Vid. Rajkumar Bharathi – Vocal Concert 1998: "Parvathi" Ramanavami Music Festival
By R. Sachi
We are pleased to share with rasikas worldwide the
concert from the Ramanavami series 1998 of Vid. Rajkumar Bharathi. This very
enjoyable concert has traditional Carnatic fare as well as a lovely “English”
note of Thyagaraja-swami and also a patriotic song of the famous Tamil
literateur Subrahmanya Bharathi, the renaissance poet of the early 20th
century, who stridently voiced the spirit of the Indian freedom struggle and gave
a whole region much inspirational poetry.
Rajkumar
Bharathi is the great grandson of Sri Subrahmanya Bharathi. For Rajkumar Bharathi it was but natural to
be associated with music owing to his family’s keen interest in art and
literature. By the instructions of his music guru, Sangeetha Kalanidhi T. V.
Gopalakrishnan, Rajkumar decided to quit his engineering job in an R&D
division and devote his time for classical music.
Rajkumar
Bharathi has given Classical Carnatic music concerts throughout India and
abroad. His career spans classical music, bhavageethe, film playback singing,
composing for classical dance, international fusion and choir music and
teaching. He has many audio cassettes and CDs to his credit. His voice is very
popular across Karnataka for his clear diction and melodious singing of Kannada
compositions.
The concert has excellent accompaniment
from Sri Manjunath and Sri Cheluvaraju.
The concert features an interesting
composition, not often heard, of Saint Thyagaraja, which sounds very much like
an English note. The words are meaningful and clever. We reproduce the lyric
and meaning, taken from sahityam.net:
The Subrahmanya Bharathi song in Behag reflects the
aspirations of a resurgent India, a century ago, when the population was just
30 crores! The spirit of the nation and also the “modern” spirit of national
pride was the product ironically of the efforts of the English rule to create a
single nation patched up from several smaller princely states. The result was a
“critical” mass of national spirit.
Come, let us enjoy the concert!
Concert Details
Rajkumar Bharathi -----------------
Vocal
Mysore Manjunath ----------------- Violin
Cheluvaraj -------------------------
Mridangam
Srinath -----------------------------
Ghatam
on
13-4-98 During Ramanavami.
Song List
01.
Chalamela -Atatala Varna Shankarabharanam- Swathi Thirunal *** 02.
Vandisuvudadiyali- Nata- Purandaradasa *** 03. Sri Rama -Purnachandrika -
Thyagaraja *** 04. Sunadavinodini alapana 05. Devadideva - Sunadavinodini-
Mysore Vasudevachar *** 06. Chintane Sada - Kunthalavarali - Thygaraja *** 07.
Madhyamavathi alapana *** 08. Ramakathasaudha - Madhyamavathi - Thyagaraja ***
09. Ramanamava Nudi Nudi- Ragamalika (Desh,Vasanthi,Brindavani)- Purandaradasa ***
10. Hanumana matave - Jog- Purandaradasa *** 11. Varaleelaganalola
-Shankarabharana-Thyagaraja *** 12. Bharathasamudhayam-Behag-Bharatiyar
*** 13. Mangalam
