Mellifluous notes
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The Harmonium Habba, yet again, reinforced the great potential of the harmonium as a solo instrument
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UNIQUE Ravindra Katoti and Prakash Sontakke
Harmonium Habba organised by the Bijapure Harmonium Foundation featured some interesting harmonium solo concerts.
There was a unique harmonium and swar veena jugalbandi concert by Ravindra Katoti and Prakash Sontakke. The artistes presented a beautiful morning melody Nat Bhairav. Katoti and Sontakke took up a vilambit ektal composition in this raga. In keeping with the serene appeal of this raga, Katoti illuminated the facets of Nat Bhairav in his meditative and rhythmic alap cycles. H Udayraj Karpur provided the tabla accompaniment.
The vocal recital of Pt. Indudhar Nirodi, one of the senior exponents of Agra Gharana featured another renowned harmonium virtuoso of Karnataka Vyasmurthy Katti, who is also his disciple, accompanied his guru on the harmonium.
Pt. Nirodi’s delineation of the vintage morning melody Bilaskhani Todi was invested with a rare kind of spiritual fervour. He sang the traditional bandish “Neeke Ghungariya chamakat chal” in vilambit khayal marked by a nuanced alap in the mandra saptak. The lilting chota khayal bandish “Vahi javo javo balam jin yuvati sang kini rang raliya”, soaked in a rich shringar rasa, made the audience sway to the rhythmic cyles of teental played by Gurumurthy Vaidya. Pt. Nirodi presented a rare melody, Ambika SarangThe teental bandish, “Padu tore paiyya saiyya” was notable for its poetic and musical content. Carnatic vidwan Ramdas’s harmonium solo recital was another noteworthy feature of the habba. Ramdas presented ragas Shuddha Bangala and Ganamurthe in his harmonium recital.
In the evening session, Pt. Rambhau Bijapure was felicitated by the renowned Carnatic vidwan R.K Padmanabha. A harmonium solo recital by Arawind Thatte his saw a spirited presentation of a difficult ‘tappa’ in Yaman, rarely explored by harmonium soloists, imparted a scholarly dimension to the concert. The most spectacular and breathtakingly awesome event of the evening was the harmonium recital by the living legend Pt. Bijapure. Connoisseurs were astonished and moved by the rich melody and clarity of his recital. His sublime renditions of the adha teental compositions in Rag Desh and Rag Bhairavi were characterised by soulful alaaps and dulcet taans and sangathis.
K.S. VAISHALI
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