Malladi Brothers @ Parthasarathy Swami Sabha 19/12/2018

[quietlistener]

Embar S Kannan - Violin
Palladam Ravi - Mridangam
B S Purushottam - Kanjira

1. parvata rAjakumAri - Sriranjani - MD; n@ sarvAnandamaya chakravAsini, followed by swaram
2. anupama guNAmbudhi - aThANA - T
3. ninuvinA sukhamu gAna - tODi - T; n@ rUpamu pratApamu Sara chApamu sallApamu, followed by some fantastic exchanges of swaram
4. Ahata sakala dOshE - hEmavati - misra jhampa - SriyAnanda nAtha (as announced by the brothers - one of the Sapta dhAtu kirtanams he has composed) - Alapana by Malladi Ravikumar, swaram @ pallavi
5. anyAyamu sEyakurA - kApi - T
6. darini telusukoNTi - suddha sAvEri - T (main piece with Alapana by Malladi Sreeram, n@ pallavi with swaram) followed by a very interesting Tani avartanam
7. sakala SAntikaramu - bahudAri - annamayya
8. unnai thudikka aruLtA - kuntalavarALi - pApanASam Sivan
-- list is incomplete.


Malladi Brothers and Embar Kannan share a great rapport. The swaram and neravel exchanges were fabulous. Heartfelt. In no part of the concert was bhavam compromised.

I loved the tOdi piece; not oft-sung. The sAhityam for that composition was so clear, you could write a notation off of their singing. Same with darini telusukoNTi. The elder brother remarked that they were going to keep to the meaning of the latter kriti in their rendition. And the pakkavadyam did justice to their rendition of the main piece by playing along wherever the meaning of the words needed for lines to be split accordingly. Eg: rAjita maNi gaNa bhUshaNi --- this line is usually clubbed with "mada gaja" while the sangatis are sung (and I have heard this sung multiple times in the past). The brothers did not add the last two words until they moved on to "rAja gamani" - which is what makes sense logically. So, all the charanam's sangatis were sung for simply the first 4 words. Similarly the end of the anupallavi, where the addition of the word "moksha" happened only when they went back to -darini telusukoNTi (the intention being that Tyagaraja swami's intent was to pray for mOksha-dari vs. adding the word backwards to the preceding anupallavi line : kumAruni sOdari dayApari.

I know this sounds mundane when you type it out. But it was lovely to listen to the kriti being rendered so soulfully. Palladam Ravi and B S Purushottham received a special word of appreciation from the Brothers after their Tani avartanam.

In all, a great two and a half hours. Pity I couldn't stay till the end!

[sureshvv]

Last piece before mangalam was a Narayana Theerthar kriti(Paramapurusham Madhurya) in Behag.