Prasanna Venkataraman may not have a charming voice but he does make the audience sit up and listen. He scores when it comes to selection of kritis, planning and presentation. In fact, he dealt with two weighty ragas back to back: Thodi and Sankarabharanam.
He sang them the way they should be. The most-loaded phrases were covered in both ragas, keeping the time factor in mind. He sang Papanasam Sivan’s ‘Thanigai Valar’ in Thodi with just niraval on ‘Tulli Vilayadi Varum’ sans swaras. Tyagaraja’s ‘Manasu Swadinamaina’ and the extension on ‘Aa Janmamu' with swaras were rendered in a perfect manner. His concert was held at The Music Academy.
The ragam tanam pallavi of Kanada exhibited the raga’s flavour and the pallavi set in Kanda Triputa enjoyed a brief niraval and swaras with just two ragas (Poornachandrika and Kapi) in the ragamalika chain. Earlier, Prasanna presented a beautiful Ata tala varnam of Muthiah Bhagavatar’s ‘Mana Mohana’ in Mohanam to start with, and ‘Upacharamu’ of Tyagaraja in Bhairavi (another weighty one). A lively Kamala Manohari alapana was followed by ‘Nee Muddu Momu’ of Tyagaraja with an engaging swaraprasthara.
Prasanna enjoyed the company of accomplished accompanists, who were encouraging too. V. Sanjeev was on the violin, Poongulam Subramaniam on the mridangam and Udupi Balakrishna on the ghatam. Sanjeev, a popular solo violinist, who has also accompanied several artists, excelled in his responses. His raga essays and swara replies in Kamala Manohari, Thodi, Sankarabharanam and Kanada were radiant. So were the supports of Poongulam Subramaniam and Udupi Balakrishna. The tani avartanam was a proof of how rhythmic cycles and patterns could be performed with minimum decibels and maximum effect.
Prasanna Venkataraman signed off with ‘Baro Krishnayya’, ragamalika by Purandaradasa.
