Featuring popular artistes in the music festivals that take place in the Capital not only adds lustre, but it also gives an opportunity to those music lovers who could not go to Chennai for the famous December music season to savour their performances right here. Sanjay Subrahmanyan and the duo of Ranjani-Gayatri who performed recently at the Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha’s Tyagaraja Music Festival 2013 really conjured up the feeling of being at Chennai during the music season, not only with their delightful selection of songs presented in quick succession, but also their dexterity in singing ragam-taanam-pallavi, an integral part of the season.
While Sanjay Subrahmanyan in his ragam-taanam-pallavi presented the pallavi on Rama, “Vandanamu Raghunandana setu bandhana bhakta chandana” in raga Sahana and set to the Adi tala (taken from the famous Tyagaraja kriti “Vandanamu” in the same raga), Ranjani-Gayatri chose the pallavi on Muruga, “Velai ivvelai tudhippade en velai Sivakumaran vadi” in raga Shanmukhapriya and set to a slightly complex Chatusra jaati Jhampa tala in Khanda nadai. After bringing out the features of these ragas, while Sanjay went in for ragamalika taanams in ragas Kiravani, Mohanam, Abheri and Behag (apart from Sahana), Ranjani-Gayatri went in for ragamalika swaraprastaras towards the end in ragas Kedaram, Mohana Kalyani, Brindavana Saranga and Jog (apart from Shanmukhapriya).
Both Sanjay and Ranjani-Gayatri are known for singing scintillating viruttams in their concerts. While Sanjay’s viruttams were in ragas Poorvikalyani, Bhairavi and Nadanamakriya before he went on to sing a Tamil compositon, Ranjani-Gayatri’s viruttams were in ragas Kamboji, Hamsanandi and Sindhubhairavi. The sisters then sang “Manadirkkughandadu”.
Earlier, Sanjay in a bid seemingly aimed at doing complete justice to Tyagaraja, not only started with Tyagaraja’s “Sri Ganapatini” in raga Saurashtra, but also packed in as many of Tyagaraja’s compositions as possible. He took up “Marubalka” in raga Sriranjani and “Buddhi Radu” in raga Shankarabharanam for detailed treatment.
In these renditions, Sanjay’s handling of alapana, neraval and kalpana swaras was a treat. S. Varadarajan on the violin, Neyveli B. Venkatesh on the mridangam and S. Venkataramanan on the kanjira provided excellent support.
On the other hand, Ranjani and Gayatri, starting their concert with an Adi tala varnam in raga Kalyani, took up only one kriti of Tyagaraja for detailed rendition, namely “Tulasidalamulache” in raga Mayamalavagowla. While Ranjani sang an excellent alapana, the siblings together presented the neraval and swaraprastaras. Mysore Vasudevachar’s “Sree Chamundeswari” in raga Bilahari was the other song that came in for expansive rendition. Gayatri’s exposition of the raga too was excellent. M.R. Gopinath on the violin and Manoj Siva on the mridanagam too provided excellent support.
