"OVK = Trinity" Semmangudi!

Ponbhairavi · Post by **Ponbhairavi** » 27 Sep 2007, 11:07

The puzzle why OVK's compositions were neglected by our maestros has been engaging my attention. here is what I feel. .I am attempting an analysis to find out why. I am not a music professional and I have no bias
Let us consider the music scenario at the beginning of last century. There were essentially four types of music in vogue. The classical carnatic music performed in concerts at marriages and temples.( the occasions were not as many as there are today)The drama and cinema music which enjoyed tremendous popular support .Third the bhajanai Sampradaya music performed by bhagavathars and the music of dance performances. The classical carnatic music considered the other three as inferior and wanted to ostensibly keep away from them. It actually became oversensitive to this triple allergies. Unfortunately the works of OVK fell victim to these allergic reactions.

1-The cinema allergy
The cinema and drama music under the spells of SG Kittappa ,KBS, MK Thyagaraja Bhagavathar enjoyed extensive popularity; cinema songs were in the lips of all. The popularity of MKT eclipsed the names of even real maestros like GNB MSS who ventured into the silver screen The latter might have been capable of singing Charukesi raga alapana for 2 hours but the â€œManmatha leelaiyai venrar undoâ€

108talas · Post by **108talas** » 27 Sep 2007, 11:53

AlaipAyudE and pAlvazhiyum mukham are very popular for quite some time (5/6 decades).

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 27 Sep 2007, 19:50

Very nice logic Ponbhairavi. I agree with most of them (logic) though I do not think the reality w.r.t OVK will fit in !
I laughed my heart out on:

I had attended a Thiagaraja aradhanai in which the political celebrity of chief guest, victim of a genuine qui pro quo was boasting himself with reminiscences of having seen talked and moved closely with the bhagavathar for whom he thought the function was meant !! ).

since I have head it all too often

Joking apart, I have heard MKT sing Thyagaraja in concerts (too bad none of the recordings are available

) with remarkable clarity. He of course would sing mostly Tamil songs GKB, PSivan, Bharathy etc., He certainly would have sung OVK but the simple reason he and others didn't was because OVK's lyrics were not available until NKB and now Ravikiran unearthed the 'gold mine'!

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 27 Sep 2007, 20:04

[quote="Ponbhairavi"]Even a Maestro like MSS who did so much for the Tamil Isai movement and who laid so much emphasis on the bhakthi component of carnatic music(ref her Sangeetha Kalanidhi reception address at the MA )(let us also remember that in the later years she took jalra in her hands on the concert platform to render some â€œbhajansâ€

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 27 Sep 2007, 21:06

ponbhairavi,
Great points. Elitist, conservative and prejudicial factors governed concert performances in those decades. They still do, here and there!
To sing in tamizh in tamizh nADu shouldn't have been a problem, but it was. It still is, with some singers on the CM stage. The reason? Being influenced by one's socio-political views? I don't know. The shame of it is, just as language hasn't flourished in the language-oriented state (tamizh knowledge among the tamizh youth is pathetic--we have self-confessed young rasikAs to prove it). tamizh that one hears on the media reflects abysmal ignorance. Using an english word as root is common ('like' paNRadu).

OVK's vibrant verses would appeal to any age group. They have an immediacy and an antique quality at the same time. Add to it the musical richness too!

Ravi,
What you say is right. MSS sang for Radha and Anandi's dance performances (so did MLV for her daughter). Was it because Sadasivam wasn't keen on OVK, or was it one of those cases of his not being familiar with his songs? Otherwise, MSS would have sung them, I would think, given her wide range of songs in every language. She too suffered from singing the same old songs in concerts sometimes. Accommodating other language songs in the thukkada section ruled them out too, perhaps...

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 27 Sep 2007, 23:42

Arasi,
I am not sure that Smt. MSS did not sing them - I was asking for some of the individuals who were fortunate enough to attend/record these perfromances to help us out here.
MLV, of course, was one of the first to sing OVK's compositions - afterall, she did sing tAyE yaSOdA for sArangadhArA!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 27 Sep 2007, 23:54

I thought she sang it for the dance number in 'kuladeivam' !

