The voice of the sisters was co-operative in subserving their concert concern. Ragas were for the most part fast-paced. Their anxiety to elaborate at length — Hindolam and Durbar by Haripriya and Poorvikalyani by Lalita — led them to over-stretch sancharas at all levels. There was no doubt clarity and adherence to raga swaroopa, but there were repetitive passages too.

These aspects robbed the kutcheri items of variety, particularly their inclination for maintaining tempo at all costs. Therefore, even the moving Ahiri kirtana of Syama Sastri, ‘Maayamma’ failed to register its vilamba kala grandeur. Two kirtanas of Dikshitar ‘Abhayaambikaaya’ (Kedaragowla) and ‘Govardanagireesam’ (Hindolam) were treated with thrust. ‘Narada Guruswamy’ (Durbar) was the other weighty song.

The concert was noteworthy for the violin support by the young Charumathi Raghuraman. Raga picturisation in the solo version was a distillation of rakti aesthetics. The sancharas were finely balanced and intensely elegant. The bowing and her finger tips are endowed with a gift of refinement and intuition of long and short phrasings clothed in gana and naya lifted up her melodic level of play.

V. Ramiah (mridangam) and Pudukottai Ramachandran (ghatam) were well fed with the pace of vocalists. Their over-enthusiasm was reflected in their undue long thani.

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