Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
Remembering Subasri
B.R.C. IYENGAR
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Gayathri Venkataraghavan’s recital turned out to be memorable.
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Devoid of theatricals, the presentation is chaste meeting the needs of the common as well as the connoisseur.
Rich voice Singer Gayathri
The name Subasri is synonymous with the cultural and religious activities in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad for over four decades. Founder of Sri Rama Navami Festival in Secunderabad, the fiesta is entering its 42nd year. Besides being
a prolific short story writer, a core value of Subasri has been identifying, encouraging and developing talent, to rise to highest potential. Subasri Memorial Cultural Trust conducts the memorial concerts every year to uphold the highest tradition as established by Subasri, at Skandagiri.
This year’s concert was delivered by Gayathri Venkataraghavan. Vishnubhatla Krishnaveni accompanied her on the violin and D.S.R. Murthy on the mridangam; the concert was well attended. Gayathri, evidently, is an experienced artiste who respects the traditional values of the ancient art. Her sruti gnana, in particular, is incredible; in combination with her rich voice, and the concert immediately gains credibility. She is shrewd in planning the format of the concert in an orderly way - rich madhyamakala items in the beginning, leading slowly to the more classical, sophisticated and intricate patterns as the concert progresses. The tempo is thus rationally built and well sustained till the end; the choice of the ragas and the krithis are equally deft. Devoid of theatricals, the presentation is chaste meeting the needs of the common as well as the connoisseur.
The concert augured well with the varnam in sri raga and led to guruleka in gowrimanohari; the pace was rather fast but panthuvarali
alapana that followed was attractive. Like any other lady artiste, Gayathri too has the failing in confining to the greater part of her singing to thara sthayi (huger octave), which effortlessly makes an impact; it was so with the krithi, piravaram. Swarakalpana for the song was attractive. Sithapathi in kamach was again a madhyamakala song which boosted the tempo. Ganamrithapanam in jyothiswaroopini of Kotiswaraiyer was a rare and precious item.
Srishankaraguruvaram in nagaswaravali was a welcome change. The major item happened to be bharavi; the raga was well covered in its entire spectrum and the krithi srievvaramma of Shyama Sastri, set to khanda jathi jampa thalam was emotionally presented, although there were some errors in the lyric. The sanghathis too were not appropriate in relation to established practice.
Gayathri has the failure of losing the kalapramanam (time interval) both in terms of the presentation of the krithi as well as swarakalpan, which results with the loss of melody. The contribution on the violin was reasonably good and the mridangam well supportive. On the day however, D.S.R. Murthy was not quite at home while playing for the vilamba kala (slow tempo); his thani was rather short. All in all, it was a good concert, the memories of which would stay for some time.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
