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Photos: K.V.Srinivasan

Erudite: Aleppey Venkatesan

According to Sachi Devi, the ragas Sankarabharanam and Kalyani were in existence even before the Trinity period. A raga’s quality is mostly governed by the jeeva and amsa swaras. Sankarabharanam’s effects and character are determined by the valuable application and usage of the nyasa and amsa swaras. This she explained by singing phrases of Sankarabharanam kritis, such as ‘Bhakthi Biksha Miyyave’ and ‘Enduku Beddala,’ with stress on the specific notes of the raga.

She also established that Sankarabhranam is more masculine and authoritative than its prathi madhyama counterpart Kalyani. Kalyani’s jeeva and amsa swaras are gandharam and rishabam. Sachi Devi demonstrated it by by singing Dikshitar’s Navavarnam, ‘Kamalambam Bhajare.’ She said Dikshitar had brought out the essence of Kalyani in that single kriti. The notes of Kalyani have more of lilt or lasya like a female form. They are accentuated by the inclusion of prathi madyamam further, she added.

While explaining the limitations of the Dhenuka which is also known as binna shadjam she sang Tyagaraja’s ‘Telia Leru Rama’ with stress on the vivadi swaras and how the composer infused life into the raga and swaras through his mastery. Subhapantuvarali, she did not deal with much, and said the prathi madyama form of Dhenuka can be sung easily even with plain notes. She emphasised that none of the Trinity had composed kritis in Subhapantuvarali — ‘Sri Satyanarayanam’ of Dikshitar was a later addition by somebody else and ‘Ennalu Orage’ of Tyagaraja is actually Pantuvarali. These are probably moot points among musicians and musicologists.

Sachi Devi’s elucidation went off track at times and she had strained herself to put her intractable vocal chords to sing the difficult parts of the raga expositions and kritis. Nevertheless, it was incredible to listen to her Sankarabharanam and Kalyani independently with their full flavour, and with madhyamam in her phrases completely eliminated. .

Is Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi an intellectual, pedantic exercise or the best way to showcase all the important components of classical Carnatic music smartly integrated into one?

Aleppey Venkatesan’s highly engrossing lecture demonstration on ‘Pallavi Singing - Then & Now’ analysed this through logic and technique. Since Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi is considered to be the piece de resistance of any Carnatic music concert, Venkatesan started by saying that it represents the confluence of all the important constituents of the music form; raga manodharma, sahitya ruchi, laya prowess and kalpanaswara expertise all combined into one.

Venkatesan felt that RTP has evolved with time. In the pre- Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar’s days, the concerts had just four or five main items and the RTP occupied the pride of place for nearly two hours. So there was very little time to include the fine compositions of the great composers in that format. The pallavi was presented in 8 kalai, and a single rendering took 40 seconds. And it was repeated several times, which naturally made it time consuming. Venkatesan demonstrated it by singing a pallavi in raga Todi.

Ariyakudi, who formatted the present concert style, included more rakti raga compositions, apart from heavy weights such as Sankarabharanam, Todi and Bhairavi. Most of the musicians of that time, such as G.N. Balasubramanian, Alathur Brothers and Ramnad Krishnan employed the technique of switching over to four kalai pallavi, that could be accommodated in a three- four hour concert.

But post-Ariyakudi the concert is just for two and half hours, and the RTP needs to be completed in 45 minutes. Venkatesan dwelt longer on this segment as it is the need of the hour — raga alapana for 10-12 minutes (not as before in 2 segments), tanam for about eight-10 minutes, followed by a neatly structured pallavi in tisra nadai or kanda nadai, which takes 10-11 seconds for one rendition.

Sachi Devi.

The raga exposition style should be different here from the one generally employed before a kriti. A slow and steady start in creating expansiveness would create the right mood in the audience’s psyche. Venkatesan demonstrated this with Nattakurinji. Here he said the musician could even deploy an attractive phrase as the pivot and move around different paths.

Tanam, Venkatesan advised should be done with care, with the words ‘anantha’ and ‘aanandam,’ with rhythmic solfas in the madyama kalam preferably. He focused his presentation on the pallavi singing with several examples like in kandajathi triputa talam- 2 kalai, which went as ‘Madhava Sodari Sundari Manini Mamava’ in Nattakurinji. Venkatesan then moved to the application of trikalam and anulomam where the pallavi is sung at three different speeds with the talam as such, and pratilomam by varying the talam speed, and keeping the pallavi as such. Daunting tasks indeed!

He also demonstrated how to set imaginative kalpanaswaras and impressive korvais for different types of pallavis, through examples. Venkatesan suggested that Ethukadai pallavi could be taken up where there is no scope of trikalam. Niraval and swaras at varying speeds could create the effects of trikalam in such instances.

While summing up Venkatesan reiterated that RTP could be included with intellectual content, right raga bhava and aesthetically worded pallavi in 45 minutes. . He said it requires gnanam (wisdom) with layam (rhythm), as these are not independent of each other. Every raga in Carnatic music has laya embedded in it; one cannot sing Bilahari as slowly as Ahiri and at the same time Ahiri cannot take the speed of Bilahari.

Venkatesan concluded his lec-dem with a famous pallavi set in Adi talam two kalai which is more a test to the violinist than the mridangam player — ‘Sankrabharananai Azhaithodi Vadi Kalyani Darbarukku,’ switches over from Sankarabhranam to Durbar seamlessly via Todi and Kalyani, with mixed swaraprastara covering each raga.

Venkatesan explained the techniques, methods and examples in lucid English, with Tamil thrown in between. B.U. Ganesh Prasad and R. Ramesh elegantly supported Aleppey Venkatesan on the violin and mridangam.

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