The 1993 Madras Music Season or How I Spent My Winter Vacation
(* Warning : People who have a low tolerance for personal opinions and
demand justification and so on are requested to find other articles to
read and flame. *)
After a gap of seven years, I finally managed to visit Madras exactly in
time for the December season. Full of excitement and armed with lists of
artists I wanted to listen to, I landed in Madras about two days before
the season officially started ( at the Music Academy ).
Even before listening to any concerts, I had one musical item on my
agenda. About a year ago, the SRUTI Foundation had convened a study
group to analyze the music of the late GNB (the great
G.N.Balasubramaniam) - some of the members of the group were
N.Pattabhiraman ( Editor, SRUTI magazine ), Vidwans S. Rajam, Calcutta
Krishnamurthy and N.Ramanathan and Vidushis Sulochana Pattabhiraman and
Ritha Rajan. The group then presented its findings in a 6-hr long public
function at the Music Academy. For the benefit of unlucky people like
me, the foundation had thankfully recorded the whole event on video. On
Dec. 16, they played the whole video at the Music Academy. It was one of
the best events I attended (the other being the mArgazhi mAsa bhajana
conducted near the Kapaliswarar temple - more on that later) - imagine
hearing 6 hours of GNB's recordings along with experts pointing out the
special features of his music. They covered various features of his
music such as AlApana, niRaval, swaraprasthAra,.... I wish I could have
purchased the videos (2 of them for Rs. 750 each + costs for conversion
to US system seemed too much for my budget ).
I had categorized the artists I wanted to listen to into three
categories : The new generation which has been making waves, the very
old artists ( who may not be alive till the time I visit Madras again )
and the relatively unknown people (some of who had been recommended to
me). On the whole, I avoided artists who one gets to hear in the U.S.
pretty often - like Seshagopalan, Sankaranarayanan, U.Srinivas,...
Among the first category were Sanjay Subramaniam, Vijay Siva, Unni
Krishnan, Sowmya, Papanasam Ashok Ramani, Bombay Jayashree, Nithyashree,
Neyveli Santhanagopalan, Balaji Sankar, and the Priya sisters. I
listened to most of them atleast on two different occasions. In the busy
season schedule doing that was pretty tough - so some escaped me. Most
of them were pretty impressive. Among the ones that I liked quite a lot
were Papanasam Ashok Ramani (grandson of Papanasam Sivan - who won the
Music Academy's best junior vocalist (male ) award), Sowmya and Neyveli
Santhanagopalan. The only ones among the above list I didn't like were
the Priya Sisters - I couldn't figure out how they have achieved the
kind of fame they seem to have.
On the whole, the crowd seemed to be very competent technically. I did
feel that many of them hadn't marked out a style for themselves and that
many were still searching. There seemed to be some amount of
cross-fertilization going on - though in my opinion that was not always
good. For example, compared to what I had heard of her on tape and from
others, Sowmya sang much faster and used much more brikas and so on. My
impression was that it may have been partially because of how everyone
else sang and partially as a result of what it takes to draw crowds or
be applauded at concerts. Some of the uniform features I noticed were
the (often excessive) use of brikas in alapanas and the "necessary" use
of korvais in swaraprastara. As a friend of mine said, even Madurai Mani
Iyer, had he been alive today, would have to sing korvais to draw an
applause from the crowd. I was also disappointed with most of the
artists singing only the fairly standard, well known compositions. In a
raga like Kharaharapriya, Thyagaraja has composed about 14-15 kritis.
And yet one only hears chakkani rAjA, rAma nee samAnamevaru and on rare
occasions pakkALa nilabadi. If this is the fate of Thyagaraja, imagine
the fate of other composers. Apart from the "boredom" of hearing
familiar compositions and predictable sangatis, most of the artists
don't seem to realize that it is inevitable that hearing (say) mA jAnaki
in Kamboji, one's mind immediately goes to Madurai Mani Iyer and
compares (usually unfavourably) their version with his. The current
generation of singers have much better facilities available when
compared to their predecessors. There are plenty of tapes and recordings
available. Books with notation are available. Above all thanks to
corporate sponsorships and such like, there are many more concerts and
artists are better paid for each concert. Most of these artists are
therefore able to earn a living through music. That being so, it is a
bit unfortunate that they don't seem to spend enough time to learn and
propagate rarer kritis.
Coming to the other artists, I was fortunate to hear S.Kalyanaraman's
last music academy concert. There were no concerts of Sandhyavandanam
Srinivasa Rao scheduled - so unfortunately I couldn't hear him, though I
very much wanted to hear him. I mention both these artists since both of
them died last month. Some relatively unknown artists I heard and was
impressed with were Tanjavur Sankara Iyer ( the well known composer ),
Smt. RamA Ravi and Smt. Sugandha KALamegham.
The other very enjoyable musical event I attended (for about 15 days)
was the daily bhajana conducted near the Kapaliswarar temple in
Mylapore. This is conducted every day during the month of mArgazhi
(approx. Dec. 16 - Jan. 15). It has been going on for about 60 years
now - since the time of Papanasam Sivan. After his demise, Mani Iyer (a
disciple of Papanasam Sivan) and Smt. Rukmini Ramani (Sivan's daughter)
carried it on. Mani Iyer died a few years ago and since then the bhajana
has been continued by Smt. Rukmini Ramani, Sithalapati (spelling??)
Balasubramaniam (Balu mAma - a mAnasika disciple of Sivan) and Papanasam
Ashok Ramani (Sivan's grandson). Many prominent artists come once in a
while to sing there. While he was alive, D.K.Jayaraman used to come
every year (usually on new year's day) and sing many of the Sivan
compositions he helped popularize.
The bhajana (not a bhajana in the usual sense of the term - i.e. a group
of people singing in a chorus - and certainly not in the sense of people
singing bhajans) usually starts around 6 AM and proceeds slowly around
the Mylapore tank with frequent stops on the way. During these stops
people sing (usually alone or occasionally with others joining them)
kritis of composers like Sivan, Kotiswara Iyer, Gopalakrishna Bharati,
etc. Occasionally one hears a Thyagara kriti or a Dikshitar kriti. The
bulk of the compositions sung are usually Sivan compositions. One can
get to hear rare compositions of the master - the way he has composed
them. I must have heard atleast 50 - 100 compositions I had never heard
before. I was glad to see Ashok Ramani continuing the tradition despite
having to sing in the Music Festival. Though, of late, the traffic
around there has become pretty loud (in general I think there should be
a moratorium on horns in Madras - atleast during the music festival), it
is a very peaceful atmosphere in general and it is quite an experience
to hear traditional Carnatic music in that setting. One can only imagine
how things would have been when Sivan himself was alive. The people (5 -
25 in number usually) who come to listen are keen rasikas (including
yours truly :-). One great treat was to hear the old timers such as
BAlu mAma tell humorous stories of the musicians of yore. I really wish
more people would come and take part in this annual event.
On the whole, this was perhaps one of the best visits to Madras I have
had in the last few years.
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