G. Ravikiran presented a concert that began on a slow and sedate note but did not pick up much momentum as it progressed. Though he had many attributes going in his favour such as a fine vocal tenor, perfect diction and sincere deliberation, a little thought in alternating among fast, medium and slow presentations would have made a lot of difference to the overall impact of the concert.
It was, in fact, a good start with a beautiful sketch of Ritigowla and ‘Cheraravathe’ of Tyagaraja with long-winding that brimmed with raga bhava. The essay of Poorvikalyani carried some verve and he chose ‘Paripurnakama’ of Tyagaraja. Niraval and swaras at ‘Saketadhipa nimukha’ showed promise.
Two kritis which followed were rare pieces — ‘Bhogachayenatakapriya’ with the same raga name by Muthuswami Dikshitar and ‘Atukaradani’ in Manoranjani.
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Open-throated singing
With these fillers Ravikiran set the stage for Sankarabharanam. An intensive and archaic treatment gave weight to the raga treatise. It was good to see him not indulging in vocal acrobatics; his open-throated singing was pleasant on the ears. The choice here was Dikshitar’s ‘Sri Dakshinamurthey’ that was rendered extremely slow with some vigourin ‘Akshaya suvarna’. He added a fair amount of swaras.
After ‘Parvathi ninne’ in Kalkada (Syama Sastri), it was detailing of Sahana for RTP. Again it was a raga with a lot of ‘Karuna rasam’ and Ravikiran did not make any overstatement. The tanam and a Tamizh pallavi ‘Unnai nidam venduvom Raghava’ set in Adi talam followed all the mandatory treatments. The ragamalika swaras touched Gowla and Kuntalavarali.
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‘Muddhugare yashoda’ in Kurinji (Annamacharya) and ‘Manda madiyo naanu’ in Valaji (Purandaradasa) were final inclusions.
H.K. Venkatram followed Ravikiran on the violin with sincerity and reflected the sobriety of the vocalist in raga essays and swaras. Pravin Sparsh on the mridangam and C.P. Vyasavittala on ganjira were efficient partners and their thani avartanam in Misra Jampa talam was noteworthy.