Rangapura Vihara | Sooryagayathri | Carnatic Krithi

While I am an Uthara Unnikrishnan fan, my favorite by far is Sooryagayathri.  For reasons I am not aware of, this song keeps ringing in my head. 

Endaro Mahanubhavulu

FYI, regarding my previous post: from Wiki

Uthara Unnikrishnan (born 2004) is an Indian playback singer. In 2015, she won the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer at the 62nd National Film Awards for her rendition of the song "Azhage" (Beautiful) from the 2014 Tamil film Saivam, a family drama directed by A. L. Vijay.She received the award at the age of 10, becoming its youngest recipient.

Here daughter and father sing:

 

Azhage Azhage

 Translation of the lyrics (from RealPrimalConnection):

Meaning : 
There is beauty in anything and everything. In the light of love, all is beautiful. Is it only rain that is beautiful? The scorching sun has its beauty too. Is it only the flower that is beautiful? The falling leaf too has its own beauty. The sight of a smile is beautiful. The silence that follows the end of speech is also beautiful. A lie told for a good cause is beautiful. Truth, is indeed very beautiful. When a cuckoo sings its melodious birdsong, is there a need for music notes? When  a peacock trots and dances, is there a need for rhythmic steps? For a river to reach the ocean, does it need a companion?  For the waves in the ocean to form its sounds, is there a need for language or grammar?  When you commune with natural beauty, the whole world is beautiful. If you forget all your worries, this whole life is beautiful. The tender heart is a swing that sways to the left and right. The heart can be lost in happiness or drowned in sorrow. There is no meaning in pondering about the past and there is nothing greater than looking at the present and counting our blessings. The fragrance wafting off a blooming flower is so beautiful. But even better is the fragrance of love that flows from our hearts.

A reply to the Ode to Joy

 

 The last few days, I've been listening to Beethoven again, and finally, paid some attention to the actual words of the Ode to Joy. Per here, the last five lines:

Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen. Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen? Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt? Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt! Über Sternen muß er wohnen.

translate to:

Brothers, above the starry canopy There must dwell a loving father. Do you fall in worship, you millions? World, do you know your creator? Seek Him in the heavens; Above the stars must he dwell.

The lyrics also refer to "Joy, daughter of Elysium". The Hindu answer to that is - Ananda, as in "Sat-chit-ananda", is a fundamental attribute the experience of Reality; and while not in the same musical league, wiser and just-as-good poetry tells where to seek Him/Her/It:

 

Ashtalakshmis singing Ashtalakshmi Stothram

Ashtalakshmi Stothram.
A translation.

Bhagyada Lakshmi Baramma - Sooryagayathri

A composition of Purandara Dasa.
Lyrics and a translation here.

Brahmam Okate - Sooryagayathri & Rahul Vellal

This composition is by Annamacharya.

Harivarasanam - Sooryagayathri & Kuldeep M Pai

A Kerala favorite:

Sri Ramachandra Kripalu - Sooryagayathri

Hanuman Chalisa - Sooryagayathri

Eric Prydz - Generate (2015)

First heard on an aircraft entertainment system.  Way to get it out of the head is to post it here :)

The Piano - how they used to play it

Rachel Nuwer had this in the New York Times that I found fascinating.  Apparently modern piano playing technique is considerably different from that in Mozart's time; and apparently it makes a difference.

Rolf Inge Godoy, a professor of musicology at the University of Oslo..struck up a collaboration with Christina Kobb, a doctoral candidate at the Norwegian Academy of Music and head of theory at Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo. Ms. Kobb has developed an unusual expertise: She has learned how to play the piano according to techniques described nearly 200 years ago.

....she gradually replaced her modern way of playing with 19th-century technique, gleaned from around 20 treatises. Most were written in Vienna in the 1820s, while a few were published in France and England. Her primary source, however, was “A Complete Theoretical and Practical Course of Instructions on the Art of Playing the Piano Forte,” the seminal 465-page treatise published in 1827 by Johann Nepomuk Hummel, one of Mozart’s students.  {you can find the English translation of the German work online, it is a 300 MB PDF file}.
...
...
While modern players tend to hunch over the keys and hold their forearms nearly perpendicular to the keyboard, 19th-century style dictated that pianists sit bolt upright. The posture prevented players from bringing their weight to bear on the keyboard, instead forcing them to rely on smaller finger movements. The elbows were held firmly against the body, with forearms sloping down and hands askew.

As Ms. Kobb became more fluent in this approach, she found that certain movements — jumping quickly between disparate chords, for example — became swifter and more fluid. “The elbow against your body serves as a sort of GPS, so you always know where you are,” she said.

Chords and scales sound smoother and can be played faster, Ms. Kobb also found, and dramatic pauses between notes — often a matter of physical necessity rather than of style — are lessened. The old style also allows the performer to be more discriminatory and subtle in choosing which notes to stress, Ms. Kobb learned, producing a performance that is subdued by today’s standards.

Turns out there is at least one youtube:



 

Song - Maria Mena - Secrets

Somebody left the gate open

A big bank is using this song in their commercial - the line "somebody left the gate open".


I like that line, and so looked up the song: LP - Into The Wild:

Published on Oct 4, 2012
"Into The Wild" by LP. Available now on iTunes. The music video was shot at the Four Aces in Palmdale, CA over the summer of 2012. Video directed by Shane Drake and features Brittany Snow & Haley Bennett. Song currently featured in a Citibank commercial.

If you watch the video you will see it is quite appropriate for the US financial industry.
Spoiler:

Kishore Kumar in Padosan

Old, but still fresh.

Juthika Roy - Bol re Madhuban mein Muraliya

The blurb says: "Juthika roy belonged to th golden era of Indian music (1938-1947) & she had no peer when it came to singing geets & bhajans of Meera & Kabir".

http://youtu.be/Oy2F7TvUQRs

Finnair goes Bollywood!

(Via S.M.) Finnair surprised passengers with a Bollywood number:

Japanese Snow Song

This Japanese song about the snow seems to be very popular in schools from the US to Macedonia. (Thanks to A for telling me about it.)


USA


Macedonia

Górecki: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

Henryk Górecki Symphony of Sorrowful Songs:

Ray Lynch: Celestial Soda Pop

or