The tempo of songs and strings
JITENDRA PRATAP
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Madhumita Ray and Subroto Roy's performances regaled the aficionados in New Delhi the other day.
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Madhumita seems to have developed a singing style of her own with confidence and maturity.
One certainly enjoyed every bit of the vocal recital by Delhi's Madhumita Ray and the sitar recital by Kolkata's Subroto Roy Choudhury at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi the other day.
Madhumita commenced her recital in raga Kedar with a slow paced composition set to a slow 12- beat Ek tala, "Sikhe Ho Nandlal". She developed this piece at good length with scores of charmingly deployed variations. She followed this up with the well-known Khayal composition "Kanha re, Nand Nandan" set to Madhya Teen tala and concluded with the fast tempo song set to Ek tala, "Sughar chatur Balma'. These compositions were impressive for her hauntingly rendered variations in sargams and taans with the raga's format well etched. Thereafter, she took recourse to singing of semi-classical numbers such as Hori and Dadra.
Colourful variations
The late Naina Devi's composition "Aayee Hori, Rang Daro" was rendered with tunefulness and colourful variations. And so also was the late Shambhu Maharaj's dadra, "Bajaye Jaa Baasuri Nandlala".
It was a pleasing experience to listen to Madhumita after a very long time. She seems to have developed a singing style of her own with confidence and maturity.
She had commendable support from Rehman Qureshi (harmonium), Saeed-ur-Rehman (sarangi) and Rashid Zafar Khan (tabla).
The evening's concert concluded with a delightful sitar recital by Subroto Roy Choudhury from Kolkata. His at-length rendering of alap-jod-jhala in the pentatonic raga Abhogi, followed by gat-todas, respectively in Teen tala and Ek tala, were notable for his neat, crisp and bold handling of the strings. There were scores of tuneful glides and some bold gamakas as well.
The next rendering in the raga Suddha Basant indicated the artiste's scholarly approach in the presentation of the raga. The concluding Pilu was an apt and colourful finale to the evening's enjoyable concert.
Prasun Chatterjee's adroit tabla accompaniment and his own solo variations added to the listeners' delight.
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