I went, I listened, and left depressed. I am talking about this much-hyped concert that happened on Saturday.
Indian music icons Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, M Balamurali Krishna and L Subramanian will come together to perform on a single platform on March eight in the city.
It was supposed to be the first-ever jugalbandi of its kind, a conglomeration of giants, a meeting of the icons… and it was just that: a meeting.
First off, I’m against any “timed” concert. By its very nature, Indian classical music concerts, until pretty recently, were not bound by time. While that no longer is real, concerts that still adhere to tradition have a marked difference in terms of quality of performance. You might disagree, but this is a point that merits a separate discussion.
The concert was titled Resonance, but what resonated right through was sadness, right from a certain Balakrishna Hegde’s introductory speech, which seemed longer than the concert itself. He repeatedly got the artistes’ name wrong, and focussed more on his organization’s achievements than anything else. I personally felt jarred listening to the artistes indulge in mutual back-slapping more often than not–right in the middle of the performance.
Clubbing L. Subramaniam with Balamuralikrishna and Hariprasad Chaurasia also assaulted my sensibilities. I had almost decided to skip the concert for just this one reason. Yet the allure of the other two masters convinced me otherwise.
Hariprasad Chaurasia went first, greeting the audience with some naughty lines on gopikas, both of Krishna’s time and the uncountable pretty dames in the audience. He opened the concert by welcoming the Chandrama, the moon with one of my favourites, Marwa, the distant cousin of the Carnatic Gamanashrama (Purvi Kalyani). It was characteristic of Chaurasia, and showcased his command over both the raga and the instrument. His incessant sojourn of Marwa across D r N G m instantly evoked blissful pathos. The dominance of Bhava (feeling, emotion) in Hindustani classical music is the main reason it is so close to my heart. From a master like Chaurasia wielding a bhava-heavy Marwa is like going on the journey to bliss. However, thanks to time constraints, he cut the journey short, leaving me fuming. Quality-wise, I’ve heard better from this artiste but I guess I needed to be better prepared to expect nothing beyond this from these khichdi kinda concerts.
Balamuralikrishna’s piece was a self-composed rendition, Omkara Karini in Lavangi, a raga he has himself “created.” At 77, he proved again that he is still the undisputed monarch of Carnatic classical music. His voice has lost none of its depth and sway. Methinks Balamurali is the only living musician who has shown that it is possible to infuse bhava in rendering Carnatic compositions on par with the Hindustani stream. In many ways, he deserves credit for rescuing Carnatic music from the stranglehold of tala, the likes of which once dominated concerts rendered mostly by the Madras Greats, without naming anybody here.
Speaking of which, L. Subramaniam next shared the dias with his teenaged son, Ambi. Funny, the compere included Ambi when he read out the “list of living legends.” The duo began an alapana of Gauri Manohari. I’m not sure which violin he used but it sounded jarring. Surprisingly, the aalpana was above average because my expectations from this artiste ranged from low to average. The composition (forgot the name now) was pretty ok but the kalpana swara prasthanams just went on and on and on, father and son taking turns. This is truly in the tradition of the Madras Greats who overdo the swara prasthanams till it turns into meaningless acrobatics in arithmetic. In a word: miserable. And yeah, I’m inherently biased against L. Subramaniam’s music but that’s a reason I’ll explore another day. In a line, his stature and fame are grossly disproportionate to his abilities.
The real jugalbandi began next with Hamsadhwani, a raga common to both streams and a personal favourite. The Balamurali-Chaurasia combination worked amazingly well here. The two alternated, one picking up where the other left, and one expanding what the other just hinted at. Balamurali surprised everyone when he suddenly lapsed into a aa-nam-tat-tat-tanananam but tapered off as suddenly. I expected him to complete the ragam tanam pallavi…no such luck. Equally, he abandoned the aalapana midway and began Jayadeva’s Vanamali. The concert closed with the mandatory display of the talents of the accompanists. Again, even this was an overkill.
You cannot really blame the artistes: they have (unfortunately) mastered the art of playing to the kind of audience that attends these concerts. You organize a corporatish concert with well-decked ignoramuses making up 90% of the audience, and you get a let-down performance. These selfsame artistes wouldn’t dare perform this way in the concerts held in the sabhas and temples in the bylanes of Bangalore.
