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Music Season
MUSIC ACADEMY
Lacklustre, vigorous, sweet
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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The Hyderabad Sisters’ voices lacked power while vigour and performance skills united in Malladi Brothers’ performance. It was melody minus weight with Ranjani and Gayathri.
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Photos: V. Ganesan
Melodic fare: Hyderabad Sisters
The concert scored in time management. Its sonorous diction made Mysore Maharaja’s ‘Saraswati Bhagavati’ (Hamsavinodini, mishra jhampa) a welcome start. Later, G.N.Balasubramaniam’s ‘Sankaramahadeva’ (Devamanohari) likewise was rendered pleasantly.
But with Hyderabad Sisters Lalitha and Haripriya, the main pieces lacked lustre. Sampradaya adherence did not help Ritigowla rise above the routine, nor ‘Janani’ launched on high-pitched anupallavi, in steadily maintained chowkam. Here as through the concert, their voices lacked power, timbre and range, unable to reflect their musical ideas. Strained alapana, and dry, repetitive kanakku swaras marked Kalyani (‘Enduko Ni Manasu’).
The ragam-tanam-pallavi was in Thodi, no rare raga, and chatusra triputa, no complex tala, with the usual trikalam and tisram appendages. The lyric was simple — ‘Ganalola Srikrishna’. What made it stand out was that the sisters enjoyed themselves as they sang it, especially the competent tanam that preceded it. This changed mood infected the mridangam (V.Venkataramanamurthy), laidback until then, to spring into energetic action with the ghatam (Sukanya Ramgopal). Their enthusiasm was carried forward into their following thani, especially in the toe-tappable kuraippu.
Vigour and performance skills united in Malladi Brothers’ performance. Following the post-Ariyakkudi kutcheri tradition it gripped attention with the first phrase (Mayamalavagowla, ‘Devadeva Kalayamide’) and never let it go. The progression was brisk, lucid in every note, and every beat. Unslackening pace, with metronomic percussion, marked swaras for ‘Bhuvanatraya’.
Mukhari gave a rounded picture of the raga, intelligently handled to show some elusive facets. The poignancy was left to Varadarajan to evoke, as he did with a contoured bow. Tyagaraja’s ‘Elavataramu’ was a treat, sung by artistes to whom Telugu is mother tongue. It was not just about right pronunciation, but right word and syllable emphasis which made the sahitya assume its rightful place. Swaras in two kalams extended the raga with unrelaxed hold on form. ‘Vinaradana’ (Devagandhari) continued the trend, followed by Shanmukhapriya, less felicitous in alapana on both voices and violin, than in the kriti (‘Paluvicharamu’).
Malladi Brothers.
Every good concert has a point where the listener is taken out of the self. Malladi Brothers reached it in Sankarabharanam. Tambura-aligned, intelligence-driven, raga-seeped, full-throated, the waves came in long swells and enveloped the hall. Focussed manodharma ensured focussed listeners. There were some offbeat (but not strictly countable as off track) prayogas, gamaka-brika sparks, and resonant karvais in the upper shadja. The high panchama was a natural touch, nothing self conscious. The ikaram in higher sancharas prevented the music from soaring as no-holds-barred akaram would have done.
Then Varadarajan took over. His inward search instilled a sense of unhurried, but taut serenity missed out in vocal explorations. Continuity and modulation in the bowing made the little phrases — sa-dha-pa or ni-da-ni-pa moving.
‘Akshaya Linga Vibho’ had the majesty to match the alapana’s grandeur, where the eduppu in ‘Badarivana’ with its inherent spring was used advantageously for niraval and swara. Command of the idiom made the niraval as stimulating as the kalpanaswaras, which were both spirited and serious, one relishable round playing with madhyama possibilities. Animated thani by Patri Satish Kumar and Giridhar Udupa continued the robust music of the day to which the mridangam added steel girders throughout.
A mature Dhanyasi alapana, of the right length, creativity spurred by sampradaya suddham, heralded the pallavi. Everything including the tanam was managed right, with no overstretching. The pallavi (‘Nirajakshikamakshi’ in chatusra jhampa) changed kalais to effect, with vyavaharam keeping its grip on ragam, and rounded off in ragamalika sweetness, where even a raga like Dwijavanti did not forget its roots in the Carnatic fold.
Ranjani and Gayatri have many things going for them – superb swarasthana suddham, grasp of kalapramana as well as skills in varying the pace, imagination and well-honed repertoire. They have good taste in choosing content, and more importantly, in projecting it with feeling. All these qualities made them exceptional violinists and vocalists of great potential. In their concert at the Academy, these attributes were offset by the lack of azhutham and gaatram in voice projection and manodharma. There was sweetness, and plenty of it, but without weight to anchor the melody. On the credit side, their sense of modulation avoided shrillness.
Getting into brisk strides with “Anupama gunambudi,” the sisters set their “Va Muruga” in a slower pace, to allow for the many gamaka and briga sprays, employed not decoratively, but to light up the meaning in the lyric. The same method in the later “Kalai Thooki” did not work because the slow motion here lacked a corresponding density; and a song about a dancing god in any tempo, might benefit by a little liveliness. Also, why tamper with the poetic metre by shunting the initial word (“tanai”) to the previous line? The phrase straddling two lines (“Pillai/Tanai Petra Deivame”) can be — and has been — rendered in a single breath, keeping metre and meaning intact.
Of the three main ragas, Dhanyasi testified to sadhakam and reflection, as “Ramabhirama” did to a patanthara giving respect to form as well as filigree.
Ranjani and Gayathri.
Kalyani began with Ranjani, whose voice has a pleasing huskiness to lend it character, with Gayatri taking over the upper sanchara forays. The raga had continuity in phrasing, but with less grounding in traditional ‘pidis,’ the grandeur could not come through. “Bhajare chita” with niraval and swaras followed suit, lighting little lamps, not a radiant flame.
The RTP in Kanada floated on long sugared phrases, within the raga framework. But it was not tethered to solid Carnatic phrases, like the kind exemplified in the familiar kritis. The tanam lacked ‘midukku’ and seemed an extension of the alapana, as did the pallavi in Khanda triputa, despite adroit swara singing in the tisram, and in Arabhi-Lalita-Behag ragamalika extensions. The tail pieces were in the popular mould – Purandaradasa in what sounded like a Hindustani Syama, the the other, an abhang in Lalit, sprung on taans.
B.U.Ganeshprasad (violin) was unfailingly supportive and followed the pattern and tone set by the singers, adding fine swaras and sangatis in alapana. The tani was short, opting for subtlety, not noise. Welcome to tired ears in mid music season. Both Arun Prakash (mridangam) and Anirudha Atreya (kanjira) had style. But the concert as a whole would have surely gained with stronger underpinnings if mridangam and kanjira had not shown how unobtrusive they could be.
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