Vocal : Cherthala Ranganatha Sharma
Violin : Mysore Srikanth
Mrudangam : J Vaidyanathan
Ganjira : Anil Parashar
List:
01. inta chAlamu – bEgaDa – vEnna Kuppiyer
02. siddhi aruL shivashakti bAlakanE – nATa – Neelakanta Shivan ( S )
03. smaraNe ondE sAladE – malayamArutam – Purandara Dasa ( O,S )
04. parama krpA sAgari – yadukula kAmbOji – GNB (short Sketch)
05. E rAmuni nammitinO – vakuLAbharaNam – Thyagaraja ( A,N,S )
neraval & swara @ ‘ EkAntamuna sItA sOkOrchi jOgoTTa kAkAsuruDu cEyu’
06. inta tiru vaDivam – vasanta – Neelakanta Shivan
07. gAngEya vasanadhara – hamIrkalyANi – Swathi Thirunal ( A,N,S,T )
neraval & swara @ ‘gAngEya vasanadhara padmanAbha’
08. sattalEni dinamu – nAganandini – Thyagaraja
09. RTP -nAtakurinji – Khandajati triputa , khanda nadai , +1 eduppu(?)
pallavi line ‘ shambhO mahAdEva vibhO pAhi prabhO santatam svayambhO’
pallavi trikalam in nAtakurinji & pantuvarALi ( after pantuvarali swara)
rAgamalika swaras in pantuvarALi , surutti, bhAgEshrI , sOhini/ hamsAnandi
10. chentAr sAyaka rUpa – behAg – Irayimman Thampi
11. hari guN gAvat nAchUngi – dIpALi?? – Meera Bhajan
12. mangaLam – saurAshtram / madhyamAvati – Thyagaraja
Another fabulous concert by Sri Ranganatha Sharma. The smile and happiness on the faces as they were leaving the hall, were the testimony to what he delivered on this day. A sense of peace and tranquility prevailed. No exhilaration, no frown faces, no shuffling of the sequence; yet again another display of pure classicism. If you have substance, you dont have to engage in altering the form or devices to entertain the listeners. I only wish, he get more chances in Bangalore and the hall will have as many listeners as some of the lesser capable artist manage to gather.
I reached after the varnam. Neelakanta shivan’s kriti in Nata was on and a few rounds of swaras to add. I am so used to listening to the repeat of nata kalpana swaras in the same sequence from one artist to the other with no real variety. Malayamarutam kriti was also did not really make any ‘aha’ moment. Well, some kalpana swara phrases were impressive though. The kriti was sung in a slightly faster tempo. I would have liked it a notch or two lower. GNBs yadukula kamboji was pretty nice. I’ve heard him sing this a couple of previous occasions before.
4 kritis down and apart from a short Yadukulakamboji sketch there was no raga alapana until now. To me, the highlight of Ranganatha Sharma’s concerts are the way he explore the raga, the essence of it is beautifully delineat , carefully build and flourish in front of you with exceptional clarity through the alapana. I could sense a mild strain in voice early on and he might have waited for the voice to warm up. The wait indeed had its good. What a brilliant vaklabharanam alapana that was. We were initially aligning our concentration to mAyAmALava gauLa, but soon realised we did not have to go that far, but stay a mEla lower. E rAmuni, removed the small doubt I had on my mind. This really changed the whole aura of the concert. An outstanding neraval at ‘ekantamuna’ added to the brilliant kriti singing. Kalpana swara, however, was much shorter to the overall build up until then. Phenomenal effort.
After another rare vasanta kriti of Neelakanta Shivan, he lunched into another emotive hamir kalyani alapana. Just as brilliant as the previous one. Mysore Srikant who did a phenomenal job through out the evening, was at his best here. I guessed venkata shaila to flow in, but gAngEya vasanadhara was even better. He did another great neraval at the pallavi line. I thought it is a bit tricky to sing neraval here, but he did not seem to have any trouble whatsoever. The kalpana swaras were again a cracker. Vaidyanathan and young ganjira artist played out a decent tani avartanam. Vaidyanathan was at his elements, and was accommodating the younger supporting artist. Some attractive time play was the highlight.
Again very carefully chosen naganandini kriti came before the pallavi. Two phase alapana of Natakurinji wasn’t grand but was very sublime and extracted essence. Tanam was pretty good. Though it is not appropriate to nitpick in such a great concert, I would have liked if he had selected a different pallavi line. The occasion was gokulashtami and the pallavi was apt for the Shivarathri series concert. I see very few artist take the occasion and location into consideration while planning their concert. TNS is probably the only exception to this. Having said that, the pallavi by itself was very very good. Trikalam was executed very effortlessly with some impeccable precision in a not so common talam and nadai. After natakurinji swaras he started the ragamalika swaras with pantuvarali and came back and did another pallavi trikalam in pantuvarali. I was expecting him to do so for the rest, but that did not happen. The last swara sounded hamsanandi-ish, but I think it probably is a very close raga ( not sure if it was sOhini or sunAdavinOdini) to hamsanandi.
Post pallavi and the speeches was notable for the Irayimman Thampi’s javali ‘Chentar Sayaka Roopa’ in behag. I recently heard him sing this in a TV program, but this was better. A Meerabhajan concluded the concert.
Another gem of a concert again. Vakulabharanam, hamir kalyani and natakurinji as three main raga for the evening. Some very clever and impressive pick of the rest of the kritis , a few rare ones. No major ragas at all, but hey, who is complaining. Hope to see him more often in Bangalore.
Brain Drain 