Kaalo Jagad Bhakshaka!!! A new year thought with Gangubai Hangal

On the New Year eve, I was listening only to Raga Marwa. Three renditions were with me, the first one was of Ustad Amir Khan, the second was of Vidushi Gangubai Hangal and one by Vidushi Malini Rajurkar. While writing on Raga Marwa, Walter Kaufmann said: ‘Marwa is the overall mood defined by the sunset in India, which approaches fast and this "unrushhing darkness awakes in many observers a feeling of anxiety and solemn expectation" (The Ragas of North India- 1968- Oxford and IBH Publishing)

But what Gangubai Hangal brought to my mind was not the feeling of anxiety or solemn expectation while the Sun sets on a year end day. It was the stunning lines of Shankaracharya where he called the eternal time as the one who eats all our inner and outer worlds….

Kaalo Jagad Bhakshaka!

Ayur nasyathi pasyatham prathi dinam,

Yathi kshayam youvanam,

Prathyayanthi gatha puna na divasaa,

Kalo jagat bakshaka,

Lakshmisthoya thanga banga chapala,

Vidhyuchalam jeevitham,

Asman maam saranagatham saranadha.

Twam raksha rakshaa dhunaa.

(Shiva Aparadha Kshamapana Stothram)

I wish you a very meaningful New Year

Gangubai Hangal: http://www.muzigle.com/track/raag-marwa-khayal-vilambit-ektaal#!track/raag-marwa-khayal-vilambit-ektaal

Madurai Somu and his ‘adhaara sruti’

Photo: Madurai Somasundaram with his Guru Chittoor Subramanya Pillai

What made this musician distinctive from his contemporaries? Why a listener always experiences a pensive, melancholic sruti as the base of his music? Whether his eventful life had derived this adhaara shruti? Yesterday night I have come across a rare video of his rendering. It is an excerpt of a Todi Tagalapana from a 1987 concert in Kanchipuram, two years before his demise at the age of 70.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou4qV5ATTnU&list=UUizoqbWqbuEStaK4LS9YhcQ&index=1&feature=plcp

You can also listen to a 3 hour live concert of Madurai Somu recorded in 1975 from this link:

http://chowdaiahandparvati.blogspot.com/2010/01/madurai-somu-music-that-stormed-mysore.html

A beautiful track from Pt. Rasiklal Andharia

Since 4 am, I have been listening this particular sound track again and again...I don't know which year this recording belongs to. Pt. Rasiklal Andharia is 1931 born and my guess says that this must be a recording of 1980s. Though his musical traditions place him in Kirana Gharana, this particular Madhukauns reminds me of Ustad Amir Khan of Indore Gharana. I request my friends to help me with more information or links on Pt. Rasiklal Andharia (From Gujarat, taught by his brother Pt. Babulal Andharia)
Please listen to this memorable Madhukauns by Pandit Ji:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVtJ3mb5Yng

R. Vedavalli: One Question and its Answer

If not innovation, what is the way for a system of arts to change and grow with the times?
R. Vedavalli: Those who are doing innovations do it only for name and fame, they cannot add anything to this great art.

Take any krithi that you have learnt, sing only that for 30 days. Let me tell you the swaroopam and rasam of your own singing of the same ragam and the same krithi will be very different at the end of the 30 days.

(courtesy: http://www.kutcheribuzz.com/features/interviews/vedavalli.asp)

Please listen to an outstanding one-hour concert by Smt. R. Vedavalli (a Doordarshan production)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTsJNAhVxkM

Music, Musicians and their noisy fame

December 26. In this early morning of Delhi winters I was listening to a soothing Jugalbandi of two great Ustads, Vilayat Khan and Bismillah Khan. I wanted a bit of meaningful silence within me and hence decided to tune to this track. How does a sound track bring silence to one's mind? Probably, it's my subjective experience though I am sharing that with you.
I remember an interesting saying by an eminent American writer of the 19th century, Oliver Wendel Holmes on music, musicians and their handling of 'noisy fame'... "A few can touch the magic string, and noisy fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!"
It is interesting to think how Ustads Bismillah Khan and Vilayat Khan had managed their noisy fame with out affecting their magical music.

http://gaana.com/#/streamalbums/Vilayet_Bismillah_19244

Mozart was his music Christ

I wish you a merry Christmas. Let me invite your attention to a diary noting on 20 September/2 October 1886 by Tchaikovsky, one of the greatest music western composers of all time. He was analyzing his reason to love Mozart than he loved Beethoven. He called Mozart, the music Christ…angelical with the child-like purity in his music whereas in Beethoven, Tchaikovsky found an amazing God, the creator, whom he even scared.

