not just Sanjay, but the entire world of carnatic music is shifting towards ‘left of centre’. Some believe that the space on the right vacated by carnatic music is being filled by ‘naama sankeerthanam’, which (unlike musical discourse or ‘harikatha’) seems to be on the rise.

“Namasankeerthanam has been topping the charts in terms of audience response for some years now and it is a really healthy trend,” says Sikkil Gurucharan. If artistes are finding a niche market in namasankeerthanam concerts, is carnatic music spinning off a part of it into a separate entity?

Long term rasikas shudder at the thought. “You can still enjoy a very cerebral music,” says Sivarakamrishnan. “But if you diminish the meditative aspect, you are extracting less value from music.”

Don't sway, when you ought to stand upright

Atteeeeen-shun!!!!!

Boots stomp the ground, click themselves into place. Then, the guys stand upright, till the next order is screamed.

These smart, upright uniformed chaps are a good metaphor for vivadi swaras—straight, slim, no swaying.

Vivadi ragas seem to be making a come back—why, have made a come back—to the concert halls. Till about a couple of decades they had been banished into oblivion by orthodoxy.  Today, barring a few old-fashioned, many artistes sing vivadis in detail, and that’s damn good for carnatic music. Sanjay, Yesudas, B Kannan…are some vivadi buffs.

But in singing or playing a vivadi, the artiste has to keep in mind the metaphor—the uniformed officer standing in attention. Do a gamaka on a vivadi note, you lose the flavour of the raga.

An example of this was given by violinist Bombay Anand. Anand was accompanying veena artiste, B Kannan, at Narada Gana Sabha. Kannan played a brilliant Kanakangi alapana and it was Anand’s turn. Rather disconcertingly, the violinist kept slipping into Todi.

Where did the mistake lie? In two places.

First is technical. Vivadi notes (as everybody knows) are like the upright officer in attention. You can’t do a gamaka on them. No sway. Anand swayed on the ‘ga’ and the result was Todi.

Second is non-technical. I asked Kannan if he had told Anand the choice of the raga prior to the concert. No. Kannan told him just before the concert began.

Kannan had a nice practice session the previous evening. Anand didn’t. Had he been informed, he too would have brushed up a bit and played neatly—after all, Anand is a talented violinist.

And therein lies a lesson. Lead artistes, if they intend to play the rare, should inform the accompanyists beforehand. 

Music Season 2015: What stayed in mind and what didn’t

Wow! What a Season! 

It began bad with the rude, offensive, invidious and illogical ranting by carnatic music’s Natakapriya, T M Krishna, but turned out to be damn good. TMK’s sentiments may be noble, but his choice of words – such as, ‘vulgar’ and ‘insensitive’ -- to describe those who hold or attend concerts, is in very poor taste and reflects poorly on the man. But what else can one expect from a man who praises himself to the high skies in his own website (“Krishna’s pen is sharp, his words blunt”, he says)? Anyway, when he was busy elsewhere doing whatever (such as endeavouring to force-convert slum dwellers into carnatic connoisseurs) the 2015 Season went very well.

My participation was rather modest. I went to some 25 concerts, reported for The Hindu on six of them, wrote an article on the paradigm shift from bhakti-oriented to intellectual music, ate in several canteens….happy times.

But of all the music across the 25-odd concerts I went to, the one that has remained stuck in my mind – it is indelible, I guess – is Malladi Brothers’ Kiravani in the concert for Narada Gana Sabha. And the one that I remember for wrong reasons is Abishek Raghuram’s Mayamalavagowlai in his concert for Brahma Gana Sabha.

These two pieces of music represent opposite positions in carnatic music of today, everything lies in between. But why are they the opposite positions?

The one that did - KeeraWOWni !!!!!!!!

Malladi Sreeramprasad’s Kiravani, meant to be an ode to the Chennai flood victims, was slow, leisurely, deep, emotive, meditative – like the slow but sure spread of fragrance in a hall. It was joyful. It gave peace. It soothed frayed nerves, relaxed the listener. But it was not particularly imaginative. The brothers did not attempt to ride on their manodharma vehicle into unexplored territories of the raga, but they sailed peacefully like a boat in a placid summer lake. Their pallavi, ‘panchabhuta shantim dehi parameswara karunaya’, sounded every bit like what it was meant to be—a plea to the Lord for harmony with Nature.

I juxtaposed the recording with many other Kiravanis, including the Hindustani Kirwani, in order to try and find out what it else it resembled the most. The closest was Sitarist Brigitte Menon’s Kirwani, and the next was Pandit Shivkumar Sharma’s.

