The melody of vintage Sunadavinodini - M Vasudevacharya's "Devadi Deva" - M Balamuralikrishna (1966)

Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna (BMK) has sung some exquisite kritis and rare rāgās of various composers and has received praise from the composers themselves. Their response typically being that BMK has sung it beyond what they had imagined. Mysore Vasudevacharya’s composition Dévādi déva in the rāga Sunādavinōdini is one such example.

When BMK rendered the rāga Sunādavinōdini and the kriti ‘Dévādi déva Shri Vāsudévā’ in front of its composer, Mysore Vasudevacharya, the great composer said, “My original composition was like an ordinary girl from a poor-family married into a wealthy family; your rendition is like the same girl when pregnant with a child, joyfully returning to her parents’ home, wearing beautiful ornaments, and bringing unexpected happiness. The song is mine is a mere fact but, it is yours by value.”

Since then, this song became very popular. Many organisers of music Sabhas would normally make a formal request to BMK for this song. Over a period, due to the requests made by the listeners or organisers repeatedly, this song was featuring in most of the concerts, taking away a potential opportunity for the singer to present something of his choice and for the music lovers a loss of listening to something rare from the maestro; had he not been requested to sing Dévādi déva in such a repeated manner. Although, while singing each time, one could observe the spurt of creativity and freshness of the same Sunādavinōdini.

In his countless number of renditions of the song Dévādi déva, if I were to choose ONE of the best renditions, I would choose the version being presented here; an excerpt from a live concert of 1966 with Sri. M S Goplakrishnan (MSG) and Sri. Tanjore P Upendran (TPU).

A search had been going on for years, for a good quality of audio of this recording. Getting the audio to this quality-level presented here, was a challenge owing to non-linear speed variation of the recording. It has taken several hours of work to reduce the variation to a considerable extent and hope you would enjoy listening to it, as much as I did.

One of the important feature of this rendition is BMK’s approach to svara-vinyāsam. The interplay between BMK – TPU and BMK – MSG is indeed a treat to listen.

Please listen and share your reflections.