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 28 Sep 2007, 02:17

I did not think/know that OVK compositions were that associated with dance music to gain a stigma in the CM world. How many of these and which ones?

Arun

Ponbhairavi · Post by **Ponbhairavi** » 28 Sep 2007, 10:58

MSS and MLV have sung for the dance performances of their own kith and kin.The great Mridangam maestro PMI has relaxed his stand for a relative..But exceptions have remained exceptions( as they did not recur thereafter) therefore they go to prove the rule.

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 29 Sep 2007, 00:01

ponbhairavi - Do you have more evidence as to how OVK compositions got associated with dance and thus another reason for them getting the short end of the stick?

keerthi_vasan · Post by **keerthi_vasan** » 29 Sep 2007, 20:08

Ponbairavi has made some valid points about dance music being one of the reasons for musicians shying away from OVK's compositions. But I don't think his point about MKT makes any sense. MKT's popularity among vidwans was such that many of them used to flock to his concerts. In the book that I just read by Chithraveena Ravikiran, I noticed a few different points which are equally compelling. Ravikiran says that G.N.B was one of the first to popularise OVK's works with his article in Kalki or Vikatan. My aunt distinctly remembers having heard GNB sing Brindavananilaiye in Rithigowla in one of his concerts but not much else. Ravikiran has devoted an entire chapter called Historical Perspectives, where he has talked about the 'understandable scepticism' that OVK's creations met with in 'certain quarters'. However, he has answered the queries that were raised in the same chapter.

But the most important part of the book for me was a sub section in the second or third chapter 'Handling Venkata Kavi's style' . This is a must read for all artists and listeners. Shri SRJ and Shri TNS have also given insightful notes in the first part of the book.

keerthi_vasan · Post by **keerthi_vasan** » 29 Sep 2007, 20:15

I forgot to summarise the main reason that I gleaned from the book viz vidwans simply did not know of OVK's highbrow weighty compositions till recently. They simply thought that his songs were colloquial songs with too many fast sections, which is why they categorised him as a minor composer. My personally take is that NKB's harikathas were excellent when appreciated purely from that perspective but his singing style may not have elevated OVK's compositions to concertworthiness like say, Semmangudi's did for Swathi Tirunal.

uday_shankar · Post by **uday_shankar** » 29 Sep 2007, 20:36

keerti_vasan,

Excellent and very important observation !

The way the kritis are presented goes a long, long way towards helping them get embraced by the vidvan as well as rasika community.

NKB did yeoman service to the cause of OVK by preserving and propagating the kritis but the task of analyzing and show-casing them properly falls on the shoulders of current and future generations of vidvans.

For now, vidvans like TNS and Ravikiran have taken up in earnest the task of properly presenting OVK's kritis and the results have been extremely positive.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 30 Sep 2007, 07:41

I would also add (late) Maharajapuram Santhaanam who did a marvelous job of bringing OVK live. Alas! I wish he had lived longer to have given a boost to the current efforts of Ravikiran.

Ponbhairavi · Post by **Ponbhairavi** » 30 Sep 2007, 13:29

Keerthivasan
I wish that SSI has done for OVK also what he did for Swathi Thirunal. This would have been more effective than his article. Again if "NKB's singing style had not elevated OVK'scompositions
to concertworthiness",GNB's Would have certainly done it because of his genius if only he had sung them more often.But alas , he too chose to give us an article (before 1950). The best tools in the hands of Maestros to popularize something with which they are really convinced is to sing them in their concerts as often as possible. (remember the Kurai onrum Illai of MSS). Writing articles is for lesser mortals who cannot demonstrate on the stage.Of course Ravi Kiran is doing both.
we are fortunate to have today in our midst a very senior veteran Vidhushi Smt DKP whose role in popularizing tamil songs with her impeccable diction is second to none. Does the book of Ravi Kiran elicit and record her views about the historical perspective of OVKs compositions in the first half of last century?