MUSIC ACADEMY
Weaving a web of creativity
P.S. KRISHNAMURTHI
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It was a delight to the ears for the sheer combination of melody and perfection of timing in the coordination of Shashank and his three accompanists.
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Photo: V. Ganesan
INSPIRING: Shashank.
The fine concert which Shashank delivered on the first morning of year 2009 was as eloquent a greetings message to audience at the Music Academy on that day as the verbal one which he gave before starting his recital.
Mutual enrichment of the musical fare was facilitated as much by the individual merit of each of the expert members, who made up his team — violinist Akkarai Subbulakshmi and the two mridangam vidwans, Patri Satishkumar and V.V. Ramanamurthy
212; as by the inspiring and masterful captaincy of the flautist, whose innovations drew everybody into the web of creativity which he kept spinning endlessly throughout the concert.
Viriboni varnam in Bhairavi led the programme at an extra vilambam, giving place to duritam and ati-duritam in the charanam — a delight to the ears for the sheer combination of melody and perfection of timing in the coordination of four players. “Anuragamulu” in Latangi was played at a leisurely pace after a well-delineated alapana by Sashank and Subbulakshmi.
While the flute came close to producing gamakas which were close to the voice in their texture, the violin had the lakshanas clearly brought out in Subbulakshmi’s characteristic style.
With a glance from Bhuvanagandhari, Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s ‘Sarasijanabha sodari’ stepped in for delicious treatment. A 10-minute alapana in Ritigowla, shared equally between pipe and strings, was rich in the raga’s grace and mood. It was followed by ‘Janani’ (Syama Sastri, Misrachapu). Here one could experience melody, tonal purity in every note and passage, strict adherence to the base scale, distinctive facets of this raga, and deliberation.
One of the attractive traits of the artist’s style was his tastefulness in interspersing flute with violin during alapanas, and between flute and the percussions during kriti, swara or niraval, to maintain a floating continuity of distinct contributions in periodic intervals.
There was again a change-over back to the flute at higher sancharas, where Shashank thrilled one with movements in the upper reaches without any damage to melody - quite a feat with the flute.
The audience was waiting to receive Syama Sastri’s krti, heard several times in the same time-slot in this hall, whose majestic gait set by the flautist and followed by the violinist, was punctuated by deep rumbles from the mridangams, with Patri turning the long Pallavi-Anupallavi pauses in the blowing into a sumptuous aural experience. Shashank let Subbulakshmi and Patri ‘sing’ the chittaswaram in the voices of their own instruments.
A short ‘Kamalabda Rama’ (Tyagaraja, Brindavanasaranga, Desadi) came as a breather before the next major item, RTP in Purvikalyani. This turned out to be the demonstration ground for originality in raga alapana.
In a quick dialogue in thanam, Sashank and Subbulakshmi each demonstrated a new dimension to their instruments; the timbre of the violin seemed to possess more harmonics than in the already rich sounds it was endowed with.
At times Shashank appeared to have incorporated his own laya vadyams in his flute, when one heard the sounds of the morsing emanating from it, by a device of infusing more air into the pipe.
Having done their good work in the earlier phase, the two mridangam vidwans put forth their best in the thani too. Patri appears to have refined his use of the left side membrane to a fine art, to concoct delicious aural side-dishes, such as the ones heard that day.
It was only in the last five minutes that Shashank took the longer flute, presumably to extend the lower ranges of the octave even lower at the madhyama sruti.
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