Posted on December 13, 2001
|
News - Views - Reviews |
|
MADRAS MUSIC MELA 2001 |
|
T V SANKARANARAYANAN - SPEED THRILLS BUT KILLS |
|
T V Sankaranarayanan and T N Seshagopalan have, over the last 3 decades, not only emerged as top-notch Carnatic vocalists but retained their positions consistently. Their concerts always draw a huge crowd despite the fact that they average about 15 - 20 concerts every season. One of the strengths of T V Sankaranarayanan, the nephew of the legendary Madurai Mani Iyer, is his enthusiasm. Even after a long and busy career, one can still feel his teenager-like enthusiasm in his body language and affable manner on stage. Musically, his assets are his ability to draw myriad and interesting swara patterns during his forays in the kalpanaswara rounds. This reveals his investment of time and energy in the basic swara exercises. Another prominent reason for his popularity with the rasikas is his choice of items. Being almost the only heir to the Madurai Mani Iyer bani, he takes care to choose the old hits of the late master, which goes well with his rasikas. One also finds a good mix of both known and unknown Tamil kritis in his concerts. Sankaranarayanan's concert for the Karthik Fine Arts on the evening of December 8, 2001 to a packed hall was exciting and exhilarating from the audience point of view. But Carnatic music is not merely about exciting stuff. Musical sensitivity is an essential part of the musical voyage for both the artiste and the listener. Right from the beginning, it looked as though TVS was trying to prove that he could also attract a huge crowd, perhaps because he was featured after the very well attended concert of P Unnikrishnan. As a result, he had to provide excitement in the form of racy stuff. Everything was rendered in madhyama and druta kala and the concert lacked poise. However, Sankaranarayanan to be complimented for his kalpanaswaras in the kriti Iniahilum (Poorvikalyani). He wove simple but interesting patterns and kept the audience swaying. The only complaint one had here was the overuse of la-la-la-like syllables, in the patented Madurai Mani Iyer style. The Atana piece, Yaarumaippol, which is not commonly rendered was neat, but not striking. The piece de resistance came in the form of Akhilandeswari (Dwijavanti), attributed to Muthuswami Dikshitar. The raga alapana for this composition didn’t go well with this rasika. It had lots of North Indian folkish touches. Bhava-laden phrases with long karvais were missing. It seemed as though he were singing phrases using swara combinations rather than getting involved in the raga bhava. The employment of too many druta kala phrases seemed quite inappropriate for a raga like Dwijavanti. Nevertheless, even at the start of the kriti, one could perceive the excitement among the members of the audience. With this rasika it once again failed to click. The patantara was questionable and the artiste also had problems with the lyrics of the Anupallavi. He quickly camouflaged this to proceed to the Charanam, where the line beginning with 'Vagdevata' was rendered from the Ni instead of the usual Panchama. This sounded rather odd. He stuck to his usual policy of not letting the tempo sag, but for a 2-kalai kriti, it was extremely fast. In the kalpanaswara suite, he struggled to get the right finishes particularly in the first degree of speed. But the second degree did have some element of intrigue. The nyasa using 'r g r' in the Madhya sthayi was especially noteworthy. A superfast Kavava followed Dwijavanti. One wondered at the reason behind singing this Varali piece as a mere tukkada. It once again failed to invoke any musical / lyrical bhava. A sloka in Behag and Durbari were the best part of the concert and proved that Sankaranarayanan was indeed capable of providing elevating music. Durbari in particular was rendered with emotive feeling. The audience response in such places wasn’t overwhelming though. He chose to sing Govardhana giridhari but this once again didn't come out with passion. The final pieces were the great Madurai Mani Iyer hits, Eppovaruvaro and the English note which he sang at request of a rasika. Needless to say the entire gallery was delighted. All in all, the recital was no doubt a treat to the audience, but sincere connoisseurs of the art were disappointed. M Chandrasekharan the violinist is a senior professional who enjoys immense popularity with the masses. In this concert, his raga alapanas seemed to have more poise and thus created a more emotive mood. However his habit of lifting phrases from popular kritis though a delight for the audience, was not in very good taste. Of late, his bowing has become very harsh and scratchy, and often results in cacophony. But this went well with the audience too. Raja Rao’s Mridangam was the saving grace in the concert and was effective throughout, be it accompaniment for compositions and other creative aspects or the Tani Avartanam. A mridangist with good musical acumen is always a great sideman to have and Sankaranarayanan had an asset in Raja Rao. The Tani was short, crisp and effective and one felt that he knew exactly the role of an accompanist. It is easy to criticise artistes for their performance, but the audience have a role to play in maintaining standards too. In this context, the audience at this concert were a disappointing lot. They were willing to applaud for anything and everything without discretion. At some point of time, they should also start looking for the finer aspects in music rather than mere excitement. Only if they do that will artistes feel motivated to present classy stuff. Afterall, the responsibility of passing on the arts with their values intact lies on artistes as well as the public. The acoustics on that particular day was well-balanced. The general volume levels were tolerable and not too loud as has become the trend. The AC was also kept at a comfortable temperature. General remarks: Voice: Generally
husky. The artistes generally sings energetically, but sounded a bit tired
on that particular day. Ratings: Sruti - 70 % Overall effect: Vocal - 50 % Concert - 50 % Audience in hall - 100
% in the beginning and 60% at the end. Concert effect - 90% - Jayadev |
|
|
|||
|
Posted on December 13, 2001 |
|||
| Lec-dem Schedule | |||
| Interviews with Awardees | |||
|
|
|||