The (musically) Lean Season

From Ariyakudi to Semmangudi:

Mudra, an organization that promotes understanding of Carnatic music, organized an audio-visual presentation with the above title, last Sunday. 15 stalwarts of carnatic music: their birth, their musical talents, their contribution to carnatic music, and brief biographies were to be the subject of this 2.5 hour talk , presumably with photographs, footage, and audio recordings. Ramesh, Rajani and I thought that a visit to the Bhartiya Vidhya Bhavan, at the very heart of Mylapore, would make an enjoyable evening.

A packed house awaited us when the program began promptly at 6 p.m. The small hall was overflowing with young and old. People were sitting on the stairs, on the floor, and standing outside the hall, hoping to get in. What a disappointment the evening was to prove. Radha Bhaskar and Mudra Bhaskar had not done their homework. It was almost as if they had scanned the pictures from CD and cassette covers, and magazines, found in their house, and added 2 minute-recordings from their collections at home, and put together a PowerPoint presentation that ended up having an amateur quality rather than a scholarly one.

If one were expecting wonderful pictures of the artists, it certainly wasn't the case. It began promisingly enough with Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar. Several candid photographs of his early days and performances were a treat to the eyes. Madurai Main Iyer and ML Vasanthakumari each had 3 and 2 pictures respectively repeating themselves through the 15-minute oratory! GN Balasubramanian, a musician who had seen a career in the movies, had about 4 pictures to his piece. The Bhaskars had not done their homework - surely All India Radio, the Music Academy, and The Hindu would have, in their respective archives, outstanding photographs that could have been used for this presentation?

The audio portion of this "multi-media" presentation was not any less disappointing. If Madurai Mani Iyer was renowned for his truly extemporaenous delivery of kalpanaswaras, would not a segment of that, singing his famous Charukesi, or Mohanam or Begada, or Kapi, been the more appropriate choice? If Musiri Subramania Iyer's neraval was the hallmark of his music, could we not have been treated to 2 minutes of his neraval from Entaninne varninuthu sabribhagaya? (I was left mesmorised by a recording of Musiri's kalpanaswaram in Thodi one afternoon, where, for a rupaka thalam, he sang about 20 avarthanams of 3, 5 and 7 swara combinations.)

The line-up of the artists covered also left me a bit bemused. Maharajapuram Santhanam came before MD Ramanthan, Voleti, and ML Vasanthakumari?

Dr. Durga, the attending expert musicologist was the bright light of the program. She spoke about her personal experiences with these musicians, for her home in Tanjavur, was a veritable music house that hosted all musicians. She had learnt from Maharajapuram Vishwanatha Iyer, who would sing Poorvi Kalyani for a few minutes, and ask her to have a go at it. She spoke about how Madurai Mani Iyer adhered to sruti so much that he would even stop mid stream in a pallavi or anupallavi to check his alignment to sruti, and about his truly extempore swara delivery that did not involve korvais and calculations that seems to dominate today's kalpanaswara renditions. She talked about how carnatic music used to be a more manodharma based music, not krithi-based, as it has come to be known today, of how RTPs were the norm of every concert in the old days, of the vengala koral = bell-like voice (?) of Chembai, of the modulated rendering of sahithyam by Musiri. All the little anecdotes she shared gave her audience a little more personal insight about each of these great musicians. It was a delight to hear her speak.

But alas, I was so distressed by the poorly researched audio and visual portion of the presentation, that I walked out - leaving a little more breathing room for the elderly ladies I was sandwiched between - even before my favorites Voleti and DK Jayaraman were covered.