Good exposition of ragas
BALAGANAMRUTHAM, CHENNAI, and Karnataka College of Percussion, Bangalore, conducted their ninth Mid-Season Music Marvel recently at the Mylapore Fine Arts Club auditorium.
It gave the music lovers of Chennai an opportunity to listen to a few artistes from Karnataka. If a good concert could be spoilt by over amplification the vocal recital of Bangalore R. A. Ramamani was an example. The acoustics behaved when she rendered the alapana, but with the accompaniments together it was simply overwhelming.
All the artistes in the concert were from Karnataka — violin by Bangalore Charulatha Ramanujam, mridangam by Bangalore H. S. Sudhindra and morsing by Mysore Gururaj.
The Abhogi alapana by both Ramamani and Charulatha before the Kriti `Manasunilpa' was noteworthy.
The Swarakalpana for `Adamodi' in Charukesi was racy and attractive.
The elaboration of Sahana again was rather good by both the artistes and the Thyagaraja composition `Giripai' was rendered competently. `Anandaamruthakarshini' came a little after the showers!
Ramamani had begun the concert with the Kannada varnam by Patnam Subramania Iyer, followed by ``Gananathaya" in Gowla. The main item was Kamboji.
Too many brigas
She had all the standard prayogams but somehow they failed to occur in a proper sequence and made the lengthy alapana sound disjointed. Her akara singing was good but was marred by too much of brigas. All the accompanists gave her good support throughout the concert.
For a 5-7 p.m. concert there was a sizeable crowd for the vocal performance by Bangalore Harini and Sharada. Beginning with the Saveri Varnam they moved to ``Gajavadana" in Sriranjani. A few unnecessary sangatis affected the beauty of the composition.
``Hiranmayim," the Lalitha raga kriti of Dikshitar was evocatively presented. The Pantuvarali Raga exposition by Sharada was quite good. Once again, over indulgence in brigas marred the effect in this raga as well as in Todi later.
The Todi Alapana by Harini was by far the best effort of the concert. Hemamalini on the violin did a better job in the swara segment. The concluding part of the swaras by the vocalists was quite novel. The Thani avartanam was brief and was presented together by Trivandrum Balaji (mridangam) and Guruprasad (ghatam).
LAKSHMI VENKATRAMAN
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