Jaithirth Rao in The Indian Express:
“My aunt once told me that Telugu was the only “sweet” language that could help extract the rasas of our music. She was dead wrong. Aruna Sairam, among others, has gone back to astonishing mediaeval Tamil compositions from Thevaram to Divya Prabandham.
“She has rediscovered Uttukaadu Venkata Subba Iyer and his wonderful Tamil compositions. She has come out with a CD appropriately called Kshetra Chennapuri. The beauty of this CD is that it covers tributes to not just the well-known Parthasarathi and Kapaaleeshwarar temples but also to that little gem in the heart of “town”, Kandakottam, where the nineteenth-century immortal Ramalinga Adigalaar lived.
“She has included Tiruneermalai, a temple of pre-Pallava times on the outskirts where the Aalwaars described Krishna in enchanting Tamil as “Neer-vannan”—he who has the colour of water—referring to Krishna’s blue hues. And when one listens to Aruna singing the lesser-known Kannada composition of Sripaadaraja ‘Kaveri Ranga‘, even an atheist will turn a believer.
“The inclusion in concerts of unusual raaga maalikas and the erstwhile humble tillaanas from the repertoire of dance confirms the capacity of our music forms to innovate, expand and grow. Many thought that when Aruna started singing Marathi abhangs praising Vitthala (set to Carnatic raagas) there would be a pushback. Guess what, that’s the number the audiences love most; they keep asking for repeats.”
Read the full article here: From Madras to Chennai
Good to know this
Well, Im a 24 carat kannadiga not understanding any word of telugu apart from repu and chappu, but highly interested in classical music. But I have to say that that the emphasis of classical music being swara and not saahitya, its imp that the sahitya be pleasing in the phonetic terms. I can say that tamil and to an extent kannada may be a bit ‘harsh’ as comparted to telugu in that aspect. That probably explains the reason why most compsers, who themselves were tamilians, composed in telugu or sanskrit. A few having mysore in their names like Mysore Sadashiva Rao, M6ysore Vasudevachar and even T chowdaiah have telugu kritis. Im not saying there are no harsh sounding kritis in telugu.. For eg the khartaharapriya tyagaraja kriti that starts with ‘PrakkaLa nilabadi ‘, seems like a slap on the face of the listener..
ah, a perfect post for all the kannada chauvinists to get into action. Lets begin by calling Jerry Rao a rold-gold kannadiga, shall we?
This problem could be avoided if we have a few great living composers. Everytime we talk about karnataka we have to go back in time as we don’t have exceptionally talented people living!! I guess we are jealous and insecure!!
Name one musician in karnataka who is as good or as inspiring as Veena Seshanna or name one composer living today who is as good as mysore vasudevachar?? We need people to carry on the legacy!!
Is that great legend Pdt. Madhav Gudi still alive?
@Sir Vibhudi,
I thought we were dealing with Carnatic music here.
Mysore Vasudevachar refused the commands of his Royal Master Maharaja Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV to compose in Kannada. Maharaja encouraged Harikeshannalur Muthiah Bhagavatar to compose Chamundeswari Ashtottara Kritis in Kannada.
Let us not forget Puranadra Dasa has composed hundreds of songs in kannada which are beyond compare !
Not many are aware that Madhav Gudi secretly practiced Carnatic music unknown to his guru – Bhimsen Joshi.
It’s probably one reason why he sounded like a car making a u-turn at 70MPH with bald tires…
Does Jerry Rao know’s anything about Purandara Dasa, Kanaka Dasa krithis. Kannada krithis are music to ears.
This is an astonishing article on a subject I know very little about! I reached for my usual sack of salt to digest the encomiums showered by Jerry Rao on the rejuvenation of Tamil kritis… Go Jerry Go! may be Jerry is planning on expanding his business into DMK heartland and just like that he has discovered Tamil as a classical language replete with classic kirtanas…Oh “Maga Kanapati…”
Sir Ashes Soul Broken, nice one on Madhav Gudi’s singing prowess–to the uninitiated Hindustani sounds exactly like that!
–review by Pandit Ganeshbeedi
good post. i love carnatic music. i attended many concerts in Chennai this December and a small note on the same is here – aagaaga.wordpress.com
After listening to Punya srinivas on the Veena I tried to see if I could get word by word meaning of of the kriti “manavyala–) in nalinakanthi.That is how I happened to be at this site.
Being a tamilian brought up in north I don’t understand a word of telugu.
There are a number tamil compositions which are realy beautifull but the gold standard against which everything needs to be compared is the telugu kriti of the three famous composers,of whom Tyagaraja is the king.
I would like to know from people whose mother tongue is telugu as to what percentage of tamil musicians split the words in the wrong place killing the kriti’s
Srinivasan,
‘Manavyala kim para date’ you heard is a distortion of the original ‘Manavi (y)alakimpa Radate’..
