A pat on the back for the new generation
JITENDRA PRATAP
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Two young musicians delighted Delhi's connoisseurs with their concerts.
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FINE FLAIR Yogesh Dutt.
Pune is regarded as the cultural capital of Maharashtra and can boast of a good number of leading vocalists like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Prabha Atre and Veena Sahasrabuddhe, to name just a few. The late Kirana celebrities Hirabai Barodekar and her brother Suresh Babu Mane were also Pune-based musicians. After attending Veena Sahasrabuddhe's recital in the recently concluded Shriram Shankerlal Music Festival, it was delightful to listen to yet another Pune-based artiste, the up-and-coming Priyadarshini Kulkarni, in the HCL Concert Series at the India Habitat Centre.
Priyadarshini was initiated into vocal music by her mother Shyamala Murnugkar, and later came under the tutelage of Pandit Nath Neralkar of Aurangabad and others. For the last three years she has been receiving advanced training in vocal music from Pandit Rajsekhar Mansoor, the son of the late Agra-Atrauli doyen Pandit Mallikarjun Mansoor.
Gifted with a mellifluous voice and sedate temperament, Priyadarshini enthralled her audience with her renderings.
The dusk-time raga Gauri was a most welcome piece of music. The slow Teen tala composition "Ab Rajan aayaa" was rendered with sobriety and a deep involvement of her well-cultivated artistic insight. The leisurely alap-badhat was later laced with well-knit taan patterns typical of the Mansoor mannerisms. The madhya Teen tala piece "Murat Mohini dekh" was handled with gusto and varying rhythmic patterns.
"Pat tore kaban" in Yaman Kalyan, also set to slow Teen tala, was reminiscent of the late Mallikarjun Mansoor's charmingly rendered piece on an LP record. Priyadarshini deployed a good number of sequences in taan and badhat with awareness of the raga's basic format. Her deployment of the Agra-Atrauli nuances came with much aplomb. So was her rendering of the ensuing piece in Yaman, "Sakhi e ri aalee piya bin", a favourite of the khayal singers of the Agra-Atrauli idiom.
The concluding dadra in Mishra Piloo came as a good finale to the well-planned evening - Priyadarshini's first full-length performance in the Capital.
Priyadarshini Kulkarni.
The harmonium accompaniment by Delhi's Jayaram Poddar would have sounded better if the microphone's volume was reasonably adjusted instead of being, as it was, too loud. As a result it became rather difficult to exactly follow the singer's enunciation of the lyrical texts. Young Durjoy Bhowmick on the tabla accompanied with restraint and understanding but regaled with his colourfully executed laggi sequences in the concluding dadra.
A good gesture
The Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra and its Director Shobha Deepak Singh deserve to be complimented for providing an opportunity to young talents. This is all the more creditable since the performance came soon after the Kendra's major annual event, the Shankerlal Music Festival. One is referring to the sitar recital by the young Yogesh Dutt, a scholar at the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra under Guru Bishwajit Roy Choudhury. The recital was held at the Triveni Kala Sangam.
Yogesh Dutt did indicate a keen artistic insight if his renderings at length in ragas Yaman and Hamir are any indication. His presentation of raga Yaman with leisurely alap-jod-jhala followed by Masitkhani and Razakhani gat-todas, respectively set to slow and fast Teen tala, revealed the good musical base provided by his guru. The raga's edifice was given a good architectural build-up with well-knit and colourfully inserted melodic sequences, which were varied and fell pleasingly on the ears.
Yogesh rendered his next piece in raga Hamir with a brief alap followed by a mid-tempo gat-toda set to madhya Jhap tala. The basic features of the raga were well delineated. One felt pleased with the well-stressed accent on the note Dhaivat with refreshingly inserted nuances. Commendable accompaniment on the tabla by Gyan Singh added further lustre to the recital.
Having highlighted the notable features of the young sitarist's performance, one would also like to make some suggestions. He would do well to deploy bold strokes of his mizrab or plectrum that would go a long way in giving tonal clarity to his meanderings. Another thing that could give his performance more credibility is the basic need for him to extemporise and give variations to what his dedicated guru has already bestowed upon him.
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