Pantula Rama@VaniMahal On Dec 17th,2018
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Vocal : Pantula Rama
Violin : MSN Murthy
Mrudangam : Anantha R Krishnan
Ghatam : Trichy Murali
Concert Type : Nirvana - no concert to follow / Ticketed Concert
Day/Duration : Monday/ 2 hours and 30 mins
Hall/sabha : Vani Mahal-Main Hall/ sri Thyaga brahma gana saba
01. valaci valaci -navaragamaliga starting with kedaram to sree - Patnam
02. rA rAmA yenti (R,S) - asAveri - T
4 mins alapana and 2 mins violin return
6 mins swaras
03. anupama guNambuthi -atAnA- T
04. nenarunchara nApai ni chala(R,S) - simhavAhini -T
6 mins alapana and ?? mins of violin return
6 mins swaras
05. kAna vendAmO(R,S) - shree ranjani - PSivan
4 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return
4 mins swaras
06 . ambA neelAmbari(R) - neelAmbari - Tanjore Ponniah Pillai
5 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return
07A. RTP in shanmughapriya - Single Raga
taalam - chatushra triputa mishra gati
19 mins alapana inclusive of 7 mins violin return
non metered taanam for 7 mins
REst of the 46 mins pallavi was for neraval and swaras
Pallavi line --->>> sa ri ga ma pa da ni thAm thAm namAmi shivakAntham! shAntham mandasmitham mrudula swantham
07B. tani for 14 mins
08. muddugarE yashodhE - kurinji - Annamacharya
09. nee nAma roopamulaku.She usually sings more phrases but she sang bit more than the usual closure - sowrAshtram-T
Vanimahal is a lovely sabha . Commercially they are heading in the direction of the mambalam sibling krishna gana sabha main hall. I entered and brought the ticket of Rs 300 which was the minimum ,they jacked by 100 since last year or two. I myself upgraded after buying ticket as there was not many folks to tell me hey you have occupied my seat.
Vidushi pantula is one of my favorite female artists there is a level headed thinking and more importantly her throat and nabhi finds a particular pitch that suits her day .She has successfully trained not to strain the vocal apparatus . The bonus of hearing pantula was also to hear the spectacular Anantha R krishnan, in the last two concerts i went to hear the main artist keeping anantha as the drive ,but in this concert anantha was not the main drive.
Pantula could have started puntual keeping up with the anagram puntula but there was a bit of 3 to 4 mins delay which kind of ate possibly the last thillana which may be she would have sung if she had started on dot time. She kept the time of 9pm as exact closure.
Her start in valaci was crisp , the balance of mrudangam and violin was not yet there the first half from kedaram to begada gave way to imbalance of sound .With kambOdhi second speed, the follow up of yadukula kambodhi and shree raga cittaswaras etc in varnam , the balance of sound was quickly regained .It is nice we did not lose varnam to sound imbalance.
What a lovely asaveri Pantula brought in. Her voice and aroma of asaveri was elegant .She sang a lovely alapana .I did not ever get confused with sudda seemanthani . It was a gentle asaveri that characteristically has deep undercurrent rAga Bhavam.Sadhguru with rA rAma yenti is just a lovely krithi. Swaras were measured konjam bit of nayana pidi and she did get into the groove of excellence . Anupama gunAmbuthi was the tempo changing krithi .The atana after asaveri was a great choice but Pantula did not give that great excellence in producing questioning bhAvam of atana.I was only enjoying anantha bit more there in atanA krithi.
The Next alapana was bit of a bonker , i knew it was not sarasangi but i also did not know that it was simhavAhini alapana. With heavy ingredient of sarasangi to my imperfect ears i also got a lakshya feel of a very slight nalinakanthi in lakshya feel. Pantula announced the raga simhavahini and she came up with the most popular simhavahini krithi of Thyagaraja -nenarunchara nApai .The swaras were quite well done and fairly detailed.
