Tamil Isai Sangam is celebrating its 67{+t}{+h} Tamil Isai Vizha and this annual event is seen as a conscious effort to promote and propagate Tamil compositions. The artists who perform here relish this opportunity and make sufficient groundwork to present songs that range from those created by the Tamil Moovar (Muthu Thandavar, Marimutha Pillai and Arunachala Kavi) to those made by modern poets/composers such as Papanasam Sivan, Periasami Thooran, Kaviyarasu Kannadasan, Bharatidasan and Ulundurpettai Shanmugam.
Sirkazhi Sivachidambaram's concert was held on the inaugural day and one lived for a while in his domain. He sang many of Suddhananda Bharati's songs and those of other poets. ‘Paramporule Vanakkam’ in Anandabhairavi followed by the memorable ‘Eppadi Padinaro’ and ‘Bayappadathiru Maname’ in Tilang - all of these belonged to this Kavi Yogi.
The alapana for Chandrakauns (‘Kaviri Thaye’ by Kavi Selvaraj) that came early in the concert had its main pidis well directed and neatly organised and this applied to his brief essay of Tilang too.
Teaming well with the violinist Chandramouli, Sivachidambaram then presented a listenable alapana in Kharaharapriya with creative swaras and the song ‘Thanam Avasiyam Adhanal Sagalamum Vasiyum’ (Swami Saravanabhava) was a commentary on the present times and didactic as well.
The Kalyani delineation made liberal use of light classical musical phrases and the song, ‘Kalai Thayin Semmozhi’ (Kavignar Sivasubramaniam) was an emphatic reminder about the qualitative elements of the Tamil language. ‘Chinnanchiru Penn Pole’ (Ulundurpettai Shanmugam) and ‘Tiruchendurin Kadalorathil’ (a song from the film ‘Deivam’) created the Sirkazhi Govindarajan effect.
‘Thunbam Nergayil’ was a remarkable choice as this song is always a reliever to the troubled mind. It is worth remembering here that this song of Bharatidasan was set to tune by Dandapani Desigar, who waited for a considerable period for the exact raga/tune to dawn (Arul) on him.
Violinist Mullaivasal Chandramouli was spirited in his approach and gave contained alapanas for Kharaharapriya and Kalyani. The violinist reacted and responded to the approach of the vocalist and played according to the disposition of the songs that were being rendered.
The laya accompaniments were many -Thanjavur Sankara Subramaniam on the mridangam, Thiruvarur Saikrishnan on the ganjira, Chennai Ramdas on the ghatam and Chidhambaram Rajendran on the morsing. They concentrated admirably to fix their laya roles with discipline and worked effectively to give a thani that provided an equal opportunity to each one of the percussionists on stage.
(sivakumar2004@gmail.com)