Here is his noting:

"I bow before the greatness of some of his works, but I do not love Beethoven. My attitude towards him reminds me of how I felt as a child with regard to God, Lord of Sabaoth. I felt (and even now my feelings have not changed) a sense of amazement before Him, but at the same time also fear. He created heaven and earth, just as He created me, but still, even though I cringe before Him, there is no love. Christ, on the contrary, awakens precisely and exclusively feelings of love. Yes, He was God, but at the same time a man. He suffered like us. We are sorry for Him, we love in Him His ideal human side. And if Beethoven occupies in my heart a place analogous to God, Lord of Sabaoth, then Mozart I love as a musical Christ. Besides, he lived almost like Christ did. I think there is nothing sacrilegious in such a comparison. Mozart was a being so angelical and child-like in his purity, his music is so full of unattainably divine beauty, that if there is someone whom one can mention with the same breath as Christ, then it is he. […] It is my profound conviction that Mozart is the highest, the culminating point which beauty has reached in the sphere of music. Nobody has made me cry and thrill with joy, sensing my proximity to something that we call the ideal, in the way that he has […] In Mozart I love everything because we love everything in a person whom we truly love. Above all I love Don Giovanni, as it was thanks to this work that I found out what music is. Until then (till the age of 17) I had known nothing apart from pleasant Italian semi-music. Of course, whilst I do love everything in Mozart, I won't claim that every minor work of his is a masterpiece. No! I know that any one of his sonatas, for example, is not a great work, and yet I love every sonata of his precisely because it is his – because this musical Christ touched it with his radiant hand"

Please listen to the famous composition Requiem by Mozart presented by Karl Bohm, who is considered to be one of the greatest symphonic conductors of 20^th century

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqkMbk8eX6Y

Swati Tirunal lyrics lamenting on child sexual abuse

I was listening to Aluthur Brothers singing the Saindhavi raga Javali composition of Swati Tirunal 'Itu Saahasamulu Yaala Naapai' . I dont know whether any other composition against child sexual abuse has been written in Carnatic music.

As my little understanding goes about the meaning of the lyrics, here a little 'devadasi' girl is requesting an adult male to not approach him with a sexual desire....

If you see the Bharatanatyam video links that is given below, you could follow it better.

However please do not miss the rendering of Alathur Brothers

1. Alathur Brothers: http://www.raaga.com/player4/?id=237407&mode=100&rand=0.597643835755531
   
2. Bharatanatyam:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIeP-EKjeXQ
3. tenth minute of the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyTUsiz34pM
   

Music, Manik Verma and the idea of consciousness

Smt. Manik Verma, versatile singer of Kirana Gharana was only 51 years when she passed away in 1977. While listening to a soothing Abhogi vilambit rendering of the great singer I was recollecting what Dr. Ashok Ranade wrote about his visit to the ailing artiste who was in coma…

“ In her last illness she was in a critical condition – almost in a coma. I went to see her but there was no hope that she would respond to what we were saying. But suddenly some relative mentioned it and we hummed something. Her toes responded in rhythm to the music! So ingrained was music in her personality that one felt like simultaneously crying and happily exclaiming at the miracle!”

( Page 361- Some Hindustani musicians, they lit the way, Ashok Da. Ranade)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c78OX1klntI

What happens when Sanjay Subramanyan sings for a commercial release?

Once Sanjay Subramanyan, eminent Carnatic musician of the new generation was talking about his relation with the audience. He says that first of all, he sings for himself and the audience comes to his mind only as a second preference. To him it is an aggregate process, where at the first instance the artiste creates music, then the music travel to the rasikas, then the response comes from the listener. He said “ So I cannot think about the listeners before singing”. But once the vibrations start coming from the audience, it is an experience to live…he feels. He said: “There are days when it does not happen…when I know I am not doing a good job. There are days it happens in abundance”

I would like to believe that when he was singing this beautiful Tamil composition ‘Chandiran Ozhiyil Avele Kanden’ in Malayamarutham ragam, his composite process of singing as a blend of himself and the rasikas was at its best…

But my question is….then how one sings in a studio for a commercial release? What happens to the composite process there?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78PYv37RiK8&feature=related