Tried and trusted ragas steal the show
JITENDRA PRATAP
|
The concluding days of the Indraprastha music festival featured some brilliant performances.
|
PHOTO: AVINASH PASRICHA
ENCHANTING DUO Pandit Debu Choudhury
Of the six duos of music maestros and their offspring featured at the three-day Indraprastha music festival, held at the Kamani auditorium under the aegis of Delhi's Sahitya Kala Parishad, the ones to come out with flying colours were L.K. Pundit and his daughter Meeta Pundit, besides Pandit Debu Choudhury and his son Prateek Choudhury. They all did well by rendering ragas of good old proven values instead of self-concocted melodies as done by some of the other participants at this festival.
Gwalior gharana
The penultimate evening's concert concluded on a delightful note with L.K. Pundit and Meeta rendering choicest compositions of the Gwalior gharana with the deployment of the characteristic nuances of its late doyen, Krishnarao Shankar Pundit, the father of L.K. Pundit. The well-known Shah Sadarang's composition in raga Bihag ("Kaise sukh soveyn, needariya") set to the 16-beat slow Tilwada tala was rendered with melodic charm and in a methodical manner.
In view of the differences in the pitch of a male and female voice, Meeta, while giving support to her father, did well by switching over to different octaves. The Madhya Teen tala piece ("Rajan ke raja, maharaja") was delightfully handled with lively rhythmic variations typical of the Gwalior gayaki.
The colourful thumri in Mishra Piloo ("Saiyyan videsh gaye") was an apt number to conclude their brilliant performance. The duo had commendable support on the harmonium by Ustad Mehmood Dholpuri and on the tabla by Mithilesh Jha.
The concluding evening commenced with a guitar recital by Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and his son Salil Bhatt in the raga Maru Bihag. The artist has named his self-improvised guitar as the Mohan veena, which is also the name of the instrument devised by the late legendary sarod maestro, Pandit Radhika Mohan Moitra nearly four decades ago, by replacing the leather diaphragm of the sarod with the wooden soundboard of the sitar. The late Gopal Singh of Gwalior had done most of the improvisations (now claimed to have been done by Bhatt), some time during the mid-1930s.
There were quite a few scintillating sequences in their recital with an elaborate alap-jor followed by Teen tala compositions in slow, medium and fast tempi with adroit tabla accompaniment by Ram Kumar Mishra of Varanasi. The recital by the father and son duo would have pleased more, had their handling of the instruments been less aggressive and the volume of the amplifier a bit subdued. The sound of an instrument claimed as being handled with the nuances of the delicate sitar, sarod and the veena ought to be soothing to one's ears. The concluding piece in raga Desh rendered with the artist's vocal refrains, however did not cut much ice.
PHOTO: AVINASH PASRICHA
Prateek mesmerised audiences at the Indraprastha music festival in New Delhi.
Scintillating
The three-day festival received a befitting curtain-downer with the solemn yet highly scintillating sitar recital by Debu Choudhury and his son Prateek in the charming melody of the raga Rageshwari, which also is of proven values. The alap-jor-jhala was rendered at good length and followed by methodically rendered gat-todas with a maseetkhani composition, and the two other ones in medium and fast tempo teen tala. The performance was redolent with the choicest nuances of the Senia style and at times reminiscent of the sitar maestro's guru, the late Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan.
The most remarkable aspect of their recital was the soothing melodic strains released with neat and tuneful handling of their instruments. Of course, the young blood in Prateek did dish out a good number of forceful and vibrating phrasings in the finale, which did attain a breathtaking pace towards the end.
The charmingly rendered Tulsidas bhajan contained quite a few soothing melodic strains. Excellent tabla accompanument was provided by Rafiuddin Sabri.
Neat introductions
Sindhu Mishra did a good job with her introduction to the artists and the event. Her presentations were neat and polished except for the reading out from the material handed over by the artists themselves.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Entertainment
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
