Carnatic Music's proliferation in the past decade and a half has changed the contours of concerts decisively. Prompted perhaps by the development of a large mid-stream audience who have trained their ears through packaged music and recordings, competent artists have also been pulled into this zone. Mambalam Sisters (Hemalatha replaced an ill Vijayalakshmi at the Brahma Gana Sabha concert) sang an entertaining first half, essentially on a uniform kalapramana, riding on the duo appeal. ‘Nadathanumanisam' (Chittaranjani, Tyagaraja), ‘Kadaikkan Vaithennai Aalamma' (Begada, Ramaswamy Sivan) and ‘Sree Parthasarathy' (Sudha Dhanyasi, Dikshitar) all seemed in one metronomic motion. ‘Devi Brova Samayamithe' (Chintamani, Syama Sastry) sustained the tempo. Suddha Dhanyasi raga alapana by Hemalatha was pleasing and Nagai Sriram on the violin was eloquent in both the raga essays – Suddha Dhanyasi and Kalyani. His unhurried approach depended more on powerful karvais and pauses rather than frenzied finger movements.
Chitra changed course in the second half of the concert with a salient raga alapana of Kalyani that sought to explore all classic phrases of the raga. ‘Ethavunara' (Tyagaraja) lent an even keel to the tempo and was engaging, especially the niraval at ‘Sree Garudagu', well responded to by Sriram as well. Working on clarity at the lower octave and including laya intelligence in kalpanaswaras are enhancements the sisters could look for. The concert returned to the popular pattern in the tukkadas and thillana in Kuntalavarali (Balamuralikrishna). Percussion support of Nellai Balaji (mridangam) and K.S. Rangachari (ganjira) was appropriate to the overall mood of the concert.
Magnificent flute
Tiruvarur Swaminathan's recital was magnificent for one reason – his bhava-filled playing that had self-enjoyment written all over it.
The choice of ragas lent coordinates and class to the concert. Beginning with the Natakurinji varnam, Swaminathan quickly moved on to ‘Vinayaka Ninnuvina' (Hamsadhwani, Veenai Kuppier) icing it with a nice swara sequence at ‘Paramakripa Sagara.' ‘Sree Narada nada' (Kanada, Tyagaraja) followed in a semi-vilamba pace that allowed for greater appreciation of the raga's nuances, both in the kriti and in the swarams.
Simhendra Madhyamam (‘Ninne Namithi,' Mysore Vasudevacharya, Misra chapu) and Jagadeeswari (Mohanam, Tiruvarur Ramaswamy Pillai, Adi 2 kalai) were the anchors of the concert. While Swaminathan used discerning phrases in the raga alapana of Simhendra Madhyamam, the Mohanam alapana was laced with sweet melody sans theatric sorties. Kalpanaswara in both cases were mature, pleasing and had the right dose of intellectual elements. The absence of niraval could not be felt as the rest of the music flowed as one stream. While V.L. Kumar (violin) was racy at times, Shertalai Ananthakrishnan (mridangam) and Ramachandran (ghatam) performed in unison with the flautist and embellished with a good thani.
