MMS2019-01 - Veenai Vidwan Ramana Balachandran at CMI

Veenai Vidwan Ramana Balachandran at CMI

On Wednesday, 18 December, 2019, at Chennai Mathematical Institute, Ramana performed a Veenai recital along with Vidwan Arvind Ranganathan on the Mridangam. This was a pleasant concert in the Auditorium with good acoustics. He began the evening's proceedings with Saint Thyagaraja kriti 'ninnE bhajana' in nATTa rAgam, after a brief AlApanai. This was followed by a good AlApanai in bhairavi before presenting Shri Muthuswami Dikshitar's panca bhUta stala kriti 'cintaya mA kanda mUlakandam', on the pritvi lingam in Kanchipuram.

AlApanai in full flow

After the detail bhairavi came aTu kArAdani in the rAgam manOranjani, another composition of Saint Thyagaraja. The fourth rAgam played was nATTakurinji, in brief, before the song 'vazhi maraittirukkudE' of Shri Gopalakrishna Bharathi was rendered. In each of the four compositions, Ramana sang the pallavi, anupallavi & caranam in brief, before playing all the sangatis, as seems to be his style of recital.

The detail presentation of the evening was kalyANi. Ramana was in his elements and explored this heavyweight rAgam in full detail, immersed in the rAgam and thoroughly enjoyed it, as did we. The Maharaja Swathi Tirunal kriti, 'pankaja lOcana' set to misra cApu tALam was the song chosen for the evening. After the song, the kalpanaswarams were played in alternate manner, whereby the mridangist played the korvai after each veenai exposition.

Next came a short interlude of the bindu mAlini kriti of Saint Thyagaraja, 'enta muddO', before he announced a short rAgam tAnam pallavi in brindAvani. He revelled in presenting the rAgam and tAnam in this rAgam, before singing a few Avartanams of the pallavi - 'gurunAtA aruNa gurunAtA ramaNA karuNA saccidAnanda' set to Eka tALam in misra naDai (if identification of tALam is wrong, mistake is mine). The pallavi was played in three kAlams as well as a few technical variations (as a layman, don't know much of that). This was followed by detail kalpanaswarams and the laya vinyAsam by Arvind. Arvind took his time to demonstrate the various gatis and kAlapramAnams over full 10 minutes & showed his prowess.

Ramana then closed the concert by playing a kriti in saHAnA before the traditional 'mangaLam' and 'aruNAcala shiva' bhajan.

There are many rasikAs who really appreciate Ramana's vocal rendition of portions of each song, before completing all the different sangatis on the veenai. The composition is then identified for the rasikAs and we can appreciate more. He has a very good voice and control too, to really do a great job in singing. However, in my opinion, the singing of anupallavi / caranam(s) are small check-dams in the smooth flow of the river. Somehow the mood of the kriti seems to get disturbed a bit by the switch to vocal 2 or 3 times for each composition. I would like to get more people's opinion on this aspect of the veenai recital.

Overall a nice conert in a superb auditorium with excellent acoustics, with bhairavi, kalyANi and brindAvani played very well and in detail.