The one that didn’t – the ‘10,000-wala’  mayamalavagowlai

Abishek Raghuram is a guy you can bet every single rupee you have on his becoming a Sangita Kalanidhi some day. He is the man who will carry the torch from Sanjay Subramanian for the dam-burst kind of manodharma music, a torch that Sanjay himself seems to have picked up from Seshagopalan. (Whom did Sesha take it from? GNB? Balamurali?) Abishek is the kind of carnatic musician who starts off, and helplessly goes into auto-pilot. Something within him takes over, and then, he is just an instrument…no, not even that…just a, say, loudspeaker….and the music comes from some hidden well deep within. A brilliant artiste.

But….

But he is too much of a vocal acrobat. Hear him sing gives you the same experience as watching a bunch of monkeys on a tree, wildly swinging from branch to branch. Too much of imagination, to the complete abrogation of aesthetics, sense of proportion…makes Abishek, after some time, a bore.

All he needs to do is to realise this.

Flashback

Many, many years back, Seshagopalan, in a concert in Shastri Hall, Mylapore, sang the lines ‘Sree Subramanyaya Namaste, manasija koti koti lavanyaya deena shranyaya’ some 25 times after nereval and swaras were over. Just the lines, over and over again! It turned out to be extremely tiring.

The next day, T M A Raman, then a journalist with Financial Express and an ardent carnatic fan – today he writes regularly for Carnatic Durbar – bumped into Seshagopalan, and told him, “Sir, neythiki romba paduthitinga sir.”

“Aama, sir, you are right,” agreed Sesha.

My fear is, Abishek might turn out to be something of Sesha’s music of that evening. My friend S Sivaramakrishnan and I will remember Abishek’s Brahma Gana Sabha’s concert in December 2015 for wrong reasons.

Between the Malladi Kiravani and Abishek’s Mayamalavagowlai seems to lie the sea of carnatic music.

Truly, it is like a food court. There are various dishes on offer, you take what you want. There is nothing that can be called ‘wrong’. But it does seem that the ‘instant gratification’ variety is more on offer than the healthy.

Review of Sanjay Subramanian's concert for Indian Fine Arts, December 2015.

(Another version of this appeared in The Hindu December 25, 2015)

Sanjay Subramanian is one of those artistes who lose themselves completely in their singing. From the opening phrase, it was clear that the Bhairavi alapana would be a long-drawn affair. The celebrated vocalist took time to anchor himself in the raga, and then, entrapped in his own wild imagination, he raced around randomly within Bhairavi, like a caged tiger. The vocalist’s eclectic learning was evident from the multiple shades of musicians of yesteryears, notably Chembai and D K Jayaraman. When he stood on an incredibly long karvai on the upper shadjam, an amazed audience applauded heartily. The outcome was a Bhairavi extremely rich in manodharma, though less-rich in aesthetics.

Not many accompanying violinists could have played in step with such an imaginative Bhairavi, but veteran Nagai Muralidharan seemed to have no difficulty in matching Sanjay’s brilliance. When the violin’s raga sketch ended, as mridangist Srimushnam Raja Rao was tapping the drum to check sruti alignment, and the audience was waiting eagerly for Sanjay’s choice of the song, the singer surprised everyone by beginning a tanam. He was aware of the effect he produced, for he was all smiles as he sang ta-nam, setting it to Adi tala and going through tala exercises, thisram, kantham and all that. Raja Rao seemed to be only happy to be kept busy.

Then followed a pallavi that began half a beat before the start of the tala cycle. The lines ‘un darisanam kidaikkumo Nataraja’, made for a very enjoyable pallavi and the only disappointment was Sanjay did not get into multi-raga swaras. Raja Rao and Kanjira artiste K V Gopalakrishnan, played a sweet tani.

Earlier, the opening bars of Sanjay’s another alapana showed it to be a vivadi, but singer quickly ended speculation by announcing the name of the raga—Vanaspati. A vivadi is always an aural treat and Sanjay produced an enchanting one. After the alapana, replied in measure by Nagai Muralidharan, Sanjay picked up Vanadurge Vanaspati, choosing the Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavathar’s composition over the more famous Thyagaraja work, Pariyachakamaa. Vanadurge seems so rare that a google search threw up only one other rendition of it, by violinist Nellai K Viswanathan. The song has some chittaswaras and it was interesting to note Sanjay singing the vivadi note, suddha gandhara, with a gamaka, which made it sound like sadharana gandhara. That Sanjay did not tail the song with kalpana swaras was a big disappointment—swaras help popularize rare ragas better.

Sanjay’s other biggish offering was Dhandapani Desikar’s Dharmavati piece, Arulvai Angayarkanniye, and a good part of the alapana was delivered in Sanjay’s typical ‘mouthful-of-marbles’ style. Dikshithar’s Suruti Navagraha Kriti Angarakam, Saint Thyagaraja’s Sahana composition, Evasudha and a javali in Kannada language, mataada baaradeno, were the other elements of the thoroughly enjoyable concert.