Bhavya Hari could not have paid a more moving tribute to her guru, mentor and mother, the versatile vidushi, the late T.V. Sundaravalli. She enriches her repertoire through advanced training from programmes organised by the Music Academy. Bhavya’s voice is a huge gift bestowed by nature on the artiste. But she is discreet in playing up the advantage.
Singing for at Ragasudha Hall on a Wednesday evening, the young vocalist brought immense richness to the listening experience — in terms of melodic expression and intellectual sophistication. Such an endeavour was ably backed by some competent violin accompaniment by Shraddha Ravindran, a disciple of veteran A. Kanyakumari.
The varnam in Bahudhari, a Sundaravalli composition based on Thirupugazh, draws upon the vidushi’s work of a lifetime on the composer Arunagirinathar. ‘Bhaktiyal yan unai,’ was equally noteworthy for the joyful rhythmic phrases in the swaram to the several charanams in the piece.
The 90-minute performance thereafter was a sedate but engaging blend of song, sahityam and swaram.
Subdued emphasis
Tyagaraja’s ‘Janakajasameta,’ in Asaveri, was portrayed with a subdued emphasis on the virtues of Rama. Then followed in succession two compositions in the derivative scales of Kharaharapriya. The first was G.N. Balasubramanian’s kriti, ‘Srichakrarajanilaye,’ in ragam Sivasakthi. Its rendition was approached in a similar vein to the earlier one — the improvisation lending an additional colour. The other was a composition of S. Ramanathan, ‘Va Velava,’ in Sivaranjani. After these kritis, with their relative novelty, followed Tyagaraja’s ‘Vandanamu,’ in Sahana.
At about the conclusion of this first part of the recital, the singing was more than ordinarily absorbing, as a rasika remarked. The lead presentations of the evening were in Gamanasramam and Sankarabharanam, each from either side of the madhyamam divide in the Melakarta system.
Koteeswara Iyer’s ‘Ihame sukham tharum Shanmukham,’ set in the former scale, was appealing both for the composer’s rich poetic articulation and the first pratimadhyama tune of the evening.
‘Telisirama chintanato,’ (Purnachandrika) that followed could not have obscured the contrasting appearances of the previous 53rd and the subsequent 29th scales.
Another version
Incidentally, this writer could not help recalling the extended version of the song maestro Balamuralikrishna would sing. Muthuswami Dikshitar’s ‘Akshayalinga vibho swayambho,’ was decorated with an impressive niraval to the opening lines of the charanam and an improvisation. The tonal quality of Shraddha Ravindran’s violin was noticeable all through the recital. Nochur Nagarajan on the mridangam showed enormous promise.
The concluding piece was ‘Yadavaniba,’ (Madhuvanti).
(Bhavya Hari is performing on December 24, 6.45 p.m., at Raghavendra Math, Mylapore)
