SRI KRISHNA GANA SABHA
With an eye on tempo
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Sudha Ragunathan's concert featured a striking change in the Sahana and Manirangu exercises.
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Photo: K.V.Srinivasan.
ACCENT ON VOCAL MANAGEMENT: Sudha Ragunathan.
In her performance, Sudha Ragunathan observed fidelity to her guru parampara, focussing on the strong foundations of her learning years. Tempo-driven emphasis was the striking feature in her style of presentation, relying on vocal exaggeration and amplification, occasionally transgressing the audible tolerance limit.
She gave free rein to this aspect of vocal management in the tara stayi, particularly in her long siren-like stay on karvais. Feelings and emotions of ragas receded behind her temptation to add a new dimension to raga elaboration.
There was, however, a striking change observable in her exposition of the ragas Sahana and Manirangu. It was really a welcome feature to see less priority given to frenetic brigas. If only this realisation is wedded to softer articulation, her music would gain more appeal than blind admiration. If she feels convinced, it would gently take her along a new direction of creativity and implementation to reach higher levels of accomplishment. Such a musical maturity would also help her establish a bhani of her own.
In the early part of the concert, she sang `Sri Ganapathy' (Sowrashtram), `Notru Suwargam' (Tiruppavai hymn in Thodi), `Deva Deva' (Mayamalavagowla), `Dehi Thava Pada Bhaktim' (Sahana), `Anupama Gunambudhi' (Atana) and `Mamava Pattabhirama' (Manirangu). The kirtanas were well nourished in her own pattern including niraval and swaras for the Mayamalavagowla and Sahana compositions.
In this part of kirtanas, niravals and swaras, mridangist Tiruvarur Vaidyanathan wielded the baton. He was very passionate in stamping his provocative approach to percussive support.
As a respite, he allowed the ghatam artist S.V.Ramani and R.Raman (morsing) solo opportunities at short intervals.
Embar Kannan was the violinist. Toeing the vocalist's line to a large extent, there was soothing clarity in his solo versions.
He transformed the sanchara combinations into pertinent facets of the ragas.
There was a discernible layout, especially in the development of Manirangu.
Saswathi Anand revealed confidence born out of good training in her kutcheri containing the items, `Siddhi Vinayakam' (Shanmukhapriya), `Marivere' (Latangi) and `Gati Neevani' (Thodi).
The last two ragas were dealt with in detail. Future progress would depend on her sadhakam. Padma Shankar (violin) and Delhi Sayeeram (mridangam) aided with great understanding.
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