Finer aesthetics coupled with rhythmic verve dominated the concert of Palghat Ramprasad at Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha. He brings out the best of the musical aspects of the alapanas. His delineation of raga Nayaki’s pleasing contours for the kriti ‘Dayaleni’ (Tyagaraja), with long karvais in the anupallavi lines, was a fine example of this.
The elongated gandhara and nishada, typical of Nayaki, in the kalpanaswaras were absorbing. Adhering to a discipline in balancing between plain notes and brigas, Ramprasad presented the sangathis and swaras in an appealing form.
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He chose to render the Kamavardhani kirtana ‘Ennaganu rama bhajana’ (Bhadrachala Ramadas) without the alapana but brought in descriptive niraval in the charanam line. He came up with some phrases of rhythmic finesse in the chain of kalpanaswaras that cruised from clear notes in the mandara sthayi to upper octaves.
An intelligently structured concert, it had more calming ragas for the morning. The Muthuthandavar padam ‘Kanaamal veenile’ in Nilambari from the D.K. Pattammal repository came next. H.N. Bhaskar, on the violin, added pleasing touches to the emotive Hamir Kalyani alapana that came next.
Ramprasad rendered Muthuswami Dikshitar’s ‘Purahara Nandana’ in a faster speed, embellished it with a niraval at ‘Karunamrutha sagara’ and continued with chittaswarams in the same speed. The percussionists Tiruvarur Bhaktavatsalam on the mridangam and Sreesundar Kumar on the ganjira joined him, resulting in fireworks at the crescendo. That said, the percussionists had the liberty of playing a few avarthanas at the end of almost every piece in the concert.
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Another beautiful composition in Chakravaham, ‘Etula brothuvo’ (Tyagaraja), brought back the ease with a relaxed niraval and dattu proyagams in kalpanaswarams deploying interesting yatis. He concluded the concert with ‘Muruga Muruga Ena Nee Sol’ in Hamsanandi, another from the DKP school.
Ramprasad kept the melody intact even when arithmetic held sway.