The Vintage Splendour BMK with MSG

A Live Concert from 1958

Introduction:
Have you ever heard BMK announcing Excuse me for singing a rare rAga!
in any of the concerts that you have been or listened so far? At least, I have
never witnessed such an announcement until I chanced upon this rare concert,
perhaps one of the greatest concert sung by the maestro.

Sreenivasa Murthy

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This concert, a great vintage splendour shines the glory of our Indian classical
music by its musical mastery, scholarship of rendition, richness in content,
complementariness of talents and its phenomenal power of lifting one to
another plane of consciousness.
The main objective of this communication, which would be presented to you in
several parts, is to provide you some information from its discovery to the
recovery of the concert, observations made by some ardent listeners of BMKs
music and also to share the some of the highlights of the concert to facilitate
your wholesome listening experience.
I am aware that listening to music and the resulting outcome is often a
subjective experience and is quite difficult to verbalise and my intension is just
to provide you some pointers to direct your attention to such interesting aspects
and leave you in such an environment to experience the music according to
your perception. I sincerely hope this would enhance the quality of your
listening experience significantly.

Discovery to Recovery:
This concert of 1958 has been salvaged from a big spool tape, which had been
infected by fungus. The music collector, who wishes to remain unanimous had
many such spools of great masters of yore, but most of it got destroyed on
account of flooding of rain water into the basement of his house, where he had
stored those spools in card board containers. One of such spool tape, partially
drenched in rain water survived fortunately.
This spool tape was then cleaned and treated chemically for the removal of
fungus and was digitised by seeking the help of a professional. About three
hours of audio had been recovered from an estimated concert of about four
hours. The resulting digitised files were hardly audible and the music was
found to be submerged in the ocean of very strong hissing noise and persistent
white noise and it was put away by the collector with some deep
disappointment.
Through some contacts, this recording was accessible to me and my initial
attempts to recover the music from the noise was not successful at all and the
trials conducted in consultation with some friends in April 2013 also did not
help much, but gained some good understanding about the nature of the
problem.
A systematic approach to recover the music was initiated through series of
experiments, by varying different parameters with its setting levels and I could
not achieve any break through and the project was again stalled in July 2013.

Sreenivasa Murthy

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A search began to find some specialised tools which are capable of handling
the noisy audio projects and in the month of August 2013, several options were
found, whose capability needed to be validated with respect to my objective.
With a combination use of these soft-wares in a particular sequence resulted in
positive outcome and based on the results achieved for the sample sound
track, I thought of investing my time and effort in the restoration of this
vintage splendour.
I was quite happy to see some positive results by the middle of September 2013
and carried out the audio remastering for all the available tracks. I am hopeful
of finding much more effective tools in the future to work on this concert to
restore its original glory, but I believe it is good enough to listen to it, in its
present form, to get a reasonable listening pleasure and a global idea about the
merit of the concert, the artistes and its time line.

An Overview of the Concert:

As you begin to listen to the concert, you would, most probably, observe that
the rendition is quite special, unique and has a style which is quite distinct from
the concerts that we have been listening from the sixties and later on.
The method of rAga-AlApana adopted here, is enriched with torrents of
bhrigAs which we do not seem to observe so much even in the concerts of
sixties, captures our attention instantaneously. A practicing musician, listening
to these bhriga laden rAgalApanas Observed that the bhrigAs sung by BMK
here, is quite complex array of notes emerging with various patterns, akin to
his manOdharma kalapana svarams and is not a repetition of two or three
notes with high speed.
The rAgAlApana progresses smoothly and transitions gracefully and each of
the main rAgAlApana traverses through the various modal shifts of shrutibhEdam and some of it never heard before, especially a modal shift in
abhEri bringing the rAga suraTi , for instance.
The sangatIs and embellishments are so fresh and the two maestros (BMK
and MSG) together create magical spell and demonstrate impeccable mastery
in bringing out fresh and new dimensions for the kritis presented. This holds
the listener in awe for their unmatched talent and their skill of bringing out the
subtle nuances in the presentation.
The svarams comes out so fluently like the flow of river Ganga from the mouth
of Gomukh caves in Himalayas, carrying scintillating beauty of shining pearls.
It is so fulfilling and satisfying to listen to the flows of svarams, its patterns,
speed, intonation, melody and the impact that it makes.

