After a long musical drought, the Carnatic music scene in the Capital is now becoming vibrant. India International Centre and the Ramakrishnapuram South Indian Society together organised a two-day ‘Purandaradasa-Tyagaraja Music festival’ recently.
Sunil R. Gargyan gave a brilliant performance for about two hours on the second day of the festival. Endowed with a good voice, Sunil presented compositions of Purandaradasa and Tyagaraja by interweaving his creative talents to the utter delight of music lovers. Other noteworthy aspects were Sunil’s adherence to the theme of the festival and excellent diction.
The opening piece of the concert, a Tyagaraja’s composition ‘Muddu momu’ in raga Suryakantam, itself was very impressive. His creative talents came to the fore at the very outset when he presented the Kalpanaswaras for this song, albeit briefly.
Sunil sang ‘Hari Smaranemado’ in raga Reeti Gowla and ‘Narayana Ninna Namada’ in Suddha Dhanyasi (both compositions of Purandaradasa) in a delightful manner. While singing ‘Rara mayintidaka’ in raga Asaveri and ‘Ennallu urake’ in raga Subhapantuvalai (both Tyagaraja’s composition), Sunil brought the emotive contents of the lyrics to the fore. He also prefixed a scintillating alapana of raga Subhapantuvarali before taking up the latter composition. Creative swara formats too flowed towards the end of the song. Taking up fast paced compositions ‘Niravadhi Sukhada’ in Ravichandrika and ‘Bantureeti’ in raga Hamsanadam (both Tyagaraja compositions) in between and the fast paced swaraprastharas for these songs kept his renderings lively. The central item of Sunil’s recital was again Tyagaraja’s ‘Oh Rangasayee’ in Khambhoji. Apart from a fine rendition of the composition, Sunil sang an unhurried raga alapana bringing out the features of the raga to the fore. However, by the time he embarked to present the neraval of a phrase from the charanam portion of the composition, Sunil seemed to be in a hurry. So was the case during the kalpanaswaras that he presented subsequently.
As part of their anniversary celebrations, the Vishnu Sahasranama Satsang, New Delhi too featured a Chennai-based young vocalist Deepika Varadarajan, recently. Deepika too is endowed with a good voice. However, the multi-talented artiste needs to walk that extra mile when it comes to the creative aspects of music, particularly raga alapanas, in which she did not quite bring out the complete features of the ragas. Deepika took up ‘Jootamu rare’ in raga Arabhi, ‘Sarame gani’ in raga Pantuvarali and ‘Koluvamare gada’ in raga Todi (all Tyagaraja’s compositions) for detailed renditions. She also handled well Mysore Vasudevachar’s ‘Brochevarevarura’ in raga Khamas and included compositions to suit the occasion. G. Raghavendra Prasaath on the violin, K.N. Padmanabhan on the mridangam and Elathur N. Hari Narayanan on the ghatam provide appropriate support.
