Brōvabhārama - Bahudāri - Tyāgarāja : A rare concert of Viola & Harmonium - BMK & Arunachalappa
Uploader: Music for Posterity : Sreenivasa Murthy
Original upload date: Wed, 24 May 2017 00:00:00 GMT
Archive date: Mon, 29 Nov 2021 08:50:16 GMT
That was the year 1962 and the Sri Ramanavami music festival was in full swing. Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna (BMK) arrived in Bangalore on that morning to perform at the Sri Rama Seva Samiti. An
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eminent violinist, who was scheduled to accompany BMK for that evening concert could not come from Madras, owing to some constraints. The organisers were on lookout for a substitute violinist to accompany BMK and unfortunately they were not successful. For some reason, the great violinist Chowdaih, who was in town did not agree to come either.
Then, someone suggested the name of Arunachalappa to accompany Balamuralikrishna, not by violin but with Harmonium!
The organisers conveyed the proposal to BMK. For few moments, one could see some traces of doubt appearing on BMK’s face and, it disappeared quickly to form a disarming smile. He considered it as a new opportunity of exploring the evening concert with a Harmonium and, he gracefully agreed to the proposal.
BMK was highly impressed by the style of Arunachalappa’s accompanying on Harmonium and, the frequent “bhalé” and “ shabāsh” by him, encouraged the artistes on the stage, and the concert was a glorious success. This event was even recounted and reminisced by a speaker during an award ceremony that was held sometime back. The awe that it had created in those days was expressed and BMK, was listening to the speaker with rapt attention and was seen nodding his head in affirmation.
Arunachalappa, a versatile harmonium player of yore was credited in dispelling the dislike of harmonium by his skill of playing and the talent in handling the instrument by adopting for a given genre. It is said that, His highness Krishnaraja Wodeyar of Mysore, apparently overcame his intense dislike of harmonium when he heard Arunachalappa playing the instrument.
I did not know, if there was another occasion where both BMK and
Arunachalappa teamed up together to perform until a recording of a full concert was found.
Here, BMK chooses to play viola and Arunachalappa accompanies him on the harmonium. As the audio restoration of this concert was quite a challenging task, I worked to extract one track, Saint Tygaraja’s “ Brōvabhārama raghu rāma in the rāga Bahudāri”. On cleaning the audio, I found that the gap between the maximum distortion in speed to a nearest possible reference Shruti is B (0.75 scale) and I have remastered the audio to B Shruti, sounds almost like a masculine voice.
There are another 4 tracks including an RTP which needs to be taken up for restoration. The restoration will be prioritised based on your feedback and response to this upload.
Arunachalappa’s non-intrusive way of accompanying and his skill in highlighting the glow created by the main artiste might have inspired BMK to sing with a harmonium as an accompaniment. One could recall Smt. Shyamala Bhave accompanying BMK in several concert in Bangalore and Sri. S Venkaraman accompanying in Madras Music academy in the eighties.
Please take your time to savour this delicacy in Bahudāri and witness how the deft fingers of BMK bring out the music of his silken voice onto the viola and how Arunachalappa plays the instrument and the mridangam artiste aptly accompanies to facilitate a wholesome and joyful listening experience.