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Music Season
Rapturous performance
M. RAMESH
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Almost all the components of Prapancham Sita Ram’s concert were slow and leisurely.
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Photo: M. Karunakaran
Prapancham Sita Ram.
Veteran flautist and disciple of flute maestro Mahalingam, Prapancham Sita Ram, provided a rapturous performance for his small audience at Irai Pani Mandram, Kottivakkam. Vintage training and over five-and-a-half decades of playing experience shone bright in the concert, which saw Vijayanagari as the main feature. The alapana was deep and touching, consistent with the raga’s mood, but what takes the cake was the glacially slow, step-by-step landing, using clipped phr
ases that kept shrinking in length and pitch, until sounds dissolved into silence. Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavatar’s ‘Vijayambike’ followed Vittal Ramamurthy’s succinct response.
As though the artiste had planned on giving his audience a relaxing evening, all the components of the concert, save Kapi Narayani (‘Sarasa Samagana’), were slow and leisurely. Early on in the concert, following ‘Vinayaka’ in Hamsadhwani, Dr. Sita Ram played a lovely Abheri alapana. Tyagaraja’s masterpiece, ‘Nagumomu’ came next. Incidentally, Dr. Sita Ram has learnt vocal music from Balamuralikrishna. But no matter how good the piece was, it was perhaps avoidable, because it ate into the time of the subsequent Sahana (‘Giri Pai’), which appeared truncated because of the absence of nireval or swaras.
Indeed, there was no nireval in the whole concert. After Sahana, Dr. Sita Ram confounded his audience with a brief alapana of what sounded like Panthuvarali but was not quite that. He later explained that it was Deepakam, a derivative of Panthuvarali, with retrograde notes both in the ascent and descent. ‘Kalala Nerchina’ of Tyagaraja is by far the only known composition in the raga, but the artiste points out that there is an Arunagirinathar composition (‘Iruvar Manali’) that is popular among the Oduvaars of Tamil Nadu. Deepakam drops ‘ri’ and ‘ni’ in the ascent – indeed a beautiful raga.
The concert ended with another sweet alapana of Hindolam, followed by Purandara Dasa’s ‘Yare Rangana’. Violinist Vittal Ramamurthy played well, but chose to give more time to the flautist. Thiruvananthapuram Sunderasan on the mridangam gave appropriate support with his light-touch strokes and gummikkis.
Though a recipient of many awards — he won Kalaimamani a quarter century ago — Dr. Sita Ram is not so visible in the concert halls. This, as the concert demonstrated, is a loss for rasikas.
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Music Season
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