Beat, tempo, dazzle
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Kadri Gopalnath's kalpanaswaras danced, jumped and leaped.
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KADRI GOPALNATH
Rhythm generally gets top priority in classical music; if instrumental, the flavour is all the more predominant. Those who were present at the saxophone concert of Kadri Gopalnath would definitely endorse this observation. Kadri appended most of his presentations with long winding kalpanaswaras. They were not just swaras. They had so much life that they did all sorts of things — jumped, leaped, plummeted and pulsated.
The raga expositions, on the contrary, were not soul searching exercises. This was a demonstration of Gopalnath's expertise — to create a host of notes either linear or as twisted as a bowl of spaghetti, all with complete control of his instrument. True, there were unusual notes of melody, highly complex matrices of swaras and very innovative excursions into sangatis. But these were simply overpowered by the beat, tempo and dazzle.
The vakra swaras of Kapi ragam provided a fertile ground for Gopalnath to fully deploy his arsenal. Therefore, `sowkyam' found a place only in the rendition of "Inta Sowkya Manine" Tyagaraja. The other notable numbers were ``Bhajamanasa" in Bahudari, ``Marugelara" in Jayanthasri, and "Ninnu Vina" in Navarasakannada full of sprinting sangatis.
Violinist Karaikkal Venkatasubramaniam fielded the dazzle with equal glitter. K.V. Prasad on the mridangam, Thiruppunithura Radhakrishnan on the ghatam and Rajasekar on the morsing had a wonderful platform to showcase their percussion prowess.
G. SWAMINATHAN
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