No sooner had the Chennai-based popular Ranjani-Gayatri duo began singing the first few words of Muthuswami Dikshitar’s composition “Rangapura Vihara” in the raga Brindavana Saranga in their concert in New Delhi, most of the music lovers in the auditorium too started singing along with the artistes. Such was the impact that the late M.S. Subbulakshmi (“MS” as she was popularly known) who had popularised this composition had on the minds of the music lovers even in this northern part of the country. The duo singing this song in an emotive manner and to a riveting rhythm had a telling effect in the auditorium.
Ranjani-Gayatri duo’s concert was organised by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts as part of late M.S. Subbulakshmi’s birth centenary commemorative events.
Ranjani-Gayatri structured their concert of a little over two hours in an intelligent manner and enthralled the audience with songs of diverse composers and interweaving these with their creative talents. They started their concert with Annamacharya’s composition “Vande Vasudevam” in Sree Ragam, which reminded the significant contribution made by late MS in popularising Annamacharya’s compositions. The two affixed crisp and lively kalpanaswaras for this song. The sibling then rendered a popular Devi krithi of Papanasam Sivan “Nee Irangayenil” in the raga Attana in a delightful manner.
The sisters took up two songs for detailed renditions, which were Badrachala Ramadasa’s “Ennaganu Rama Bhajana” in the raga Pantuvarali and Tyagaraja’s popular composition “Evari Maata” in the raga Kambhoji. The notable features here was each sibling took up one raga each (the elder sibling Ranjani the raga Pantuvarali and the younger sibling Gayatri the raga Kambhoji) and revealed themselves while delineating the ragas. The unhurried and scintillating manner in which they brought out the nuances of these ragas to the fore was a treat to the connoisseurs of Carnatic music of the Capital.
The kalpanaswaras and in particular the finishing swara formats for the former composition (in Pantuvarali) and the neraval of the phrase “Bhakthapara dhinudanuchu parama” from the charanam portion of the latter composition and the subsequent kalpanaswaras once again reflected the depth of the duo’s creative talents.
As looked forward by music lovers, Ranjani-Gayatri included in their concluding session an abhang to their utter delight. The session, as expected, also contained verses on Lord Subramanyan in the form of scintillating ragamalika viruthums before they sang an emotive song “Manadirkugandadu” in the raga Sindhu Bhairavi.
H.N. Bhaskar on the violin, Delhi Sairam on the mridangam and N. Guruprasad on the ghatam provided excellent support to Ranjani-Gayatri.
The understanding support of the three enhanced the concert outcomes. On the whole, a befitting commemorative concert.