Few Andhra/Telengana vidwans/vidushis the usual rule is they struggle with thamizh songs.Many sing like a telugu to tamil dubbing movie. PantulA took a nice thamizh krithi kAna vendAmo in shree ranjani after a distilled shreeranjani alapana which was very aesthetic. Shree ranjani swaras with some nice thamizh poruttam lines kAna vendAmo gopuram , vinnuyar goPuram, ayyanai etc gives so much of musical spacing to give more oomph of shreeranjani.Sivan of papanasam gave run for money for all the trinities with this kAna vendAmO in shree ranjani. After little aggressive raga shree ranjani she tried to give a cool feel with ambA neelambari . The rendition was neat but did not have that great violin support.
If every musician has a butterfly in the stomach feeling even I as a rasika have every right to have the same butterfly in the stomach feeling . After Meenambika caterers serving me the fuel , my mind was racing post a little sedate asaveri, neelambari and with no Prati madhyama yet ,I was definitely thinking it is going to head towards melakartha 65 with may be kamalAbama bhajare or talli ninnu etc. But I was glad when vidushi pantula announced that for the main she is going to take up Shanmughapriya RTP.
Shanmughapriya is one of the best ragas for RTP . Pantula voice throw is not so great to accommodate the lofty facets of this raga.But she organized so beautifully and conquered shanmughapriya with her right planning and more importantly extraordinary pallavi line (I am assuming this pallavi is her own)
Raga alapana was bit circling as she kind of squatted little too much in madhyamakAla,but nevertheless well done. taanam could have beeen metered by Anantha but sad it was only non metered . Taanam was well done with nice return by MSN moorthy who was much better in shanmughapriya. Pallavi line was intelligent with lines . The lines were sa ri ga ma pa da ni thAm thAm namAmi shivakAntham! shAntham mandasmitham mrudula swantham. The pallavi line had a lot of laya vyavahaaram and laya did not kill raga bhavam at all. Nice trikaalam and also with some neraval lines getting split judiciously and at times dropping one or two key words here and there added more raga bhavam.She created this pallavi (assumption) and she also corrected her creation with few censors with few words trimmed in the fly. Swaras were only in shanmughapriya , i would not say it was way too much expansive and it did not cover the gamut of this ocean shanmughapriya. She managed it well. She ended with muddugare Yashodekku quite frankly there are few krithis in my head which are more devotional than actually core carnatic , this muddugare is one of that , i am not a fan .
MSN murthy and Pantula indeed practice well for every concert . Personally i felt if MSN murthy adopts an approach of letting go off his bow and not play that continuously that can add bit more charm . Atleast i felt that in neelambari where excess bowing was the culprit . IN shanmughapriya he addded charm and it was a great work by this lovely musical and real life couple . For first few numbers especially the varnam, the volume of violin was bit high but still ok, he did not ever rob pantula's virtuosity.
Percussion double was a sure joy to me . Anantha gets the mechanics of how angam can meet and give a sustained mrudhu sound . He did play well is the least understatement i can make ,he focuses with precision the RIGHT left-valandhanthai AND right-thoppi balance with clock like precision. For few patterns in shanmughapriya he is more like a bullet train of Japan you just notice the speed only in speedometer but the audience never gets killed by his speed . Trichy Murali is aggressive and gave real jolly good support to Anantha , he finds patterns with right Hits in the clay and is not a silent supporter.
Pantula continues to impress me with her aesthetics. I am glad i took off bit early from work to reach Mambalam sabha on a working day which is tough.
Overall an excellent concert for 2 hours and 25 mins.
Pantula Rama@VaniMahal On Dec 17th,2018
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Jigyaasa
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Re: Pantula Rama@VaniMahal On Dec 17th,2018
This is from Adi Shankaracharya's Shyamala navaratnamAlikA stotram:
सिरगमपधिनरतां तां वीणासंांतकांतहतां तां ।
शांतां मृदुलवांतां कु चभरतातां नमािम िशवकांता