Music And Movies

Thukkadas or post-tani pieces have their own fan base, and everyone from the past masters to the popular stars of today have their fans eating out of their hands for certain favourite pieces. Whether it be 'vellai tamarai' and the English Note of Madurai Mani Iyer, 'radha sametha krishna' of GNB, the slokhas and 'sapasyat kausalya' of Semmangudi, 'saranagan marugava' and 'srichakra raja simhasaneshwari' of Santhanam, all the way till the abangs of Ranjani-Gayathri and 'thunbam nergaiyil' of Sanjay Subramaniam, concert goers have enjoyed these pieces and associate them with the appropriate artist. While each of them had their own popular set of thukkadas, MS probably had the maximum number of post-tani pieces that were eagerly awaited by the audience. She was the undisputed Queen of the thukkadas. MS's thukkadas were soaked in bhakthi, and many of these pieces impacted people, not just due to the music, but because MS's personality...

After I posted the first part of Part 12, a good friend pointed out that when talking MS and Annamacharya krithis, we cannot miss out on 'Dolayam' and 'Ksheerabdhi Kanyakaku.' It is very true, because MS has made these krithis as standards with her amazing renditions.  Here is MS singing 'dolayalam', a Khamas-based Annamayya krithi. Hear the amazing precision and the sense of layam in the krithi. It charms you immediately. Let's now hear, 'ksherabdhi kanyakaku', a Kurunji raga krithi of Annamacharya. Again, a song that gains so much from MS's voice texture, vocal dynamics and the deep-rooted bhakthi that she conveys.  When the Venkateshwara Suprabhatam LP was released, it was an instant hit, and even to date, it is played in homes and temples all across India. What is more relevant to this article is the B side of this LP, which contained two krithis that also became extremely popular due to MS singing those krithis. The first of them was the Swa...

We have looked at MS's handling of great krithis in two major ragas, Todi and Khambhoji. In this part, we will look at MS's handling of a Tyagaraja krithi in the raga Shankarabaranam. The krithi is the excellent 'emi neramu," which we unfortunately don't hear much. (It is not a recent phenomenon. I have not heard it in concerts over the last few decades, at least.) Once again, the choice of the kalapramanam is in keeping with the majestic structure of the song and the raga, Sankarabharanam, that shines when sung at a slow pace. The words are wonderful, and I want you to observe how she phrases the sentences. The phrasings in this song are a delight, both in the anupallavi and the charanam.  The way Tyagaraja sets up the charnam shows us what a great 'vaggeyakara' he was. The 'vaak' (words) and the 'geya' (music) merge perfectly. The words fit perfectly into the rhythm, and how they are phrased makes life easy for the singer and the percussio...

In this article, we will again look at a grand krithi replete with challenging sangathis and an innumerable number of them.  Just like 'O Rangasayee' that we heard in the last part, this song too is built brick by brick, sangathi by sangathi, and slowly revealing the grandeur of one of Carnatic music's majestic ragas: the mighty Todi. We must observe that the sangatis, especially in the anupallavi, can enthuse the musicians to such an extent that they would go over the top, and sometimes the music tends towards cacophony, with the violinist, mridangist and if present, the upa paaka vadhiyam like ghatam or kanjeera joining the din. Given the structure of the sangatis, which demand a lot from your voice and are crowd-pleasing in their construction, it is no wonder we get to hear some excess in this krithi.  In this rendition of MS, we hear more than just the voice control and precision we seek from her; we also hear her aesthetic decisions. There is a sense of quietude even i...

In this second article of this series, we once again look at a Khambhoji kriti of Tyagaraja. Tyagaraja visited Srirangam on his way to Madras and stayed at Srirangam for some time. During that time he composed five krithis on the Lord of Srirangam, collectively called the Sriranga Pancaratnam. The krithis are: O Ranga Sayee (Khambhoji), 'Vinarada Na Manavi' (Devagandhari), 'Chootamu Rare' (Aarabhi), 'Raju Vedale' (Todi) and 'Karunachoodavayya' (Saranga). The grandest of these is 'O Rangasayee' whose majesty towers as high as the gopuram of Rangan.  MS chooses a languid pace that enhances the majesty of the krithi. Observe the perfection of the sangatis in the pallavi. The sangatis are built so grandly, brick by brick, initially simple, slowly adding complexity before demanding great breath control to execute them. Observe the jaaru sangatis at 'raa raadha,' starting deep down and climbing smoothly like an eagle gliding up. The breath cont...

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...

I don’t need to tell you that I am going to speak about Punnagavarali do I? Even young kids in South India associate this raga with snakes and snake charmers. I don’t know how this association happened or when it happened but it is now a well-entrenched association. Even if the person listening to this raga doesn’t know the name of the raga, he / she will immediately exclaim, “Isn’t this the same raga as played for magudi?” Punnagavarali is an easily identifiable raga. Maybe it is this association with snakes and snake charmers that have pushed Punnagavarali to the later part of the concert and the raga is generally regarded to be a ‘minor’ raga, used more in ragamalikas. This is not a true reflection on the scope and depth of the raga. Our musical trinity demonstrated the depth, grandeur and the variety this raga provides through their krithis. Let me talk about that now. Muthuswami Dikshitar is like a strict college professor, a great scholar, who has indepth knowledge of...

(Ustad Abdul Karim Khan) We saw earlier in this series how Gurudev Tagore was inspired by Muthuswamy Dikshtar and composed a song based on Dikshitar's "meenakshi me mudham dehi". One more great personality from North, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan was also so enamoured by Carnatic music that he learnt and recorded a few krithis!! You will understand why this is something unique if you know about Ustad Abdul Karim Khan. He was a great musician and was, what the Hindustani people call, the 'khalifa' of Kirana Garana. You can understand the impact his style had on Hindustani music by looking at the 'shisya parampara' of his gharana. Sawai Gandharva, Hirabai Barodekar, Bhimsen Joshi, Gangubhai Hangal, Sureshbabu Mane, Basavaraj Rajguru. All of whom were top class and influential musicians. Abdul Karim Khan was a revered musician of those times and it is indeed surprising to know that such a man took pains to learn and render krithis in a musical form which was qui...