Sreenivasa Murthy

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Finally, the contentment that prevails over a long period of time on listening to
the svarams is a sure way of returning to the concert from a desire of listening
to it again.
Experiencing the Vintage Splendour:
As I listened to the concert several times, some of the observations revealed
itself consistently in every listening session and helped me to consolidate
my understanding about the calibre of rendition. Some of these are as follows.
BMK presents each kriti in a mellifluous voice and his attention and
focus in singing each piece is really worth observing.
Many moods have been powerfully presented here, covering a wide
range of emotions that we experience which helps us to connect with the
music effortlessly.
BMKs musicianship reveals unhurried, systematic and note by note
development of rAga. The accompanying artistes observation of such
cycles of musical notes and his support and inspiration to the vocalist by
playing them with such accuracy and precision retains the listeners rapt
attention.
The initial development of rAga during rAgAlApana by both the vocalist
and violinist establishes distinct nature, colour and flavour of the rAga.
The personality of artistes in expressing emotional and aesthetic
expressions, balancing the head and heart provides the listener a
beautiful and comprehensive form of the rAga and make that form to
dance with the brilliance of kalpanA-svarams.
kalapanA-svarams flows out in different speeds with scintillating beauty
of shining pearls as one listens with a deep attention.
After many listening sessions, I felt that, it is quite hard to verbalise or
intellectualise anything that goes by the depth of the heart. Perhaps, listening to
it several times alone could bring the joy of that experience followed by an
understanding?

The Voice of the listeners:

During the verification & validation phase of remastering of some of the
important concerts, I solicit the support of some dedicated and skilled listeners
to preview the concert and to share their observations. The observations shared
here are only the excerpts of certain tracks of their choice.
Sreenivasa Murthy

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 An ardent rasika commented To me, the highlight of the concert is

certainly the rendition in tODi. BMK and MSG co-create a magical
spell in each phase of rendition. The 23 minutes long kalpana svarams
is simply exhilarating demonstrating the pace, fluidity and variety of
svarams and the flawless support among the artistes lifts the listener to
another plane.
The delineation and portray of tODi by both maestros displays both
familiar and rare facets of the rAga. MSGs violin ranks right up there in
terms of exploits on violin. I just finished listening to the tODi piece
second time and I kept going back to the interplay between the two both
in the rAgAlApana and the kalpanAsvarams phase. This was
stupendous!
A practicing musician on listening to the rendition in tODi said I
observe that the brighAs presented by BMK here, is just not a
presentation of high speed repetition of two or three notes. It is a
brilliant construction of complex patterns of notes gushing out with
beauty and grace.
Another practicing musician observed The tODi sung here has lots of
material for one to understand and digest for about an year.
A young gentleman, who was getting married and in the process of tying
the nuptial knot to his bride said to me The tODi was ringing in my
ears even during the great moment of my marriage, it is unbelievable.
A rasika observed The rendition of kalyANi RTP with rAgamAlika
svarams appears seemingly effortless, but after listening to several time,
the interplay between MSG and BMK reveals the complexity and the
intelligent effort by the artistes in bringing out the pure music.
An admirer of BMK music observes I have heard many renditions of
abhEri piece, by other artists and even by BMK. Call it what you will,
but I have not heard a better enactment of the richness of the bhAva
embedded in this kriti prior to this. This experience is na bhUtO na
bhavishyati for me. More so because of the skill of abhinayam
demonstrated by BMK for about 25 minutes during the rendition of the
kriti.
He continues to share his listening experience As you look at the
pallavi line, you would observe that it has two parts, nagu mOmu ..,
and nanu brOva .. The reason I point this out is that each part has a
different emotion attached to it. The first part is more of a statement,
whereas the second part is more of an appeal, a pleading. You would
become aware of this as you listen to BMK unwind the pallavi. The
great thing about this particular piece is that this difference in bhAva is
heard every time BMK sings the pallavi line. One can appreciate this
only if you look for and find the bhAva. Also, for BMK, the rAga
becomes a framework for expression of the bhAva appropriate to the
context and bhrigAs are sprinkled liberally to accentuate the underlying

Sreenivasa Murthy

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bhAva; esp. around 19 min, you would notice the feeling of helplessness
and the sense of urgency associated with his pleading. Amazing!
Here (abhEri) in the context, Saint Tyagaraja is using this composition
to express his varied emotions to the lord. And what a job BMK does in
executing these emotions! One can be forgiven if one feels that one is
listening to the Saint himself alive!
Another rasika wrote to me the first thing that appealed to me was
the sweetness of BMKs voice. I guess 50s and 60s would have been
the golden era of his voice. Fresh, tender, captivating, charming,
infectious and full of vigour of life.
By setting the stage for what to follow, encouraging , humming along
occasionally, BMK makes sure that the excellence is not limited to him
alone but is pervasive, from beginning to end, leaving one with a feeling
of wholesome satisfaction and many more..

Sreenivasa Murthy
12th December 2013
Tours, FRANCE.

Sreenivasa Murthy

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