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Music Season
SRI KRISHNA GANA SABHA
Creativity at its best
SVK
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While K. Gayatriwas refreshing, Hyderabad Brothers expended frenetic energy to keep up the tempo. And Mandolin Srinivas relied on power.
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Photo: S. Thanthoni.
Impressive: K. Gayathri.
A crystal-clear voice, a smooth-flowing melodic lyricism and an exposition, refreshingly free of any contrivance of quality, marked the concert of K. Gayatri in her Krishna Gana Sabha concert. She drew her emotional appeal in kirtanas — particularly ‘Enneramum Undan Sannidiyil’ (Devagnadhari) — not from technique but from her instinctive impulses. She was impressive because her basic approach to sangita was caressing, creativity expressed with ton
al gracefulness.
Flexibility helped her seek the possibilities of nuances when she elaborated Begada (‘Kadaikkan Vaithenna Paaramma’) and Kiravani (‘Kaligiyunte’).
The bunch of sancharas in both the ragas in the higher octave framed their enticing phase containing ebb and flow rhythm. She let her voice to unfold these aspects. The discipline in her singing got reflected in the articulation of sahityas. Her programme revealed that she had been well schooled in refinement. She sang in such a way as to cater to the finer sense of the listeners.
Pakkala Ramdass (violin), Nirmal Narayanan (mridangam) and H. Sivaramakrishnan (ghatam) were the accompanists.
If only their prodigious vidwat gained the mellowing touch how temptingly moving would it become. One thought on these lines as Hyderabad Brothers, Seshachari and Raghavachari carried on their concert with tonal manipulation depriving music of its willowy grace.
They expended frenetic energy to keep up the tempo to make the listeners sit at the edge of their seats. There was not even a faint suggestion of their psyche realising that music culture is not just flaunting demonstrative competence.
Their creative potential was immense, but intensity of feeling had no place for them.
They painted a Himalayan landscape of Dharmavathi and Harikhambodi but all the same the ragas wore a forlorn look with very little of attention paid to the peacefulness of Carnatic music.
In the alapana delineation of Ritigowla (‘Sadguru Swamiki,’ a composition of Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar in tribute to Saint Tyagaraja), Dharmavathi (‘Parandhaamavathi Yuvathi’) and Harikhambodi (‘Dinamani Vamsa’) there was cohesive design of their structure tidily dished out. There was much attraction from Seshachari’s ebullient gestures but a brief and elegant picturisation would have served their purpose better.
If such was their motivation in raga alapanas how could their song interpretation be better? Pleasing the audience and pursuit of refinement are not mutually exclusive. All the time their music was harnessed to exhibitionistic instincts, but there are more relevant parameters that contribute to a soothing exposition.
None of the artistic tendencies could be discerned in their rendition of kirtanas.
S.D. Sridhar was the violinist. His raga versions touched the life-giving moorchanas with lively insights into their core.
Photo: S. Thanthoni.
Mandolin Srinivas.
It was Mannargudi Easwaran’s day on the mridangam. It was a sawal-jawab session with the Hyderabad Brothers.
With deep felicity at his finger tips vigour and grace he gave a charming laya coating to the vocalists’ effervescence. His play was pre-eminently monarchic in dignity. Adambakkam Shankar on the ghatam followed like Easwaran’s shadow. Does Mandolin Srinivas set high standards for himself by which calming music can rate him? His style is powerful, energetic, controlled and fertilely imaginative. But he falls a prey to the temptation of taking Trivikrama strides. However, when he initiated the early movements of a raga, the singular quality of expressiveness from soft lyricism to sensitive tone he seemed to have vision of cultured idioms, but such passages were few. This he presented in the Sankarabharanam in the introductory stages. It was really heart-warming.
This vacillation between the rhetorical and the posed, also had another external stimulus. Tiruvarur Bhaktavatsalam was the mridangist.
Incitement was mutual. ‘Dharini Telusukonti’ (Suddha Saveri), ‘Vara Narada’ (Vijayasri) and ‘Govardana Girissam’ (Hindolam) decided what kind of music would suit their individual propensities. Srinivas went hammer and tongs in expatiating the songs as well as tickling Bhaktavatsalam’s natural instinct for over-indulgence in flamboyance. In this sector what a display of pedantic expertise!
Hindolam and Sankarabharanam were the ragas he took up for alapanas. The sancharas were felicitous and musical statements precise at the beginning. The impact of his competence was over-powering. In the programme, the Sankarabharanam kriti, ‘Swara Raga Sudha’ and the song, ‘Nada Tanum Anisam’ in Chittaranjani were the two items that could be salvaged as somewhat sedate.
Peri Sriramamurthy was the violinist who, in all the sallies between Srinivas and Bhaktavatsalam was a silent onlooker. When his chance came he was the picture of a patient accompanist.
Tiruvarur Bhaktavatsalam was teamed with S.V. Ramani (ghatam).
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