Like in the past, this year too, All India Radio, through a special national programme, brought to music lovers two live Carnatic music concerts from the samadhi of Tyagaraja at Thiruvaiyaru, where the legendary saint composer’s 168th Aradhana music festival was taking place. While the first one was a concert by popular vocalist Sudha Raghunathan, the other was an instrumental recital by popular nagaswaram artiste Mambalam MKS Siva. Theconcerts, aired this past Saturday, were for about 45 minutes each. Within the short time at their disposal, both the artists presented some thoughtfully selected compositions of the prolific composer.
Since the festival is a celebration of Tyagaraja’s genius, theartistes give a lot of importance to the lyrical contents of his compositions. Sudha Raghunathan’s opening song was “Raka Sasivadana”in raga Takka, an uncommon raga. She brought out very impressively the emotive contents of the lyrics. She then sang delightfully “Saramegani” in raga Pantuvarali, a song not heard frequently in concerts.
“Sogasu juda tarama” in raga Kannadagowla and “Daya rani” in Mohanam were the subsequent songs that she sang in quick succession before moving to the central item of the recital.
Mambalam M.K.S. Siva opted to start his nagaswaram concert with “Bhavanuta” in raga Mohanam, a charming if common raga. Siva then presented “Evarani Nirnayainchirira” in Devamritavarshini in a delightful manner. Even while emotively rendering the song “Sasivadana Bhakta” in Chandrajyoti, Siva brought the raga bhava to the fore. Siva then moved to the main item of his recital.
While Sudha Raghunathan’s central item was a popular composition of Tyagaraja, “Swara raga sudha” in Shankarabharanam, Siva’s choice too was a popular song, “Nagumomu ganaleni” in Abheri. Both the artistes handled well their chosen compositions and rendered excellent alapanas.
The brief tani avartanams (percussion solos) by the respective accompanying artistes were also enjoyable.
It was a full bench alongside Sudha Raghunathan — B. Raghavendra Rao on the violin, Tiruvarur Vaidyanathan on the mridangam, S. Karthik on the ghatam and R. Raman on the morsing. Mambalam Siva had three accompanying tavil artistes, Mannargudi M.R. Vasudevan, Thirurameshwaram V. Radhakrishnan and Mambalam S.P. Arulanandam who provided the percussion support. Mambalam S. Santhanam provided the nagaswaram support in the concert.