Now let me get back to Balamurali’s Seetamma Mayamma or his fantastic ragam tanam pallavi in Revathi…Chaurasia’s Keeravani and Malkauns are equally alluring…
Crossposted on Desicritics.
Tags: Chronicling the City, General, Society & Culture, Weblogs
Sandeep,
Hamsadhvani is chosen because it seems the Bengaluru audiences cannot digest more complicated ones.
Any Hindustani concert here has to have one of the 3– Marwa (because it is mostly in the evenings), Sivaranjani and Hamsadhvani (because they have relatively well-known carnatic counterparts).
Which is why I stopped attending hindustani ones long ago.
BalamuraliK launched into a ragam-tanam-pallavi and walked out before it could get going? I am sure the 90% around there didn’t quite understand anything of it.Surprised about Chaurasia though, because he works to some minimum standards, and I have seen him thrice, all at campus concerts, and on each occasion he made it clear that this was going to be a long concert, and it would require patience. The audience rose to the occasion magnificently. Sandeep when we have in India become intellectual orphans, how can you expect us to appreciate the subtlest of them all, music?
sandeep,
Here is the link to the audio of Dr.S.N.Balagangadhara’s talk in houston that you and your readers may be interested -
http://blog.indianrenaissance.com/2008/03/09/balus-talk-at-woodlands-hindu-temple.aspx
regards
Sandeep, never knew you had such a keen interest and knowledge in the classical music. Please do keep posting more on music, or spare those from the political ones into a separate blog.
I don’t know anything about classical music, but have a similar story of disappointment to share. There is a week long music and dance festival in Thrissur happening every year by Thaalam cultural organization. A couple of years back they had invited Kunnakudi to perform. He came on to the stage, sat on a royal chair with all the glitz and glamour and made his devotees play sitting beneath. He just put on Thaalam, occasionally talking about the Raagam. The audience was hugely disappointed as he didn’t perform a single Krithi that day.
It seems that the musicians consider only Sabhas and prestigious temple musical festivals as the only worthy stages.
Sandeep,
Your bias is sad. I agree with you that the trigalbandhi as such was disappointing - but you seem to be the only person in the world who disputes Dr. Subramaniam’s genius. If you were really at the concert, you would have seen that the response he got from the audience for his set was more than the other three sets combined.
If you don’t know anything about music - stay away.
About the Baalu link: I like it when he says to expose the nonsensical nature of western “questions” rather than attempting to them answer them. The thing I noticed is that the Indians during the talk did not find the western questions to be engaging or profound by themselves. Rather, they had the attitude of “How do get these idiot Christians to shut up with their nonsense as soon as possible.”
Joe,
Thanks for the kind words
I know it’s bad to mix classical music and politics but what the hell! 
>>It seems that the musicians consider only Sabhas and prestigious temple musical festivals as the only worthy stages.
In a way, they are right because the audience is entirely different. Lots of people attending concerts at Sabhas and temples possess indepth knowledge in music–both theory and performance.
Shristi,
My bias might be sad but that’s your perception and you are entitled to it just like the way I’m entitled to my bias.
>>If you were really at the concert, you would have seen that the response he got from the audience for his set was more than the other three sets combined.
Have you read my review fully? Read the FIRST sentence. I don’t care about the audience’s response. I don’t judge the quality of an artiste’s performance based on the applause (or the lack of it) he/she gets.
>>If you don’t know anything about music - stay away.
Your comment makes me want to say the same thing about you. IF you have anything SPECIFIC to say–like about the performance BASED on what you heard there (technical aspects of the performance), please say it instead of assuming my ignorance of music.
Sandeep
I was a bit surprised that you have a bias against L Subramaniam. I am waiting for a post from you detailing that. From a layman’s point of view, I have liked his fusion albums - Blossom and Flight of the humble bee.
Though again from a thematic album point of view, Call of the valley by Shivkumar Sharma was better. Anyway waiting to see a post on this soon
In a way, they are right because the audience is entirely different.
I’m not sure. Except for a few people like me (who was there just for the listening pleasure, knowing nothing about raagas or taalas except for a one year training in Karnatik), there were quite a lot of people who seemed to have genuine interest and in-depth knowledge in Karnatik music. The programme was restricted by entry pass and the audience was mostly the members of Thaalam. I think the Thaalam members are genuinely interested in music and dance forms. I could see many of the old people were putting thaalam along. Then there were even foreigners like Prem Manasvi who has a keen interest in the Indian art forms. But after the 30 minutes or so, I could see many of them were moving out, murmuring.
