Lec-Dem on Rhythmic Undercurrent with special emphasis on Tyagaraja kritis.
Presented by Sri Prakash V Rao and Sangeetha Kalanidhi Vellore Sri G Ramabadran
Vocal by Smt Rama Ravi and Smt Nandita Ravi and Violin by Dr. Hemalatha
Nada Inbam, Raga Sudha Hall.
29th December 2007. 8:30 to 10 am
The programme began with a short introduction by Sri Ramabadran who emphasised the importance of 'sarvalaghu' and the apparent presence of sarvalaghu in most compositions. He said 'sarvalaghu' can be intrepreted as 'sarva - laghu' which means it is easy for everyone to comprehend and understand.
Sri Prakash Rao began with a introduction undercurrent. He said most compositions in carnatic music have an undercurrent of 5,6,7,8 beats running for the tALams kaNDa cApu, rUpakam, misra cApu, Adi taLams respectively. He said compositions can be classified into 5 categories for better understanding of the under current.
Category 1: Kirtanams
Compositions of Purandara Dasa, Bhadrachalam Ramadasa, Annamacharya, Utsava Sampradaya and Divyanama Sankeertanams of Tyagaraja. There is no change of pace during the full kriti and it is easy to identify the undercurrent.
As an example of this category 'vandanamu raghunandanA' in sahAnA was presented.
Category 2: Subtle undercurrent
65% of the compositions fall under this category. The pallavi is slow, the Anupallavi is a little faster. The first half of the charanam is a little more faster and the second half is much faster.
These can further be classified as those with sama eDuppu, those with visama eDuppu, those with kIzh kAla eDuppu(eg. ADamODi galadE), those with mEl kAla eDuppu(eg. telisi rAma) etc. The difference in syllables showing the differences in the undercurrent was also emphasised. 'tanayuni brOva' in bhairavi was sited as another example. This kriti was presented at the end of the programme after the categories were run through.
As an example of this category 'praNamAmyaham' in gauLa of Mysore Sri Vasudevacharya was presented.
Category 3: Groase undercurrent
These are compositions with a groase difference in the pace of the sAhityam. There are parts of sAhitya which go from viLamba kAla to dhurita kAlam. Muttuswami Dikshitar kritis and Oothukadu Venkata kavi kritis are examples of this category. No compositions were presented.
Category 4: Hybrid undercurrent
These compositions have a mix of groase and subtle under currents. Examples of this category that were cited were 'dAriNi tElusukONTi' in suddha sAvEri, 'dorakonA' in bilhari, 'yOcanA' in darbAr. The darbAr piece was also presented at the end of the programme after the categories were run through.
'saraguNa pAlimpA' in kEdAragauLa was presented here sans the anupallavi.
Category 5: dynamic undercurrent
This is one of the most important categories, if not The important. The compositions have a very strong yet subtle undercurrent which keeps changing with each line or two. The speaker said Patnam Subramaniya Iyer and Papanasam Sivan have followed Tyagaraja in this regard and have composed many kritis in this way. Typical examples of this category would be kritis with long charnams, where the undercurrent would vary for every 2 lines.
caraNam of 'kshirasAgara sayanA' in dEvagAndhAri was presented with a commentary on the undercurrent.
Sri Prakash Rao summed up the morning's session explaining that such categorisations are needed for young students to understand how to play and also for rasikas to understand as to how could appreciate the rhythmic patterns in the compositions.
He also thanked Sri Ramabadran, Smt Rama, Smt Nandita, Dr Hemalatha for helping him through the session.
Sri Ramabadran played for all the compositions that were presented in full. His playing was his usual best and embellishing. Sri Rao played for a parts of songs that were presented in quick snatches. He was good also. Both of them played for a few pieces also. All the compositions were presented very beautifully by Smt Rama and Smt Nandita. Dr Hemalatha was supportive.
Labels: Rama Ravi
