Saturday 20 January 2018

Shri Vijay Siva - Sukha sangeetham at Rasika Fine Arts

As the last line of the Mangalam was sung, a brief drizzle tippity-tapped on the tin-roof, as though the Gods were clapping for the "sukha" sangeetam of Shri Vijay Siva. It was louder than the claps from the happy spectators.

Enjoyed the superb concert accompanied by Smt. Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, Shri N C Bharadwaj and Shri Krishna, at J G Hindu Vidyalaya school. This concert was for Rasika Fine Arts on the evening of 29th December, 2017 - a nice Friday evening treat.

Shri Vijay Siva, Smt Vijayalakshmi, Shri Bharadwaj and Shri Krishna
Shri Vijay Siva opened with a short shlokam in Kalyani, followed by a mellow Sujana Jeevana in Kamas ragam. The sweet piece set the tone for the evening. He took up an elaborate alapani of Rishabhapriya next. The ragam's unique rasa was brought out well, as expected from a stalwart like him. Smt Vijayalakshmi played a compact follow-up. Thyagaraja's Mahima tagginchuko kovayya (kindly excuse mistakes in transliteration, if any) was the kriti that was presented, with brief neraval and detail kalpana swarams included.

Next he sang a slow and relaxing O Jagadamba in Anandabhairavi, a composition of Muthuswami Dikshitar. A short Shankarabharanam alapanai preceded Annai janaki vandale set to Misra chapu talam, Arunachala Kavi composition. With a quick tempo rendition of Paramukham enayya in Kharaharapriya (Papanasam Sivan composition), he set stage for the main song.

Saveri was taken up for the elaborate exploration, which was played well by Smt. Vijayalakshmi as well. Sri Rajagopala Bala, a Muthuswami Dikshitar krithi, was taken up. Full justice for the ragam was done with beautiful neraval and kalpana swarams, followed by a spirited tani avartanam between Shri Bharadwaj and Shri Krishna. Though the sound settings for the Mridangam was a constant trouble through entire concert for Shri N C Bharadwaj, the tani avartanam was in full flow. A separate post on "sound systems", "audio personnel", etc., will be posted later.

Standard pose during viruttams / Q&A
A viruttam in sevaral ragams followed next, ending with Behag as the last ragam, followed by Oruthi maganaai pirandhu in Behag. A bhajan on Vittala, with the cymbals (1 mandatory bhajan per concert seems to be his style) in Pahaadi (I am guessing, as it sounded like Shri Lalgudi Jayaraman's tillana in that ragam - and exchange of glances, with Smt. Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi makes me think it is right) was the penultimate piece.

The thiruppugazh, Marukkulaviya malaranai kodiyade valartta, set to Purvi kalyani rounded off the concert (tisra nadai rupaka talam). As mentioned above, the mangalam was about to be completed, when the claps started from the audience. However, a sudden louder clapping came from the drizzle on temporary tin-roof of the open-air pandhal. It seemed like the Gods themselves were applauding the concert. We were mighty pleased, for sure.

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