Ganjam music festival “The Flights of Fantasy” featured two concerts of Hindustani classical music: Dhrupad recital by Umakant and Ramakant Gundecha and sitar recital by Buddhaditya Mukherjee.
Gundecha brothers commenced their recital with an expansive ‘alaap’ in the evening melody raga Gavati. The progression of the ‘alaap’ from the lower octave to the higher, from a subtle ‘laya’ to the explicit and from a slow tempo towards the faster tempo had a predominantly linear structure. The Vilambit ‘alaap’ in raga Gavati was a free-flowing , unhurried exposition of the raga’s melodic contours, unfolding through a meditative, austere ‘alaap’, structured in consonance with well-established rules of melodic progression, capturing the essence of the raga with improvisations around key phrases.
The vilambit ‘alaap’ was followed by a medium tempo ‘alaap’ at which stage a pulsation entered the melody, corresponding to the melodic-rhythmic character of ‘jod’ in instrumental music. The ‘nom-tom alaap’ enhanced the rhythmicality of the aural experience. This three-tiered ‘alaap’ sequence culminated in the ‘drut alaap’, corresponding to the melodic –rhythmic structure of ‘jhala’ in instrumental music. This linear ‘alaap’ was followed by the rendition of the song text in Chautal, a rhythmic cycle of 12 beats. The delineation of the composition “shadja sur saadhe’ had a cyclical structure. Here, to the exuberant Pakhawaj accompaniment of Rameshchandra Joshi and Dhyaneshwar Deshmukh, Ramakant and Umakant Gundecha brought out the poetic beauty and the emotive expressivity of the ‘bandish’ through their enunciations and improvisations. The scintillating ‘bol-baant’ section where the vocalists rendered the bandish in different tempos known as ‘dugun’, ‘trigun’ and ‘chaugun’, in multiples of the basic tempo was marked by dazzling synchronization with the percussionists . Gundecha brothers cast a spell on the listeners with a captivating rendition of a ‘Sharada Stuti’ , “Sharada Ma , Saraswati Ma , Shubhra vastra Dharini ma, Hamsavahini Mata” , in raga Saraswati from the Carnatic Melakarta, a hymn in praise of the Goddess Saraswati in a rare tala, Teevra, a rhythmic cycle of seven beats . The rendition of ‘Shiva Stuti’, “Shiva shiva , shambho bolanatha yogi mahadeva’ in raga Adana marked by commendable felicity and fervour was greatly appreciated by the connoisseurs.
ADVERTISEMENT
Buddhaditya Mukherjee , an exponent of the Imdadkhani Gharana began his sitar recital with a brief ‘alap’ in the evening raga Purya Kalyan. He took up a ‘gat’ composition in vilambit teental, a rhythmic cycle of 16 beats in ‘gayaki ang’ and articulated the inexhaustible melodic potential of this raga with lyrical charm and grace. The rich texture of this raga was revealed in the ‘avartans’ of ‘alaaps’ and swift ‘taans’. In the delineation of the ‘drut teen tal’ composition in the same raga, the audience applauded the ebullient improvisations by the young tabla virtuoso Shaumen Nandi. In his exposition of the ‘teen tal’ composition in raga Tilak Kamod, Buddhaditya Mukherjee depicted the romantic hues of this splendid melody with aplomb, ushering in the magical allure of ‘thumri gayaki’.