[Music thread - Carnatic] Time on my hands and not much to do. So here we go with a carnatic music thread. I will talk about compositions in the raga MUKHARI
Mukhari, for some reason, has been known as a soga ragam, a sad ragam, azhugai ragam. You get the drift right? The truth is that Mukhari is far beyond that. It has various moods
SRJ in one of his lec dems sings a Tyagaraja krithi in Mukhari and asks, "Where is the shoka rasam in this? It is just adbutha". So we will not bother about this aspect at all in this thread.
For beginners, the feel of Mukhari and Bhairavi are very similar and for a long time I had problems in distinguishing between them. You can also add Huseni to this mix. Later I realized the personality of Mukhari clearly
Enough of the preamble. Let us get on with the show. Tyagaraja was a master in handling the rakti ragas. I told this in a thread I did earlier. And I say it again now. I will first play some amazing Mukharis of Tyagaraja before turning the spotlight on to other composers
We start with 'sangeetha sastra gnanamu'. Sung here by Nedanuri. This was the krithi that SRJ sung to show that Mukhari cannot be shackled only to shoka rasa
Next is the outstanding 'muripemu' sung by MS. This krithi describes the beauty of Tiruvaiyaru and shows us the poetic prowess of Tyagaraja.
In this krithi Tyagaraja asks Rama if he is not smiling slightly with pride seeing the beauty of Tiruvaiyaru.
And what a wonderful charanam this krithi has, 'eedu leni malayamarudhamu che koodina thatamandhu', lending itself to the perfect neraval as many Tyagraja krithi charanams do.
And MS ofcourse was a master of neravals and as usual she lovingly renders the neraval.
Tyagaraja's devotion to Rama was matched by his devotion to Rama bhaktas. He wrote 'Prahaladha Bhakthi Vijayam'. Here he is telling us how fortunate Sabari was. 'enthani ne varninthunu sabari bagyamu' Musiri Subramaniya Iyer
Musiri's pleading tone lent emotion to many songs. This krithi too benefited from it.
Also Musiri's singing was filled with sangatis, giving the krithi a gravitas. Even in this krithi you can see how one sangati follows another in a wonderful order, enhancing our listening experience.
Next up is 'karubaru' Here by the youngster Aishwarya Vidya Raghunath
'karubaru' is probably a morphing of the Urdu word 'karobar' meaning administration. Here Tyagaraja talks about the administrative capacity of Rama.
My favorite rendition is by Brinda Mukta. Unfortunately that is not available on YT. I couldn't find the MS rendition either.
'elavatharamu' sung by M D Ramanathan Another wonderful krithi.
Talking about the difference between Mukhari and Bhairavi, S.Ramanathan sings the anu pallavi of this krithi wonderfully. This is in a lec dem.
Now for the Semmangudi staple, 'ksheenamai thiruga' There is a recording of this krithi by his guru Maharajapuram VishwanathaIyer as well
This is a song with a lot of philosophical import.
Another song with a superb start to the charanam. 'eti chesina jagannadhudu siramuna'
'sarasiruhanana' A krithi you don't hear much nowadays. Alathur Bros version.
Oops. That was not the Alathur version but sung Ram Kaushik. Here is the original Alathur Version
Now for a couple of rare Tyagaraja numbers. 'thalachinanthane' by Balamurali. Tyagaraja says that he gets goosebumps thinking of Rama's name.
You almost never hear this krithi. 'chintistunnade yamumudu' by Mangalam Shankar (IIRC, she is the daughter in law of Kalpagam Mami)
I always have a smile on my lips when I hear this song. Tyagaraja says Yama is puzzled because people have now started taking up Rama namam and stopped doing bad things. So will Yama have any work in the future?
Now that we have played Tyagaraja krithis toour heart's content, let us move to other composers. First, his contemporary, Muthuswamy Dikshitar, with the grand 'pahimam rathnachala nayaka' by Ramakrishna Murthy
My favorite in DKP's version. Unfortunately I don't see it on youtube. Have also heard a lovely version of Seetha Rajan for Nada Inbam a few years back.
Tyagaraja's other contemporary Syama Sastry did not compose in Mukhari. His son, Subbaraya Sastry, did. Here is 'emani ne' sung by Brinda.
Let us now look at a few Tamil krithis. Let's start with the extremely popular 'sivakama sundari' of Papanasam Sivan. DKP made this very popular and this krithi was always linked to DKP.
DKP's diction and her bhavam in singing perfect complement the words of Sivan. This is one song in which the Mukhari -shokam relationship makes sense.
Another popular Mukhari krithi in Tamil is 'enraiku siva krupai varumo' of NilakantaSivan. Sung by Musiri. I remember this also having a DKP version
To me, this krithi sounds very close to 'elavatharamu' of Tyagaraja in its structure.
The next Tamil krithi is 'arivar yaar unnai' sung by DKP & DKJ. Composition of Arunachala Kavirayar
From Tamil compositions, we now shift to Ashtapadi, 'priye charusheele' by MS in Mukhari.
This ashtapadhi is sung in many ragas and has appeared in many films as well. In this version Mukhari is used for conveying the viraha emotion
Swati Tirunal's 'bhavathi vishvaso' by Semmangudi. He is the one who popularized this krithi.
Oops. That was a wrong link. Here is the right one.
We will end this thread with the superb padam, 'ososi' sung magnificently by Brinda Mukta
This is a vintage padam which was made their own by Brinda and Mukta as they made so many padams. With this I sign off and end this thread. Thanks.
