Senior artistes in the field of Carnatic music, D. Raghavachari and D. Seshachari, popularly known as the Hyderabad brothers, enthralled the National Capital’s music lovers on the third day of the Tyagaraja Music and Dance Festival 2015, organised by the Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha and Andhra Pradesh Bhavan at the latter’s auditorium.
The duo’s opening piece itself, Tyagaraja’s “Evarini” in Devamritavarshini, was delightfully presented. This and the subsequent compositions of Tyagaraja that the brothers sang in quick successions were all soaked in bhava and rooted deeply in classicism. “Dhaya juchutakidi” in raga Ganavaridhi, a composition not heard frequently in concerts, was handled adroitly by the brothers. While singing “Dhyaname Varamaina” in raga Dhanyasi, the brothers brought out the ragha bhava to the fore.
The Hyderabad brothers took up Tyagaraja’s kritis “Durmargachara’ in raga Ranjani and “Mitri bhagyame” in Kharaharapriya for detailed renditions. They took turns to sing the raga alapanas of both the ragas. Both the presentations were detailed and unhurried delineations where the brothers brought out the nuances of the ragas impressively. While the other improvisation technique handled for the ranjani song was only the Kalpanaswaras, for the Kharaharpriya song it was niraval of the phrase “Tyagaraja nutudanu sri ramuni” as well as kalpanaswaras.
In their miscellaneous session, the Hyderabad brothers included songs of Shyama Sastri, Annamacharya, etc. The session, though, was a little lengthy and seemed to have dragged on a bit more than required. The brothers completed their main session including the tani avartanam rather quickly. Though there was considerable time at their disposal, they didn’t take up a ragam panam and Pallavi.
Vittal Ramamurthy on the violin, K.V. Prasad on the mridangam and Nerkunam Shankar on the kanjira were excellent and provided understanding support to the vocalists. While Ramamurthy played fine alapanas of the ragas Ranjani and Kharaharapriya, the percussionists played an enjoyable tani avartanam in Adi tala.
Pantula Rama Vishakapatnam-based Pantula Rama sang on the first day of the same festival. Rama’s recital was dull in the initial phase. This could be due to the fact that she chose to open the concert with a vivadi raga, Ganamoorti (Tyagaraja’s composition “Ganamurte”) and followed it up with another Tyagaraja’s composition “Naa moralanu” (in raga arabi) which begins at a lower note.
After an emotive “Samukhana nilva” (Tyagaraja’s kriti) in raga Kokilavarali, and a well sung “Natanam Sheyyum” (Ramaswami Sivan’s composition), Rama took up another Tyagaraja composition, “Ammaravamma” in raga Kalyani, for detailed presentation. A scintillating raga alapana and niraval of the phrase “tamarasa dala netrudu tyagarajuni” and the subsequent kalpanaswaras were noteworthy features here. Pantula Rama’s central item was a ragam tanam and pallavi. She neatly sang the pallavi “Ganalola karunala bala govinda mampahi”, in raga Bindumalini and set to Adi tala. Earlier, Rama sang an outstanding alapana of the raga. The soothing tanam and the ragamallika swaras in raga Bindumalini, Durga and Sahana were delightful.
MSM Murthy on the violin, Umayalpuram Mali on the mridangam and Nerkunam Shankar on the kanjira provided good accompaniment to Rama. Murthy’s takes on the ragas Kalyani and Bindumalini were delightful.
So was the taniavartanam of the percussionists in Adi tala.
