M S Subbulakshmi and her music - Part 10: Neraval - Kamakoti Peetasthite

-

 

We will continue on MS's amazing neravals. Today, we take the Saveri krithi of Mysore Sadasiva Rao, 'sree kamakoti peetasthithe.'

MS takes up the line, 'kadamba vana nilaye, amba, kanjalochane bhavani.' Initially, she repeats the lines a few times before launching into the neraval. The very start of the neraval is captivating, with MS stretching some syllables, shortening some, and of course, the emotion she puts on the word, 'amba.' The gradual exploration of the raga in the higher reaches heightens the bhava aspect without falling into sentimentality. As a friend of mine remarked, "Her voice has a divine resonance," which is clearly seen in this neraval. Even though the neraval is not as long as you would hear in concerts, it is amazingly effective. This is because MS brings into play all her skills while singing neravals: brilliant tone of the voice, ability of her voice to reach for the skies, her skill at creating tension, sustaining and then resolving it, the vocal dynamics, clear diction and volume control. Much beyond all that is her ability to pour bhava into the singing. As to how she achieves it is still a mystery. Some singers can be good at volume control and vocal dynamics and understand the raga thoroughly. Yet, when it comes to bhava, almost everyone falls short. Again, we have to distinguish between an explicit declaration of the bhava and the natural and unsentimental bhava that MS adds to her renditions. That is why her neravals remain unmatched, 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

M S Subbulakshmi : Who misunderstood her?

-
Image
In the October 1st 2015 issue of Caravan, Vidwan T.M.Krishna wrote a lengthy article about M.S.Subbulakshmi titled, 'MS Understood' with the subtitle 'The Myths and Misconceptions around India's most acclaimed musician'.  This is a long read and spans 10 pages. You can read the complete article here Krishna, as his wont, makes lot of sweeping generalizations and hand waving arguments. I just want to react to a few aspects of his article. First, Krishna starts with a straw man, with some unknown singer stating that MS was a hoax. Then Krishna goes on to elaborate on how critics never considered MS to be a great singer and thought that she was just a singer with a ‘good voice’.  Krishna then traces MS’s origins and talks about how her music changed, how the society affected her and how she could not realize her complete potential and so on. You can read all that in the article. Once you have read the article you will understand what I am saying here more cle...
Read more

One song at a time - 24. Naadamaya E Lokavella

-
Image
(Dr.Rajkumar) "Does Rajkumar sing?" asked the assistant. The music director nodded, "Muthuraju? Yes, he sings." "So why don't we ask him to sing this song in the movie?" suggested the assistant. The music director wasn't sure but the assistant persisted. Finally the music director agreed, Dr.Rajkumar sang in that movie and as the cliche goes, the rest was history. The music director was G.K.Venkatesh and the assistant went by the name of Rasayya. He would later be rechristened by Panju Arunachalam as Illayaraja!!! During my school days I had a classmate who used to love Rajkumar's voice and would tell us that Rajkumar was a great singer. It was not until I moved to Bangalore that I first heard Dr.Rajkumar's voice and the first song that I heard was a stunner. That was 'Nadamaya E Loka'. Later I came to know that this song won Dr.Rajkumar, affectionately called 'Annavaru', the National Award for the best singer. T...
Read more

Ahiri: Raga that defines karunyam

-
Image
As I was writing the Punnagavarali post, I was very sure that I will have to immediately write about another similar raga, Ahiri. It is not that you cannot distinguish between Punnagavarali and Ahiri. Both have their unique identities but in many other facets, they are very similar to each other. Both Punnagavarali and Ahiri are janya ragas of the mighty Todi. Both are ‘karuna rasa pradhanam’ ragas. Both are supposed to be ragas with limited scope. Both of them are vintage ragas having been with us for ages. Both are very carnatic in nature, in the sense you don’t find them outside of Carnatic music. (S R Janakiraman in one lec-dem says, “Ragas of the type of Ahiri are the pride and glory of Carnatic music”.) Both have been treated in a similar way by the trinity. Both have interesting associations linked to them. If it was the linkage of snakes and magudi to Punnagavarali is interesting, the Ahiri linkage is even more interesting. It is said that if you sing Ahiri, you w...
Read more