Thrissur (in Kerala) do not have much Sangeetha sabhas (I think only one or two) and the only chance the interested public has access to is this kind of musical festivals or the week long programmes organized in the Vadakkumnathan temple during the Sivaraathri week. So I think these ‘celebrities’ should take that into consideration regardless of the audience.
And also, I don’t find anything wrong in musicians playing before the ignorant public too (with some tricks like playing some semi-classical filmy numbers in between if needed). I think in the long run, it will only help classical music to have a larger audience. I, for one, begun with listening to Yesudas’ semi-classical filmy songs.
Thought you might like this blog (by singer Chinmayee’s mom) - http://padmasani.blogspot.com/
Joe,
You raise interesting points. Let me respond in a separate post. This is a promise.
And thanks a ton for that link. I liked it.
Interesting to see how a topic like this can produce such a reaction, given that this blog focusses mostly on politics.
One interesting question:
Does it prove that much of the blogosphere in India is still monitored and controlled by (almost) the same social elite who go to the kacheris?
Joe,please leave our kirtans and bhajans alone..Do not please attempt any kirtans on your desert God,for he does not understand what it is (tired of watching them on shalom channel & You Tube
)..
Also,wondering why I don’t find Sandeep’s blog on your list of ‘Blogs I read’,if you are so keen on it….Doesn’t your church permit you that?(God fearing Christians always do what their church tell them to do…)
I know there are two kinds of people in this world. One who become popular by being objective & genuine in their transactions.The other class achieve popularity by carrying out slanderous campaign under the garb of being a music critic. Mr Sandeep belongs to the 2nd class. His outbursts are 3rd class & doesn’t merit any attention. This very nauseating piece of crap is a sufficient proof to exhibit his ignorance & understanding about music. I personally feel that we don’t any have moral, spiritual & intellectual standing of any kind to criticise artists like Dr L S & Dr M Balamuralikrishna.These are the very artists who have brought the carnatic music to the forefront & keep on pushing the envelope at the global level.Dr L S’s contribution to the carnatic music, western music, jazz music, East West crossovers in Fusion music, orchestral compositions, jugalbhandi is monumental, awe inspiring stands testimony to his creative genius. An artist who has been venerated by no less a person like Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Stephane Grapelli & Svend Assmussen for his wizardry over the instrument. Mr Sandeep, you have got your facts wrong. Music will be best served without your half baked opinions. After 61 years, Dr LS still feels that he is only a student & his musical journey is an eternal quest. It is exactly because of this humility he is still a glittering north pole star (Dhuruva Nakshatram) in the horizon of music. We are all fortunate & gifted to be living during the times of Dr L S. Let us all enjoy his divinity, serenity & soul that he brings in his performances.
Dear Umashankar,
I accept every compliment you have hurled at me. Would you care to refute my review before being so generous with me?
Your review does not requires a rioposte as you have already announced to the world that you have a pronounced bias against the genius (Dr LS) . ( The entire world celebrates him, but you are not able to digest this fact, alas u are totally out of sync. The entire world can’t be stupid to celebrate him). In both carnatic & Hindustani traditions, raga improvisations, embellishments are the common ground. The notations are the same, it all depends on the skills, imagination, knowledge & manodharma of the performing artists to expand & color the canvas. Thus a raga can be elaborately played for even hours together without being monotonous or simply present it in 15 mins. This is the basic difference Western Classical & our own tradition. It is very sad that this aspect has been conveniently ignored by you. Iam extremely Sorry to state that, you were not even aware of the details of musical pieces, that was played on that particular evening. When your recall & memory is poor, how do you think that u are eligible to do what you have done under the garb of being a critic. I will appreciate if you can understand the nuances, grammar & theoretical aspects of Carnatic & Hindustani music before you drop bombshells like this. Finally do not pass judgements in a very casual manner without even knowing the basic facts about personalities, else you will become a laughing stock in front of everyone. Craps written by you will never see the light if it were to be published in the print media. Perhaps, it is now understandable that you have chosen to go to blogger’s site.