Friday, October 28, 2005

Oru raagam paadalOdu

Sri chakra raaja simhaaneswari sri lalithaambigayE, the song every new learner of classical (carnatic) music learns; a song that is sung in every other household kolu function during navarathri. Girls singing this song in unison is a treat to watch (ahem...yeah this sentence is kind of ripped from one of the drooling posts of 'Ferrari' Prabhu).

I heard that this song is in Simhendra madhyamam raaga (or a raagamalika in which one of the raaga is simhendra madhyamam).

Thinking of this raaga automatically associates my thought to IR's usage of this raaga. Simhendra madhyamam was ornated at various degree by him.

Do you want pure western-classical(WC) movements with simhendra madhyamam singing? You got it. Listen to aanandha raaagam from panneer pushpangaL. Uma Ramanan (UR) takes you suddenly to the 100th floor of the building right from the first vocal note after that splendid western classical strings prelude section. Raaja proves how deftly he can "manipulate" classical raaga to fit into the WC idiom.

Well, if you are more interested in semi-classical rendition then resort to chinna kuyil chitra's honey voiced kaaRROdu kuzhalin naadhamE from kOdai mazhai (or) alternatively, you can listen to superb rendition of nE pournami from oruvar vaazhum aalayam in mellifluous voice by K.J.Yesudaas (KJY).

If you are hardcore carnatic classical person, and doesn't want to compromise a kutchery feel, even your taste is not rejected by IR. You have non-other than Sudha Raghunathan singing the song enai enna seidhaai from IvaN in kutchery format. This song is predominantly set in Simhendra madhyamam but towards the end Sudha raghunathan, Lalgudi Ravi(?) et al go in for a full-fledged raagamaalika which is thwart by some verbal gimmicks by parthiban.

Oru raagam paadalOdu kaadhil kEttadhO; ManadhOdu oojal aadudhO

This stanza from yet another IR song summarizes this entire post.

Kudos raaja. Kudos to great singers Chitra, UR, Sudha Raghunathan and KJY.

By the way here is this simple mohana raaga duet oru raagam paadalOdu from aanandha raagam.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Slight correction. Sri Chakra Raaja is a raaga malika and there is not even an ounce of simhendramadhyamam in it.

December 07, 2005 9:46 AM  
Blogger Kupps said...

anon

thanks for stopping by.

i thought i heard simhendramadhyamam was one of the raagaas (or the raaga) of this song. but i may be completely wrong. thanks for the correction.

January 20, 2006 12:24 AM  

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