It’s not just breaking words at wrong places.. but pronouncing words in such a way to give a different meaning is what troubles Telugus as well as Kannadigas.
Almost everyone except those guys who learnt Sanskrit/Telugu/Kannada do this..
I once wrote a letter to DKP’s grand daughter (you know who that is) requesting her not to sing Sanskrit/Kannada/Telugu songs – of course in her next concert in the heart of Bangalore she sang ‘baagyada lushmee baaramma’ :-)
When John Higgins can sing properly why can’t a fellow Indian ?
Coming back to the Telugu Vs other languages thingy.. Though I am a Telugu, I find many of Puranadra dasa’s kriti’s very sweet. I think it is all in mind..
http://www.karnatik.com/c1020.shtml
FYI
@koppal haida
I have to disagree with your point about emphasis on swara and not on sahitya, Saint Tyagaraja is said to have expressed dissatisfaction over his contemporary musicians’ emphasis on swara at the expense of inappropriate word splits of sahitya. Inappropriate breaks can many times skew the meaning of the song.
as you people r discussing about pt. madhav gudi of dharwad. he is alive and is performing in swing. his daughter stays in mumbai and she is my close friend. u can contact them on 09323360559 or e mail them on madhavgudiji@hotmail.com
i need contact information of mr. Vibhudi Aatmapudi anybody can give? plz….. i want to know about pt. madhav gudi. plz…….
mrs. anupamaa.
hello namaskaras what is this ? what are you talking about the great musician artist of kirana gharana music Pandit Madhav gudi he is doing concerts in all over world, who told you like this? mr. vibhudi dont think anything about guruji Pandit madhav gudi ji because he is a great and very big person artist in the world understand, if you are good reporter you will write good wordings for the great musicians. understand ,
we are talking about karnataki music. we all love karnataki music.
maalati
What is important is the emotion behind the song, does the language matter?
one example is bantu reeti kolluviyyavayya.
kolluviyyavayya is actual a compound of koluvu + iyyavayya, but most singers say kolu + viyyavayya.
If you listen it from balamuralikrishna and MS …they sing perfect as they dont give a pause after kolu.
On Coke studio I saw bombay jayashree singing paluke bangaramayena…there were too many mistakes. I know she is a great singer, but should give equal importance to the lyrics..They carry the bhavam without which it is more technical
Once again I reiterate I cannot reconcile to Carnatic music. I love Puradaradasra kritis as I can understand them. Ole Thyagaraj’s kritis although sound nice make no sense to me. Tamil musicians how much ever technically accomplished are handicapped to sing non-Tamil kritis. It is in their DNA. As a culture if you don’t have certain letters in your alphabet and you use substitute letters to achieve the effect, it shows up. It is that simple. When I hear Bhimsen Joshi’s “Bhagyada Laxmi Baramma..” I feel running away from the sound source where it came from! He sounds retarded and horrible with his nasal voice mixing up and churning the meaning of words.
Just to put things in perspective some Westerners also have a healthy disrespect to operas. Here is my favourite stand-up comic Billy Conolly dissing the opera with his inimitable style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m__pVO__6oY
Enjoy maadi…
Hemanth:
I agree if someone is singing a classical song, the faithful reproduction is to be desired – unless they mean it as an intended expression of their cover/version/fusion of that song (which gives them some liberties).
The worst classical music for me is vocal renditions of classics, where I can’t even make sense of the words due to weird pronunciation. Like when I recently heard Jagadhodharana the singer pronounced ‘Adishidhalesodhe’, which made me focus more on the wrong pronunciations instead of the wonderful lyrics and bhava of the song.
The trouble is most sing songs without understanding the true meaning/words of the song. They learn it by rote.
Singing a song with wrong pronunciation or entirely wrong words (‘Apabhramsha’) leads to the original song losing its meaning (‘Bhava’), and well as stand out like sore thumb.
I, for one, think music should keep evolving. No classical music remained static. Western Classical music tradition has so many different periods and innovations.
Even Indian classical music has evolved over centuries, and it is a constant process. Adoption of Violin, the Nottuswara compositions by Muttuswami Dikshitar are all examples of evolution & experimentations, that came to be accepted as part of classical music.
I also like classical instrumental music more than vocal, because instruments lend themselves more to experimentation, than vocal music.
whatever it may b carnatic or hindustani..the bhaavana and fluency are most important. .the one who commented on gudiji is really not worthy of discussing about music… thou the music is carnati or hindustani ..always shadja is shadja and panchama is panchama ….u consult me I will make you hear pt.madhav gudi recordings…..I can bet you that the nuances which he did in his compositions no one can do it…..!!..its highly impossible to sing to that calibre…..hindustani is not all about shouting n all which u mentioned….. u meet me n discuss… it is sad that I m watching this thing after 6 years…and aftr 3 years of pt madhav gudijis death…..if u wish u can contact me 8747023817