Let’s start from the very beginning. It is a very good place to start. When you listen to music you begin with… errr A
Favourite composition in A :
Ananda naTana prakAsaM – MuthuswAmy Dikshithar – kEdAraM
kEdAraM is a janya of sa.nkarAbharaNaM which is one of the most beautiful ragas ever. Kedaram itself has a beautiful lilt to it, that gives you wings (not unlike red bull!). Think of the opening lines of the navarAgamAlikA varnaM Vallachi. Think of Sundari neeyum from MMKR or pon mAlai pozhudu or to a certain extent yennavale from Kadhalan. The raga has a lovely trotting pace and sounds fantastic especially the fall by an octave from P to S.
The kriti itself is a part of the Panchalingam kritis of Dikshithar. It is in praise of dancing lord Nataraja, of Chidambaram the Akasha or ether sthalam, my favorite! The song is uplifting and beautiful. There is a gentle swaying motion invoked by the melody that reminds me of the swaying idols in the Kapali Kovil utsavam. Muthuswamy Dikshithar is my favorite of the trinity and this song one of the best of the best!
I am not able to link to a non-commercial recording of the song. My favorite versions are DK Jayaraman’s which is available in sangeethapriya and Sanjay’s in Kshethra Chidambaram.
Other A favorites :
akhilANDEsvari – MD -dwijAvanti
AnandAmR.takarSiNI -MD-amR.tavarSiNi
azhagA azhagA – Ambujam Krishna – suddha dhanyAsI
Aye Giridhar -swAthi thirunAl- shubha pantuvarAli
And ofcourse now my favorite Raga in A – Ahiri
mAyammA is the only song I’ve heard often in this raga, but there hasn’t been a single listening where the song/raga hasn’t managed to move me. It is said that if you sing Ahiri you wouldn’t get food for the rest of the day, but soul food is enough to satiate any hunger.
So that was A….
P.S- Arunk, one of my favorite carnatic music bloggers, who has some brilliant “review” posts on carnatic music (I loved his article on the Vivadi melas) for a really non-classical music audience recently started this thread on the Rasikas forum asking for people’s favorite kriti in the different letters of the alphabet. This post is a spin-off from that. Check out his blog linked in my new carnatic music blog roll. He even has fun Carnatic cryptic crosswords!
4 Comments
July 2, 2009 at 5:29 am
pon malai pozhudhu is pure beauty
and im yet to discover ahiri
July 2, 2009 at 12:59 pm
:O After seeing Arun’s thread in rasikas, I too thought of writing about my fav song in my blog! But lack of time is stopped me from doing that. Ananda natana prakasham would have topped the list in my post too!
Btw, nice post!
Do listen to panimati in Ahiri.
July 2, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Ahiri – Good choice
– although there are some true beauties that start with A (e.g Anandabhairavi) – but ahiri is real, real special indeed. Another common song you may hear in concerts of callArE rAmacandru (although it is customary to start this with anupallavi sompaina manasu…). There is also another song by ponniah pillai called dhInarakshaka. There is a rendition by Voleti somwhere – it is very good.
Arun
July 3, 2009 at 12:07 am
@buddy – fantastic lyrics too!
Great minds I guess!
@Aparna –
@Arun – I am thrilled to bits that you commented here !Thanks for all those recommendations..will be sure to listen to them.