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Unique Concert Series in Madras
Subhashini Parthasarathy
Carnatic Vocalist
 
Dr. Nirmala Sundararajan, Dr. Subhashni ParthasarthyDr. Nirmala Sundararajan and Dr. Subhashni Parthasarthy, mother and daughter, are Carnatic vocalists. The duo plan to organise a series of monthly concerts called 'Thyagaraja Ragaratna Malika' at different places in Madras, where either of the duo will render compositions of Thyagaraja in all the ragas the composer handled.

In this column, Dr. Subhashini Parthasarathy says all about the thematic series that the duo has been organising...

"With concert opportunities dwindling for various reasons and due to concert duration being reduced from some four or six hours to a mere 90 minutes, artistes are rarely able to do full justice in presenting to the audience all that they have learnt. With this is view my mother Dr. Nirmala and I, presented several thematic concerts (1998-2000) in Madras. Now, we are planning to start yet another series - called Thyagaraja Ragaratna Malika - a series of monthly concerts at different places in Madras city where either of us will render compositions of Thyagaraja in all the ragas the composer handled. The first concert is this series featuring my mother was held on July 12 at Srinivasa Hall, Mylapore, Madras. The second will be presented by me on August 18 at Narada Gana Sabha, Madras In our previous Navagraha series, we presented nine concerts comprising 225 compositions in 200 ragas by nearly 100 composers.

Each concert commenced with the singing of Muthuswamy Dikshitar's Navagraha Kriti pertaining to the day of the week preceded by the sloka of that graha and concluded with the Mangalam specially invoking the graham. The entire programme was printed and given to the audience for ready reference.

The decoration of the hall, like kolam, the colour of flowers and the dress of the artistes were all chosen in accordance with the tradition laid out for the worship of the Navagrahas. At the concluding session a Navagraha homam was performed for 'World Peace'. The entire series was recorded in audio tapes and is available with us. This series attracted a good audience response. The audience was able to listen to the many rare ragas / compositions not usually handled in the regular concerts. At the concluding session, an audio cassette of 'Varadaraja Stavam' of Appayya Dikshitar rendered as ragamalika was released.

Divine love has been a theme for all lyricists from the age of Aham poetry (oldest Tamil literature) to the most modern times. Several composers have dealt with this theme (sringara rasa) in their compositions. Owing to the lack of time, musicians are not able to include many of these compositions in their concerts.

We conducted yet another series, 'Manoranjani' covering about 150 compositions in Nayika - Nayaka Bhava such as Padams, Javalis, Varnams, Ashtapadis, Tevaram, Tirupugazh, Divya Prabandam, Bhajans, songs of modern composers and so on.

Saint Tyagaraja was a prolific composer. According to the available data, he is said to have composed some 204 ragas.

He has chosen a few ragas to render a number of songs but he has rendered only one song in each of some ragas, which serve as guidelines and grammar for such ragas. Over the years, musicians have brought out practically all the ragas but the rare ones are mainly sung during Akandams (nonstop 24 hours or 48 hours singing) arranged for special occasions. As there are few vidwans capable of rendering in larger number of ragas, the rare ragas/songs can only be heard during Akandam during late hours.

The general public, listening to normal kutcheries do not get the opportunity to hear many of these songs. With this in mind, we earlier organised a series of monthly concerts on every 'Pushyam', the birth star of saint Thyagaraja.

The series entitled 'Thyagaraja Ragaratna Malika' included one composition in each of the ragas handled by Thyagsraja. The 13 kritis dealing with Sangita Sastra were also included in the series. The monthly concerts were titled after the 12 Chakra names in the Melakarta scheme and each concert highlighted one main raga in that Chakra. The last and the 13th concert entitled 'Sathguru Prabhavam' was a finale to the series comprising of compositions on the saint by various composers. We have also recorded the concerts and are willing to give the tapes to anyone who asks.

Now, we plan to organise the same series at different venues in Madras." Nirmala and Subhashini can be reached at 91-44-466 0068, Madras. Email:subhapartha@hotmail.com

 

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