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Kala Ramnath - Violin
Vijay Ghate -Tabla
Tracks
Raag Bihagada
1 Alap (3.29)
2 Roopak Tal (7 Beats) (15.00)
3 Teental (16 Beats) (8.37)
Raag Rageshri
4 Alap (4.16)
5 Jhaptal (10 Beats) (12.38)
6 Teental (7.21)
7-8 Meera Bhajan in Raag Bhairavi (3.19, 7.36)
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NECTAR
Kala Ramnath is a tradition-bearer of one of the Indian subcontinent's most respected and
most unique musical dynasties. She can be described as 'unique' in its precise sense.
Like her cousin Sangeeta Shankar, she is a fourth-generation violin player in a
seven-generation dynasty of musicians the first three generations having been
court-musicians specialising in vocal music in Tripunittura in Kerala on the southwestern
flank of India.She was born in May 1967 in Madras in Tamil Nadu and began playing the violin, a full-sized instrument at that, in October 1969. Her first violin teacher was her grandfather A. Narayana Iyer, one of the instrument's true visionaries. “What he used to teach me, I picked up very fast. I had good ‘grasping powers’, he told me once.” In an article in Screen, one of India's most astute music critics and commentators, Mohan Nadkarni quoted her grandfather saying he was "born into the family of vidwan [maestro musician-scholar] Appadurai Bhagavatar,a noted court-musician under the patronage of the Maharaja of Cochin." A. Narayana Iyer described his father, that is, Kala Ramnath's great-grandfather, as having "a very good reputation as a vocalist and as being an expert on the violin"; he studied singing and violin playing with his father though tragically he died while his son was still a boy. A pragmatist, Narayana Iyer was forced "to look for other avenues of livelihood."
He moved to Bombay in the early 1920s where he worked as a stenographer. "I did not forget to take my violin with me," he told Nadkarni. He succeeded in breaking into the Bombay music scene. This included playing violin for soundtrack sessions in films and accompanying musicians like Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, as well as moving in circles that introduced him to the renowned musicologist Vishnu N. Bhatkhande (1860-1936).
He stayed in Bombay for a decade before moving back down South. He and his wife Ammini Ammal had four sons and a daughter. All five children, including Kala's father, T.N.Mani, studied violin under their father.After all, his ambitions lay in teaching, not in basking in the limelight. Only T.N. Krishnan of his sons and his daughter N. Rajam, however, made violin their career and, as his granddaughter recalls, Narayana Iyer "charted the course of their careers." He tackled the problem of putting them on the see-saw of competitiveness (and sibling rivalry) uniquely. He taught Krishnan violin according to the Karnatic or South Indian system and his daughter the Hindustani or Northern Indian system in order that they would complement, rather than compete with, each other. Initially Kala's grandfather inducted her into both systems, a bilingual language course as it were, before she took the Hindustani fork and learned from her aunt, Dr. N. Rajam and her present guru, the magisterial vocalist Pandit Jasraj.Violin played in the Hindustani style has not yet gained the ubiquity it has in the Karnatic classical system. Its kismet may be never to attain a place comparable to the one it has in Karnatic music. Kala Ramnath is doing her utmost to change that imbalance with her fluidity of touch, her subtle developments in violinistic technique and, above all, her interpretative powers.
Raag Bihagada:
Track 1 is the alap, the most frequently encountered opening movement in Hindustani râg or raag interpretation. Its purpose is to express and unfold the rãg's character, combining logic and passion to introduce the listener step-by-step to its notes, constituent colours, key phrases, tonal range and mood(s).
No matter how many times a principal soloist performs the same rãg,each alap should be like planting a signpost. Each particular time, it should guide listeners in the direction of the interpretative approach. Each journey should differ. Rãg, after all, is designed to reflect spontaneous composition and creativity.
Track 2, explains Kala Ramnath, "is in roopak tãl [a seven-beat cycle (tãl or taal), broken
down into 3+2+2=7] in vilambit laya [slow tempo]."
Track 3 "is a composition which has teentãl [16 beats divided 4+4+4+4=16] in the sthayi or first section and ektãl[12 beats divided 4+4+4=12] in the antara or second section. The beauty of this composition lies in how you return to the first line of the sthayi in teentãl after playing the antara in ektãl.”
Raag Rageshri: Track 4 is the alap.Track 5 is "in jhaptãl [10 beats divided 2+3+2+3=10] in slow tempo."
Track 6 returns to teentãl.Meera bhajan:
Track 7 Mayi Saanvre Rang Raachi is a Meera bhajan - a form of Hindu praise song set in Bhairavi. Meera, also called Mirabai, was a Rajasthani princess and saint-poetess who composed and sang bhajans or hymns on Lord Krishna, the eight incarnation of Vishnu, in particular.
Kala is joined in the recital by Vijay Ghate who is considered by vocalists, instrumentalists and classical dancers as one of the best tabla players in India today. A disciple of Suresh Talwalkar, Vijay is known for clarity, accuracy, and purity in his rendering of various complicated tabla compositions.
There are some people apart from my Gurus who I feel have been god-sent in my life, without whom I would'nt be where I am today. I 'd like to mention them here. They are: my mom Mrs. Malathy Mani, another mother figure, Dr. Neerja Rateria and my friend, philosopher and guide, Kumar, who incidentally is related to me as a distant cousin. All these three people have been the guiding force in the making of Kala Ramnath the person.
Apart from these three I would like to make special mention of a few other people who have helped me at various critical stages of my career: Mr. Jiwat Lalwani and Mrs. Ira Lalwani,
Mr. Malay Mishra, Mrs Mangal Waghmare, Mr. Sayan Mukerji and Mrs. Vasu Sunderraj.
There are numerous other people who have helped me at various other junctures but I am
unable to mention all of them due to constraints of space. My gratefulness and thoughts
are with all of those whom I have missed out here.I would like to dedicate this CD to all
these people and the countless others not mentioned here but who have a hand in the
musical growth of me,
- Kala Ramnath. Thank you everyone.
© Ken Hunt with Kala Ramnath 2005
Ken Hunt is a full-time, freelance writer, broadcaster and translator. His writing appears in reference works for the All Music Guides, Oxford University Press and the Rough Guides, in numerous periodicals and journals, in concert and festival programmes, and all over the internet.
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