No one had heard the song before, therefore it was understandable that a lady in the third row stood up and asked the name of the composer. The elegance of the chittaiswara-studded ‘Pratyaksha Parameswara’ in Poorna Chandrika, in Tamil, on Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, did intrigue. With folded hands, Neyveli Santhanagopalan said, “It is my own composition.” So, the lesser-known dimension of the vocalist as vaggeyakkara was revealed. Santhanagopalan was in his element. The raga selection, as was obvious to his followers, was NSGish — Mayamalavagowla (’Vidhulaku’ of Tyagaraja), Purvikalyani (’Ninnu Vinaga’ of Syama Sastri), and Bhairavi (’Sri Lalithe’ of Annaswamy Sastri).
The concert held in Chennai was satisfying and would have been even better if violinist Delhi Sundararajan had not been so languid and V. Kamalakar Rao had been less fussy about fine-tuning his instrument, which consumed an irritatingly long time.
It was dismaying that Delhi Sundararajan, a fine violinist, who as a budding artiste used to provide spirited support to a vocalist as crafty and difficult-to-follow as T.N. Seshagopalan, gave less-than-adequate accompaniment to Santhanagopalan. Earlier, the singer hummed a two-minute alapana of Poorna Chandrika, and, after Sundararajan’s 15-second reply and Kamalakar Rao was done hammering his mridangam, came the little song on the saint of Kanchi, followed by a soothing alapana of Purvi Kalyani, which tapered off, tanam-style.
Surprise choice
‘Ninnu Vinaga’ was a surprise selection and when it came to the niraval, at ‘Paramalobhulanu,’ the vocalist jumped straight to the fast-phase. The composition has three stanzas, but only the first was sung.
The vocalist’s Bhairavi alapana was classy, part of it delivered in closed-mouth style — Santhanagopalan’s hallmark. But it was the racy niraval, on the line ‘Neelabja dala lochane’ that stood testimony to the vocalist’s mastery over his art. It practically screamed that Santhanagopalan is an artiste who is being consistently overlooked for recognition.
In the swaras that followed, at least twice, Santhanagopalan seemed to experiment with a swara sequence, miss the tala cycle, do it again, and succeed. But that is Carnatic music — being spontaneous and unrehearsed is the quintessence.
In-between, Santhanagopalan sang Patnam Subramanya Iyer’s ‘Abhimanamu’ (Begada) and Dikshithar’s ‘Sri Matrubhutham’ (Kannada), which could have been sung a bit faster.
