Endowed with a sweet, sonorous voice and armed with training from a musician as eminent as T.N. Seshagopalan, Gayathri Girish’s two major elements of the concert — Lathangi and Saveri — were thoroughly enjoyable. Perhaps the most notable feature of her singing is the intense classicism; her penchant for fidelity to tradition was starkly evident. The songs chosen were Papanasam Sivan’s ‘Venkataramana’ and Dikshitar’s ‘Sri Rajagopala.’
Lathangi was the better of the two. Gayathri developed the alapana with phrases built on long karvais, and broke into some brisk, deep-throated brigas at the peak. It was here that her mettle was best displayed. Lathangi dazzled when she handled ‘ni ri ga ma pa ma ga ri,’ one of the signature phrases, in the upper octave. Then came the Sivan song, followed by swaras and it was an altogether a happy experience.
The Saveri alapana was pleasant; a couple of times when Gayathri handled ‘ma pa da pa ma ga,’ the signature phrase of the raga, the effect was soothing. However, the Saveri alapana, as well as the rendition of Sri Rajagopala, lacked the innovative depth that was seen in Lathangi. Beautiful though it was, the alapana was pretty much run-of-the-mill. ‘Sri Rajagopala,’ which inevitably triggers memories of Seshagopalan, came out well, but Gayathri had to rush through the niraval, which she performed on the anupallavi line, ‘dhiragraganya deenasaranya.’ The fast-gait part of the niraval didn’t last more than 3-4 tala cycles and the vocalist moved to swara singing, which again was hurried.
Need for time management
The reason for the less-than-satisfactory alapana was not capability, but poor time management. She made the concert a ‘mini-meal’ — too many items on the plate, but enough of none. Before the Lathangi, Gayathri spent precious time in presenting, rather pointlessly, a bald ‘Thunai purindarul’ (Sivan) in Varamu. She probably meant it to be a filler, but if you go for multiple fillers in two-hour concerts, the consequence will be a plain-Jane main piece.
Before the Varamu was a truly enjoyable ‘Phanipathisayee,’ Tyagaraja’s Jhankaradhwani composition, for which the vocalist sang swaras sumptuously, highlighting suddha nishadham, the raga’s defining vivadi note. Add to this, a ‘Kanchadalayathakshi’ (Kamala Manohari, Dikshitar) in the beginning and ‘Om Namo Narayana’ (Karnaranjini, Ambujam Krishna), you see how crowded it is for an instant concert.
Mysore Srikanth’s violin play was remarkable. He showed his prowess particularly in the Jhankaradwani piece, proving himself no less than the singer. Kumbakonam Swaminathan (mridangam) and Anirudh Athreya (ganjira) buttressed the efforts of the singer and the violinist.
