Sound matters
JITENDRA PRATAP
|
Sugato Bhaduri's mandolin recital despite some tuneful passages, would have been better if the instrument had not been adapted beyond its nature.
|
Sugato Bhaduri's mandolin recital this past week in the HCL Concert Series at the India Habitat Centre evoked mixed feelings for his altering the basic character of his instrument and his inept handling of the raga Charukesi of Carnatic origin.
First of all, his experimentations over the instrument. The small-sized wooden mandolin is basically of a feminine character with a sharp and sweet tonal flavour. To give it a bold and loud tonal character to match the sound of the guitar or the sarod didn't seem to be doing justice to it.
The thick bass strings sounded quite heavy for the thin soundboard, and the small-sized sound chamber of this tiny instrument. As a result, there was a good deal of distorted notes from this,
otherwise an instrument known for its soft and sweet tonal character. One therefore recalled the rich and sonorous tonal flavour of the young Carnatic musician, Mandolin U. Srinivas' handling of the same instrument without compromising with the basic features of the Western mandolin, which is said to be an Italian folk instrument.
A common pitfall
As for his handling of the raga Charukesi, his was no better than most of the Hindustani musicians' handling of the Carnatic ragas without understanding the basic principles and nuances involved therein.
Merely following just the scale of theses ragas in the ascending and the descending pattern does not seem to be the right approach in handling these ragas, which have their individual character and contours, all of which could be discernible only on studying some of the original compositions.
Like most of the Hindustani musicians handling the Carnatic ragas without a deep insight into their basic character, Sugato's opening alap in Charukesi had prominent features of the raga Darbari Kanada that has no relation to Charukesi.
One recalls Pandit Ravi Shankar's superb exposition in Charukesi with an altogether distinct flavour and without the slightest tinge of the ragas Darbari Kanada and Gunji Kanada (with the note Shuddha Dhaivat) as handled by Sugato.
The at lengthy alap-jod-jhala were typical of the artist's mentor, the sarodist Tejendra Narayan Mazumdar, a disciple of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
There were scores of tuneful and colourful sequences, but for the occasional inroads into the bass register with oversized strings causing quite a bit of distorted phrasings.
The slow tempo Jhap tala composition was redolent with well conceived phrasings and variations, followed by lively rhythmic sequences in the fast and faster Teen tala renderings. The so-called `dhuns' with which the artist concluded his recital of the evening were in fact renderings in the ragas Shivaranjani and the Carnatic Keeravani, both rendered with much aplomb.
Delhi's ace percussionist Subhash Nirwan provided commendable accompaniment to Sugato besides releasing quite a few rounds of his own solo variations with masterly handling of the drums.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Entertainment
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
