2009 Madras Music Season: Mukharis of Sikkil Gurucharan and Prasanna Venkatraman
Musiri Subramania Iyer used to revel in mukhAri rAgAm. The madhyamam of rAgam mukhAri is a special one. It is neither that of bEgadA or that of shankarabharanam. Nedanuri Krishnamurthy has an exemplary understanding of this madhyamam, when he sings. One can listen to him speak about this rAgam and the special madhyamam in his interview with Ravikiran for the commercial album Karunyam – Mukhari – Volume 1 – Ragam Tanam Pallavi. Here is a good discussion on mukhAri archived in the Carnatica newsletter.
This music season 2009 I was fortunate to listen to this rAgam in two instances, both from young musicians who had good voice and caliber and took this rAgA for AlApanais (expositions).
The first one was from Sikkil Gurucharan.
Sikkil Gurucharan has a pleasant rasp-free voice and good looks (I am prompted to add this by his female fans who kept clicking their mobile cameras during the concert). And until now, he has a no nonsense approach to present a concert. No oohs and aahhs in praise of his own singing; no unnecessary waiting time in-between songs; no speech bordering lec-dems during a music concert; no sishyA entourage behind him on stage and so on.
Before venturing into mukhAri AlApanai, Sikkil Gurucharan set his concert up nicely. I have listened to him some years back in a house concert and was happy to see he has definitely improved. On that day he wasn’t cowed by the presence of Umayalpuram Sivaraman on the mridangam (who gave good support) and was confident to deliver a concert that held the audience with the singing alone. He started off nervously and bulbed a few phrases in the short shankarAbharanam AlApanai for the varnam, but grew in confidence once he ventured into the next song, ikanaina in pushpalatikA rAgam.
A good competent neraval (with forgivable minor bulbs of shades of overlaps with sri and manirangU) in brisk pace followed by swarams set me up for the mukhAri to follow (in between there was hariharaputram in vasanthA). Here is the AlApanai clip.
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I did try taking a video of this AlApanai, but was asked to stop. So here is whatever I managed until then.
[Disclaimer: These short video or audio clips are provided here only in the hope of enticing more audience for Carnatic music. No personal commercial gain is sought or thought.]
The song that followed is entani nE vArnintunu shabari bhAgya of tyAgarAjA in rUpaka thAlam. It was a sub-main item in the concert.
That mukhAri is a sOga rAgam (rAgam evoking sadness) is the result of movies and theater of the recent decades, Tamil movies in particular. One can realize this upon understanding the meaning of entani nE vArnintunu shabari bhAgya, one of the stellar compositions in mukhAri by tyAgarAjA. A song showering praise on shabari and her blessed fortune to attain mOkhsam at the feet of Lord rAmA couldn’t have been set in a sad rAgam. In fact, the feeling is the exact opposite – one of joyous exhilaration.
The main item of this concert was in kalyAni rAgam, which I didn’t listen to, although while listening to the rAga AlApanai in the canteen, I could hear Gurucharan was attempting shruthi-bedam in kalyAni and singing sudhadhanyAsi (removing ni and ma in kalyAni and singing from dhA). Good attempt, although I am not too favorable of shruthi bEdams.
Hope to listen to him more in the coming years.
***
The next mukhAri I listened to was by Prasanna Venkatraman.
Upcoming talent Prasanna is certainly a cut above most of the young and upcoming musicians. Even the mOhanam he sang on that day didn’t contain any cheap phrases that lightens the rAgam.
I couldn’t involve myself with the pUrvikalyAni, not because of any defect of singing by Prasanna, but solely because it was my 11th or 12th hearing occurrence for the season. After a point, the brain shuts off to the music. Only drab objective swarams remain. So here is one observation. Prasanna seems to use mds too much in the AlApanai and very less pdps phrase. My knowledgeable friend educates me this is a recent phenomenon and even forty years back, it was the other way round, while doing AlApanais for pUrvikalyAni. I wasn’t around forty years back to listen to live concerts. But even the song Prasanna chose to sing, satrE vilagi irum pillAi, in its anupallavi (natravarum puriyum…) seems to be set in pdps phrase and not in mds phrase. So I tend to agree with my friend for now.
Although pUrvikalyAni was the sub-main, I liked more his “filler” nIrajAkshi kAmAkshi in . For a vilamba kAla (slow tempo) song, Prasanna was able to sing it with enough yearn without descending downright into pathos. The following relatively fast paced vinarAdhara manavi set me up nicely to listen to the main item of the concert, mukhAri.
Here is the audio clip of the AlApanai by Prasanna.
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He was sincere in his mukhAri effort and certainly a cut above average. A minor flip one could observe is the rushed tara sthayi sancharams near the end. Perhaps he got inhibited of the concert time constraint. It left me with a feeling of wanting more. I would rate this, certainly good, mukhAri AlApanai effort as a cut below his own marvelous attempt of the rAgA last year at the sAstri hall. There too, as here, I listened to him sing Muripemu galigegadA rAmA san mininuta karivaradA of tyAgarAja as the kirthana that followed.
After this concert Prasanna jokingly observed he is singing mukhAri every time I attend his concert. I don’t complain.
One minor downside: His voice seem to thin out after a substantial part of the concert, as it happened after the thani in this concert. If this is not a one-off instance, he may need to attend to this. He is bound to be called for the lengthier slots in the coming music seasons where voice stamina will be demanding and unforgiving.
[Disclaimer: The short video and audio clips in this note are provided only in the hope of enticing more audience for Carnatic music. No personal commercial gain is sought or thought.]
Related posts:
- 2009 Madras Music Season: rAgam nIlamani in nagaswaram and veena
- 2009 Madras Music Season: Parassala Ponnammal at Music Academy
- 2009 Madras Music Season: Concert List
- 2008 Music Season – Bests from my Concert List
- 2008 Dec Music Season – Concert List
but on that day teh best concert at academy was menon’s really wonderful and the worst was that of aruna sairam.i wonder what pallavi she sang and why with all her talent she has to make a mockery of some bits and pieces and call it pallavi it was like kamals dasavatharam a menaingless mixture
I enjoyed reading your analytical. Can you please post details about tm krishna’s academy concert.