If a musical script has to be written for an M. Venkatesh Kumar concert and a Rajan-Sajan Mishra concert, what would the narrative be? The former would perhaps be something like an exciting thriller packed with high drama, keeping you at the edge of your seat. The latter wears a low mimetic demeanour, perhaps like a softly told story existing in undertones. While these could be seen as broad categories in which these two different kinds of music exist, they overlapped the characteristics of each other, often. The destination of both was the sublime, one through awareness and the other through reflection. The journeys that we are currently observing mandate total commitment of the listener, they do in fact, expect an equal surrender from the singer as well. Else, for both, clues can be lost, paths can remain uncovered, and the song will remain merely one on the lip – like love strangulated in a web of words. The musicians, thereby, not only opened up one’s notion of emotional meaning, but also led us to the different routes in which the same journey can be undertaken.
Pandit M. Venkatesh Kumar’s concert for Bhoomija last weekend, was followed by Pandit Rajan-Sajan Mishra concert for Gururao Deshpande Sabha the next day. Both the concerts picked tricky ragas for delineation – Venkatesh Kumar sang Marwa, and Rajan Sajan Mishra, Ramdasi Malhar, ragas which have close allied ragas. Communicating their distinctive ideas through rules of grammar and fixed devices is a major aspect of a rendition – particularly when a raga deals with other ragas of similar phraseologies -- but the test of a maestro is how he converts technical meaning into an intelligible, emotional experience for the listener. So much so that everything eventually melts into a haunting phrase.
The legendary Vilayat Khan who often spoke of form of a raga as visual image, had this to say about a raga’s aural image: “If you walk out of the auditorium where a raga Marwa has been performed well, and re-enter after ten minutes, the walls should be resounding with the phrase lower-octave Ni-Da-Da.” Venkatesh Kumar’s hour-long recital of Marwa was a complete concert in itself, leaving reverberations of the “Piya Aa” phrase, not just in the auditorium, but within the sensorium too. Everything else that followed belonged to a different concert, so to say.
The natural temperament of raga Marwa is close to Venkatesh Kumar’s temperament as a musician. Intense and robust, the raga opens up plenty of possibilities for symmetric improvisations. Dwelling at length in the lower and middle octaves, Venkatesh Kumar progressed to the higher octaves, packing in strength and momentum. With a propensity towards flamboyant taans and boltaans , Venkatesh Kumar constructed some of the most intoxicating phrases; from his body language it almost seemed like he was on a relentless hunt of Marwa, which he was building with passion. His articulation of the “Gadi Gadi pal pal” phrase in the second bandish “Morare Tum Sang” built up the fervour one often notices in the musicians of Bhakti tradition.
What followed were his trump cards – “Toredu Jeevisabahude”, “Bannisalalavayya Namma Prasanna Mooruti”, and his rendition of the vachana “Kalabeda Kolabeda” was reminiscent of Mansur’s asceticism.
If body is the vehicle for music, then it also becomes the signifier of the kind of music. Thoughtful and contemplative, Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra featured the very rarely sung Ramdasi Malhar. It was raining listeners inside the auditorium, and no sooner did the maestros begin their rendition, the skies opened up as well. A singing that was completely shorn of flashy ornamentalism, the raga unfurled gradually, each note acquiring a full-bodied existence. Employing both the gandhars, the atmosphere it created was tranquil, but profound. They soared through the octaves, and built aesthetics of enduring quality. After two bandishes the maestros sang a vibrant tarana, taking the entire piece to a higher plane.
The most important aspect of both these narratives were Ravindra Katoti on the harmonium and Ravindra Yavagal on the tabla. With their subtle understanding of these different approaches to music, what they contributed was outstanding.
Where does music then lie – in form, in content, in the narrative, or in the tools employed? It surely emerges from this ecology, but it journeys beyond. You have to trace it in the emotion it leaves behind.
