Commendable tracts of Dharmavati and Thodi figured in the vocal concert of Priya Sisters (Shanmugapriya and Haripriya) at Hamsadhwani. While the former was shared by both in the raga alapana segments with the lower and middle registers by Shanmughapriya, the middle and upper regions were handed over to Haripriya.
Thodi was taken up completely by Haripriya. The kritis chosen were ‘Kadabhaktha Chintamani' by Koteeswara Iyer in Dharmavati and ‘Kamalambike' in Thodi by Muthuswami Dikshitar. The sisters customarily take special initiatives to keep their concert tempo on an even keel carefully eschewing any sort of boredom creeping in. That was achieved here too but with a slight difference.
Swift pace
They are known for their penchant to move swiftly; but in this particular concert, they maintained a not-so-fast tempo in kritis that are likely to tempt an artist to speed up, such as ‘Paridana Michchite' in Bilahari (with a fine raga preface by Haripriya and rapid fire swaras in the end) and ‘Mundu Venuga' in Darbar (Tyagaraja). These came earlier after the Asaveri varnam and ‘Sri Ganapathine' in Sowrashtram at the start.
The raga treatises of the sisters are invariably replete with spiralling spins and brigas in a convincing fashion, bringing out the nuances of the raga.
The skilful approach of Bilahari and Thodi by Haripriya was complete in the technical sense. A little more of internalising of the Thodi exposition with thoughtful stopovers might have probably added a greater breadth to the raga. Shanmugapriya's Dharmavati left a good impression on the listener. Haripriya's tara sthayi forays moved brilliantly to bring the essay to a close. Predictably, the swara sections were racy and in right measure. The niraval-swara parts of ‘Dharmavati Uma' in ‘Kadabhakta' and at ‘Sakale Gguruguha Karane' in ‘Kamalambike' were steadily built and affixed with swara sequences, landing on the shadjamam note. Here, their brevity brought out the soul of the raga image. An Annamacharya number, a Bharatiar song and a bhajan completed the concert. Raghavendra Rao on the violin seemed to be frantic in his responses, especially in raga exposes. Neyveli Skanda Subramaniam and Srisundar Kumar on mridangam and ganjira weaved well-knit rhythmic patterns and offered an energetic thani.
