A sublime and evenly structured concert of Aruna Ranganathan made the rasikas mull over veteran musician Ramnad Krishnan’s style. To mark his centenary, the sabha hosted the concert of Aruna Ranganathan, who has been trained by Alamelu Mani and Bombay Ramachandran, the direct disciples of Ramnad Krishnan.
Advice of gurus
Aruna prefaced her concert with a brief address about her tutelage and recalled the advice given by her gurus on the importance of handling ragas such as Janaranjani, Sahana, Malavi, Mandari and Begada apart from the heavy weight ragas. Aruna recorded that whenever one listened to the great singer, one was bound to see new dimensions in the raga bhava.
The Kanada Adi tala varnam set her concert on a roll. Aruna presented a succinct essay of Janaranjani touching the special prayogas of the raga before moving on to Tyagaraja’s ‘Smarane sukhamu.’
She embellished ‘Rama nama sravana’ with a few rounds of niraval and swaras. It was Sahana which qualified for a treatise with superior sobriety and depth. ‘Dikkevarunnaru’ (Annuswami Sastri) replete with devoutness was the composition chosen.
Sankarabharanam raga alapana and Dikshitar’s ‘Akshaya linga vibho’ were given a gracious treatment. The raga essay travelled on the traditional path without omitting time-tested and luscious phrases.
It is superfluous to mention here that the kriti is a testimony to the grandeur of the raga. The extrapolation on ‘Padari vanamoola’ journeyed on a perfect trail and the development of swarakalpana was in a controlled manner with ‘panchamam’ based kuraippu swaras.
V.V. Srinivasa Rao on the violin was in tune with the mood making his contributions in raga, niraval and swaras in the right proportion. B. Sivaraman kept the rhythm on right gait.
The fillers were also quite catchy — ‘Ninnu joochi’ in Sowrashtram (Patnam Subramania Iyer) and ‘Kulabirudunu’ in Devamanohari (Tyagaraja).
The post-thani section was not a hastened affair. Aruna dwelt on the Kshetragnar’s padam, ‘Adi nomu phalamu’ in Begada in an absolutely ‘sowkya’ track.
A substantial viruttam of the sloka ‘Matha Maragathasyama’ in Purvikalyani, Kannada, Varali, Saveri and Surutti led to ‘Mariyada theliyakane,’ a javali by Patnam Subramania Iyer.
