A strong voice with a fairly good range is Bharat Sundar's asset. His was an energetic performance beginning with the Sri Raga varnam and followed by ‘Entara Nintanaku' in Harikhambodi, which was adorned with niraval and swaras for ‘Seshudu Shivuniki.'
The alapana of the rare raga, Urmika, was quite impressive and rendered with confidence. The kriti chosen was ‘Entanivina' which had a lively chittaswaram; yet Bharat added a short spell of kalpanaswaras.
It is not often that you get to listen to Dhanyasi these days. It is to his credit that he chose it as the main raga. The elaboration was developed step by step, without hurrying, touching all the important aspects of the melody.
Parur Ananthakrishnan was not bad in his effort on the violin; it would be better to give a pause now and then, so that the raga's beauty can be enjoyed; whatever happened towards the end when he was attempting some ideas in the top octave?
‘Meenalochana Brova' was sung in a tempo suitable to the lyric; the niraval and swaras were taken up for the charanam ‘Samajagamana' extending the ragabhava established in the alapana.
Nowadays youngsters tend to sing every composition faster than the medium tempo; fortunately Bharat was not a victim of this practice. A brief thani was played by Trivandrum Balaji, who gave commendable support throughout the concert.
PRASANNA VENKATRAMAN'S performance was quite attractive with understanding accompaniment by Sanjeev on the violin, R. Sankaranarayanan on the mridangam and Anirudh Athreya on the ganjira.
Prasanna began with ‘Karunaikkadale,' a varnam in Kalyani. The Bhairavi raga Panchabootha kriti of Dikshitar ‘Chintayamam' could have been a tad slower to bring out the majesty of the raga as well as the words. It had kalpanaswaras for the madhyamakala passage.
Patnam Subramania Iyer's ‘Danyudevvade' was prefaced with the vinyasa of Malayamarutham; the expansion of the raga as well as the niraval and swaras was melodious with logical development; Sanjeev matched the vocalist showcasing his maturity as an artist.
Prasanna and Sanjeev vied for honours in their rendering of Keeravani and Mohanam. The former raga was the prefix for the Thevaram ‘Bananai'; niraval and swaras also were added to it.
Once again, the main item was Mohanam and ‘Mohana Rama' followed by swarams for the pallavi. While Sankaranarayanan played the mridangam with vitality, Anirudh was rather subdued.
Prasanna could have avoided one raga alapana or at least niraval and swaras or even ‘Janakipathe' in Kharaharapriya so that the percussionists had more time for a proper thani.
