Lalgudi Krishnan Vijayalakshmi@Mudhra on Dec 08th,2018

[rajeshnat]

Lalgudi Krishnan Vijayalakshmi@Mudhra on Dec 08th,2018
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Violin : Lalgudi Krishnan and Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi
Mrudangam : Anantha R Krishnan
ghatam : GuruPrasanna
Tambura : ????

Concert Type : Nirvana - no concert to follow / Free
Day/Duration : Saturday/ 2 hours
Sabha/Hall : Mudhra / RKM Infosys Hall, mambalam

01. pranamAmyaham (Raaga Sketch, S) - gowlai - MV
4 mins swaras
02. janani ninnuvinA (R,S)- reetigowlai - Subbaraya Sastry
5 mins alapana and 4 mins swaras

03. paranthamAvati (R,S) -dharmavathi - MD
7 mins alapana and 4 mins swaras
04. shree rAma padama - amrithavAhini - T

05A. MOhana rAmA (R,S,T)-mohanam - T
12 mins alapana and 14 mins swaras
05B. tani for 17 mins

06. kaliyuga varadhan - brindAvani - PT
07. Thirruppugazh - sindhubhairavi -AGN Thirruppugazh??
4 mins alapan
08. Thilana - hammeerkalyani - LGJ
09 . mangalam

Lalgudi siblings are at the crossroads of making two strategic choices . Choice #1 is to take the route of showing the musical extravagance of the supreme instrument violin , take detours to showcase the vadhya as how adaptable the instrument to different genres of music vs Choice #2 where you take the route of continually showcasing the vadhyam with sangathis and sancharas with spread of compositions. In addition to keep high focus on pAddantara suddham and they faithfully play as though their guru is right before their eyes in the crowd . The siblings stick without ambiguity with choice #2

The start was in gowlai with the vasudevacharya krithi. Bowing was good ,I felt the percussion gelling just did not seem that clean yet , possibly a little higher shade of percussion just popped and killed a bit of gowlai. Krishnan moved on next to a bhava rasa raga . He played a very clean, distilled and double filtered reetigowlai . Nice alapana and they followed without breaking the muse with the master piece janani ninnuvinA. The spread of bhAvA was clean and intensely carnatic , subbaraya sastri took the best of the trinity and Lalgudi siblings did not lose any bhava after learning from their illustrious appa.

THe dharmavati was bit touch and go with sustained aesthetics .Alapana of Viji did not have that clean press to give bit more higher shade of thick melody. I just aurally noticed that Viji's play is bit more quicker and she was not able to dwell little longer like krishnan especially during turns of the direction of the bow . Swaras were measured and the dharmavathi krithi was not having that higher muse of a dikshitar krithi but bit settled as just a muttuswami krithi

The filler amrithavahini was really well done, there is a shade of saramati with amrithavahini and I really liked this raga the filler did not feel like some rushed premain filler to just say hey get out of the way i need more time for main.Mohanam by Lalgudi school is very very aesthetic . THey dont take mohanam and drop it easily away from carnatic idioms to a land of more flat notes. Nice play of mohanam masterpiece krithi with quite a lot of swara poruttam that was quite long. Personally I feel in mohanarama Lalgudi jayaraman has taken the best of Madurai Mani Iyer in especially taking that exact midpoint of madhayama kALA kalapramAnam.

tUkkadas starting with kaliyuga varadhan in brindavani was clean start of a nice finish of tukkadas . Sindhubhairavi with a little longer alapana was played well and the tiruppugazh was well done - it did not sound too cacophonous sangathis with an ending perumAle . I am not even sure if that is tiruppugazh , krishnan announced it and I am not sure i heard his announcement that well. The last thillana in hameerkalyani has quite a depth of hamiru . I am just mesmerized with lalgudi jayaraman sir with few thillana compositions .This is not my top favourite but still so much of hammerkalyani defining curves , a kind of one full mAnamu ledha krithi of T came up nearly squeezed in Lalgudi hameer kalyani thillana.

Mrudangam artist Anantha R Krishnan was as expected simply superb . For the first time may be I was hearing his patterns more closer to his grandfather Palakkad Raghu , few concerts few years back i was hearing him more as a UKS or TS mix. His intelligence in mohanam and reetigowlai was lovely, he gives a right silence and patterns whether rushed or not rushed always has nice left and right balance.Palakkad Raghu Marked wellformedness is abundant in the hands of Wow (anantha krishnan is the mark waugh of CM). Guruprasanna played very well , he had lot of aggression and had plenty of strokes . For the first song bit of microphone issues with slightly higher percussion doze. Violin concerts do not have any violin return 2 hours is bit okay .I would have still preferred a 25 to 30 mins RTP, mudhras would not mind another 20 mins extra.

Mudhras - Radha and Bhaskar are time conscious and they advertised 7 pm start after inaugral function and awards, there was just minimal delay of 5 mins - they are keeping intact their tag line as - A renaissance of art, culture and music

Personally i attended this concert seated next to coolkarni and his son. While Coolkarni has attended more concerts of meastro Lalgudi Jayaraman Sir and I have just attended just very very few of Lalgudi Jayaraman live concerts , it is also wonderful to see that coolkarni's son is intensely enjoying Krishnan and Viji .

Overall a very good to excellent concert for 2 hours

[hnbhagavan]

Very nice Review.
Lalgudi Siblings as Rajesh mentioned do not believe in show casing Instrumental gimmicks,but concentrate on Vocal style clearly bringing out the Sahitya in the Kritis.
It is good to notice that Concert Season has started in December First Week itself.
please keep posting reviews.