For Bharat Sundar, the concert stage is a playground. And during his two-hour Sunday afternoon concert at Narada Gana Sabha , this approach both brought out the best attractions in his singing as well as detracted from his concert's overall success.
Fluidity, nonchalance, confidence, ease, delicacy are all adjectives that exemplify Bharat Sundar's style. He does this by leaving the vocal chords light. This enables him to spurt springy sphuritams and jantais with panache. But on the flip side, this gives leeway to the occasional lack of azhuttam and his performance comes off as sedate or, worse, weak.
Bharat has a solid stage presence, and is quick on the uptake.
Sample this: He is just about to begin the Malayamarutham alapana and the microphone feedback cuts in with a squeal, a sweet antara gandharam in perfect congruity. His response: “Aha!”
The blend of rajasa (aggression) and tamasa (lethargy) in Bharat's style was fittingly emphasised when he took up kalpanaswara at ‘Kalilo raajasa taamasa’ in the Tyagaraja kriti 'Manasaa Yetulo'. A negligible blemish apart, this exercise stood out for its delicacy, peaking in the soft ricocheting of swaras in the dhaivatam-nishadam corridor.
Patnam Subramania Iyer's ‘Aparaadhamulanniyu’ is a touchstone of Lathangi. Bharat and M. Rajeev's wordless raga articulations drew verbal utterances of “beautiful” from several in the audience. During the swara-elaboration at ‘Jaaku saeyaka,’ which followed a skillful niraval, a mischievous Bharat took the liberty of cutting across his accompanist's turn to redo a phrase he wasn't happy with. Rajeev, ever the paragon of humility, let it slide with a smile.
A raga signifies a discrete emotional state. To sing 14 of them in 14 minutes is probably akin to an actor essaying a character a minute (a tough feat perhaps even for a Kamal Haasan). Bharat was up to this challenge, though, when he pulled off Muthuswami Dikshitar's Chaturdasa Ragamalika, ‘Sree Vishvanaatham Bhajaeham.’
While Bharat approached the Saveri kriti ‘Kripa Joodavamma’ with markedly more diligence and power, he showed visible strain in the tarasthayi region of two-and-a-half shruti, his voice all but cracking ( a light voice such as his ought to slide easily into the higher pitches).
R. Shankaranarayanan and Chandrasekhara Sharma, hitherto content to provide unerring sarvalaghuin adi tala, launched into some complex korvais, notably in khandanadai (during a thani avarthanam for which the hall lost very few to the canteen). All in all, a mildly error-prone but enjoyable outing.
