Spirituality in music
B.R.C. IYENGAR
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Panduranga Sharma's vocal recital brought forth the puritan in him.
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Panduranga Sharma.
Music concert of Kalasagaram for the month of July saw a vocal recital by Panduranga Sharma. Ramanamurthy accompanied him on the violin,Arvind on the mridangam and Srinivasagopalan on the morsing. Sharma has learnt music from many renowned gurus, some amongst them being Balasubramanya Bhagavatahar, Purshothama Sastry and, of late, Pattamal.
Sharma is a puritan and, as is well known, it is difficult for contemporary masses to enjoy pure music and this is where Sharma stands to lose. What he gains in spirituality, he again loses in his pedestrian ramblings. This plan does not just sell because spiritualism ceases to convey any message to the normally emotional listener and tends to appeal only to those listeners whose interest is of technical and intellectual in nature. There may be melodic progressions, but it begins to lose its inner meaning. This is what happened in his vocal concert last week. It may be the penalty he has to pay for frequently changing his gurus, each although great, has the same progression of a perambulator - perfect in the guru's right but fulsome with the follower. Viewed positively, there is no hurry in his singing; it is marked by significant relaxation but unless it is decorated with modulations and transitions, it fails to appeal to the listener. His voice is decidedly not charismatic but yet it retains a reasonable tenor, rich enough to convey the message of music.
Rich assortment
The selection of the songs included traditionally rich ones significant with natural piety. Cold perfection will somehow seems mechanical. This seems to be the inherent defect of many of the contemporary singers; they fail to get into communications with the audience. The kaedaragowla varnam augured well, the kriti and vidulaku in mayamalagowla that followed, was a la pattammal. A short alapana of shudhadhanyasi led to the item Sri parthasarathi. Poorvikalyani raga was well depicted; the krithi and deva deva of Swathi Thirunal was spelt out with good bhava. The choice of the raga kalyani thereafter was not in good judgment. The anthara gandhara in both the ragas being common, the change did not bring out the needed contrast. But the krithi and birana vara of Shyama Sastri set to adi thalam, thisra nadai was scholarly and the swarakalpna for the song was imaginative. However, the long passages of alapana for the raga were imbued with droning and repetitive sancharas. Todi thereafter was a good choice and krithi kamalamba of Dikshithar was imposing and stately. In both the disciplines of alapana and swarakalpana, Sharma should exercise more structural and practical thoughts to make the concert as a whole more balanced.
A good concert can be ruined with bad sound system and the artiste's equanimity gets broken down. This is what happened in the initial stages of the concert and it took considerable time for Sharma to regain presence of mind.
This, in general, is the state of our concert arrangement and the loser is the audience. But yet, the concert had its own charm and engaged attention of the audience reasonably well. The accompanying violinist Ramanamurthy was rather unimposing and failed to enhance the stature of the concert.
But to a great extent, Arvind on the mridangam did an estimable job with his masterly input.
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