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[Editor's Note: The concert reports and song lists appearing in this page are contributed by a rasika Sri. N. P. Haran. Any views and opinions expressed here are entirely his own]

Mambalam Sisters – Vocal, Dr. R. Hemalatha – Violin, Mannargudi Srinivasan – Mridangam, K. S. Rangachari – Kanjira

It was more or less a family programme with the father (on Kanjira) and three sisters. In the course of the past few years these sisters have developed a good standard and have been maintaining it consistently attracting fairly large audiences, indicative of their popularity. There are more than two dozen sisters in the music field and lesser numbers of brothers in the fray. In many of these cases, one member happens to be dominant while the while the other who is passive is often relegated to the background. The special feature of these sisters is that both of them are more or less of equal proficiency, complementing each other with advantage. From listening to their concert it is apparent that a good amount of pre-planning and forethought precedes each of their concerts, which is facilitated by the advantageous position that all of them belong to the same family and hence could do it conveniently. As a result thereof there is good variety in the fare provided by them covering various composers, different tempos and also a good proportion of Tamil songs which all go to make the concert quite popular. Both in regard to voice and manner of exposition the younger sister Vijayalakshmi seems to have a slight edge over the elder sister chitra while the violin play of the youngest sister Hemalatha is decidedly of a very high order with polish (merugu) , maturity and facility. Though Hemalatha happens to be the youngest of the trio, she seems to be the guiding factor steering the concert in to a successful even course.

Instead of beginning the concert in a routine manner with a varnam, the opening item rendered was “Sri Vighnarajam Bhaje” of Uthukkadu Venkatakavi in Gambhiranattai. The brisk tenor of the song set in madhyama kala immediately arrested the attention of the listeners. This was followed by a somewhat rare piece “Mudhumomu” of Tyagaraja in the 17th mela Suryakantam, giving a welcome scholarly contribution to the concert. Swaram was rendered for a couple of minutes in an attractive manner in this item.

Next came raga alapana in Abhogi by Chitra and Hemalatha. In this raga, Dikshitar’s kriti “Sri Lakshmi Varaham" with swaram was rendered in an impressive manner. This was followed by the Tamil kriti “Chitham Irangathathenaiya" of Papanasam Sivan in Sahana. Though the plain kriti alone was rendered (without raga alapana) full justice was done to it by its exposition in a detailed and appealing manner for 9 minutes. This was followed by “Bhogindra Sayinam” of Swati Tirunal in Kuntalavarali. Thus all the first five items were by different composers in different style and tempo providing ample variety.

Thodi was taken up next and a detailed alapana was done by Vijayalakshmi and Hemalatha for 11 minutes. The well known kriti "Raju Vedala" of  Tyagaraja was presented in this raga. This used to be a favourite of Ariyakkudi in olden days. Just like him, niraval was also done in the latter portion of the charanam at “sevanugani suralu”. This kriti is said to have been composed in the raga Desya Thodi by Tyagaraja (The differences between Desya Thodi and Thodi being only in the Arohanam: It is sgmpdns for Desya thodi while is sampoornam for Thodi). But in fact none of the kritis composed by Tyagaraja in Desya Thodi is ever being rendered in that raga. Either they are rendered in Thodi or in some case in entirely different ragas, e.g. “Ne pogada kunte” composed in Desya Thodi is being rendered in Varaali by Ariyakkudi, T. K. Rangachari & T. N. Seshagopalan or in Subhapantuvaraali by Balamurali, with the result that the identity of the original raga Desya Thodi has become unknown to us.

The next item rendered was “Narasingham” of Mysore Sadasiva Rao in Kamalamanohari. This also is a rare item which we do not hear often in concerts.

From the way the concert was proceeding it was apparent that there might be a RTP and the artist did not disappoint us, though the raga taken up for RTP was the common and often rendered Kalyani. Due to paucity of time, raga alapana by all the three sisters was confined to 11min. and tanam to 4 min. The lyrics of the pallavi was “Sadha nine nammithi kalyani saama gaana lola”. Refreshing and appealing ragamalika swaram were presented in Bhairavi (Vijayalakshmi), Saraswathi (Chitra and Hemalatha), Bagesri (Vijayalakshmi) and Revathi (Chitra and Hemalatha) and the names of the ragas were innovatively included in the pallavi itself. There was a short thani and it was remarkable that most of the audience chose to stay glued to their seats till the end.

The RTP was followed by an interesting fare of appealing and absorbing thukkadas. However the names of the ragas and composers are never mentioned in a concert even by those who mention them in the main body of the concert. It was begun with Papanasam Sivan’s “Maname kanamum maravaathe” in Bhimplas followed by an interesting and hilarious piece “Sambandhi sappidave maattal” in the well known tune of “Bhagyada lakshmi baramma” of Purandaradasa. The innocuous opening sentence was followed by a formidable array of large quantities of food items swallowed and gulped by the sambandhi.

The next item was a moving Tulasidas Bhajan in Vasanth Bahar and the penultimate item was a western note “Rama Janardhana” by Muttuswami Dikshitar. Instead of the usual Saurashtram, the concert was concluded with a mangalam in Kedaram, “Mangalam Nithya Mangalam”. It was a successful and impressive concert providing variety and appeal in a wholly satisfying manner.


Vaishnavi Rajagopalan - Vocal, V. Ananthanarayanan – Violin, Karaikkudi Mohan Ram – Mridangam

The artiste belongs to a family with rich musical traditions and is reported to be related to the well known vocalist Alleppey Venkatesan. Barring a few exceptions, most of the concerts held in the early evenings by the sabha were of quite high caliber and many of them richly deserved to be promoted to regular evening concerts and this concert too belonged to that higher category. The voice of the artiste was sweet with perfect sruthi alignment and rich in manodharmam. The concert began with the well known varnam, “Eranapai” in Thodi and it was followed by the beautiful kriti “Varalakshmim Bhajare” of Muttuswamy Dikshitar in Saurashtram. Raga alapana in Begada was done thereafter in an impressive manner both by the vocalist and the violinist and the Tamil kriti “Kadaikkan Vaithennai Aalamma” of Ramaswamy Sivan was rendered. The next item in Kalyani (Amma Ravamma of Tyagaraja) was rendered in a semi-detailed manner, the raga alapana, niraval and swaram all done for very brief periods. This was followed by a competent and moving rendering of the master piece of Syama Sastri in Anandabhairavi, “O Jagadamba” in a brilliant manner. “Ramanatham Bhajeham” of Muttuswami Dikshitar in Kashiramakriya was taken up as the main piece for detailed rendition and full justice was done to it in all aspects. This was followed by impressive rendering of the popular and the moving song “Maadhava maamava deva krishna” of Narayana Thirtha in Nilambari and a Sai Bhajan in Kalyani as the concluding piece. On the whole the concert was impressive and was well attended by the audience spilling over in good proportion to the lawns also.

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