As part of their 49th anniversary celebrations, the Vishnu Sahasranama Satsang, R. K. Puram organised a Carnatic music concert of Brinda Manickavasagam of Chennai recently at the Capital’s Shankar Vidya Kendra. Lasting for two and half hours, she delighted the music lovers.The organization deserves credit not only for including a full-fledged Carnatic music concert in their two-days religious programme, but also for the choice of this vocalist.
Opening with with Ambujam Krishna’s “Enna Solli Azhaithal” in the raga Kanada Manickavasagam brought out the emotional contents of the lyrics to the fore. Surprisingly, she took up for a detailed rendition Papanasam Sivan’s “Kapali Karunai Nilavu” in the raga Mohanam. The unhurried delineation of the raga highlighted its features while the creatively crafted swarakalpanas flowed effortlessly.
The subsequent Tyagaraja’s compositions “Ganamoorthe’ in the raga Ganamoorthe (3rd Mela Karta raga in the 72 mela karta scheme of ragas) and “Endaro Mahanubhavulu” in Sri Ragam (the fifth Pancharatna kriti) were befitting choices at a time when the aradhana celebrations of the saint composer still continue in the Capital
For the main item Manickavasagam handled Swati Tirunal’s composition “Pankaja Lochana” in the raga Kalyani very well. The matured manner in which she sang the composition reflected her years of hard work. She also excelled singing the raga alapana and presenting the neraval of a phrase from the charanam portion of the composition and the swarakalpanas.
Manickavasagam did adequate justice to both the items that she took for detailed renditions. Yet, when she was through with her main session of her concert by the time it was about an hour and half since she had started resulting in her recital.
This resulted in a seemingly stretching, long and winding concluding session. This session, nevertheless, contained scintillating ragamallika viruthams in ragas Sahana, Hamsanandi and Suruti as a prefix to the Thiruppavai “Vanga Kadal Kadaintha” which were enjoyable.
She was ably supported by G. Raghavendra Prasath on violin, Kumbakonam N. Padmanabhan (mridangam) and Mannai N. Kannan (ghatam), all from Delhi.
