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NEWS
- VIEWS - REVIEWS
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PRESIDENT
VEDAVALLI'S CONCERT AT MUSIC ACADEMY |
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| Senior
musicians who have already claimed high stakes and are well-established
often appear to take it easy and shine on the merit of their past
achievements. R Vedavalli, who is held in high esteem as a custodian of
convention and tradition, is a well-acknowledged artiste this way.
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| Her concert at the Music
Academy on 24th December 2000 was well-balanced, steady and flawless in
every aspect of music, be it rendition of compositions or the creative
aspects such as raga alapana, neraval, kalpanaswaras etc. The very
commencement of Pachimiriam Adiappayya's famous Varnam in Bhairavi, 'Viriboni'
placed her where she should be. The Varnam was sung with an anubandha, which
is hardly known to any musician today, leave alone the budding artistes.
Not just the anubandha, but an additional charana-swara passage
between the conventional second and third swaras was rendered on the
authority of the Sangeeta Sampradaya Pradarsini. Muthuswami
Dikshitar's 'Pavanatmaja' in Nata, which was next, could have been
sung in Khanda Eka instead of Khanda Chapu since the latter is not usually
found in his kritis. A Tamil kriti in Hamirkalyani was taken up following the
Nata piece. However, there were a few touches of Saranga here and
there. |
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The Sahana alapana was
methodically handled. Vedavalli took the help of her disciple to sing in
the higher octave. Tyagaraja's masterpiece 'Giripai nelakonna' could have
been a little faster. It was absolutely docile and the kalpanaswaras for
the charanam line, 'Pulakankitudai' didn't improve the situation.
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Her rendition of 'Vamshavati',
the kriti of Dikshitar in the raga of the same name sounded more like
Mandari, perhaps because the Shatsruti Daivata was not apparently and
emphatically rendered. In her raga alapana of Kharaharapriya, Vedavalli
covered the full gamut, although she once again let her disciple cover the
higher octaves. 'Ramaneesamana' was sung well, bedecked with the
standard neraval and kalpanaswaras. There were no extravagant or
enthusiastic displays at all throughout the concert. |
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For her stature, Vedavalli
could have taken up a raga like Todi or Sankarabharanam or Kambodhi for
her Ragam Tanam Pallavi instead of Vachaspati. The Pallavi in Khanda
Jhampa 4-kalai
with an eduppu at half beat (ara idam) marked a high
standard, especially a fragment in the poorvanga (first half of the
tala). She suffixed it with a series of ragamalika kalpanaswaras.
M A Krishnaswamy, the
violinist, provided staunch support and enhanced the total effect of the
concert. In addition to the excellent following, K R Ganesh on the
mridangam, proved himself an artiste of indomitable standard in his solo
display. Pudukottai Ramachandran was complementary to the mridangist. |
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