News - Views - Reviews
MADRAS MUSIC MELA 2001
RAJI GOPALAKRISHNAN & SUGANDHA KALAMEGHAM - NOT YET READY TO CARRY THE MANTLE
Stalwart lady musicians seem to be a thing of the past. This is a little surprising, given that the liberalization of attitudes in the 20th century should have helped propel more women to the limelight. Carnatic music is currently facing a significant dearth of successors to carry the mantle of T Brinda, D K Pattammal, M S Subbulakshmi and others into the future. The responsibility of middle-level women vocalists, is high as far as transmission of the concert tradition is concerned. Unfortunately, most women artistes at this level seem either unaware of this aspect or are not taking their roles seriously enough.
This was felt at the concerts of two respected women vocalists of today, namely, Raji Gopalakrishnan and Sugandha Kalamegham. They were both featured at the Music Academy on 15th and 16th December 2001 respectively. For one thing, both were found peering into their notebooks even while singing popular kritis. This tendency seems to reveal either a significant lack of confidence in one’s pathantaram or perhaps overconfidence in choosing to sing songs that one knows only hazily. The second thing was failure to maintain their voices in reasonably good condition. This was especially noticed in Sugandha's concert where her voice seemed very rusty and out of form. Raji on the other hand, struggled with her sruti alignment throughout. One can only say that much more was expected of both of them.
Raji Gopalakrishnan’s concert was also marred by the fact that soon after the concert began, the Tambura, violin, mridangam and ghatam all went off-Sruti, each in its own way. As the main artiste, Raji should have at least set the Tambura sruti right before proceeding. Raji has a reasonably deep voice that easily traverses two octaves. Her style of singing is also weighty enough. She presented two new compositions in her concert, one on Dhanvantari, the celestial physician (composer unknown) and another one in Tamil commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Music Academy, which she announced as a composition of K Ramaraj . The former piece was in Hindolam and began with the words Payonidhi Samudbhavam. It didn't seem like a very classy composition and one wondered why an artiste like Raji rendered it in the first place. Afterall, don't artistes also have a responsibility in presenting and propagating good compositions?
In general, Raji's wasn't a bad concert as she acquitted herself creditably during the alapana-s, the best of which was Dharmavati, as part of the Ragam Tanam Pallavi (Palinchu bhagavati sivayuvati dharmavati padamule satatamu nammiti). Sankarabharanam (Dakshinamurte) and Todi (Kotinadulu), which were featured earlier in the concert, deserve honorable mention. The kalpanaswaras, on the other hand, were just average at best. She also floundered in her korvais for Kotinadulu and the RTP. The Pallavi in Misra Triputa was executed neatly, with the trikalam and tisram exercises done from the arudi.
V L Kumar’s violin accompaniment fell short of the mark on many counts. Scratchy technique and poor conception of ragas gave the impression that he is slowly slipping into a mechanical mode.
Melakaveri Balaji’s Mridangam deserves special mention. Be it accompaniment for kritis or the Tani Avartanam, his playing was bright, effective and sparkling. The Ghatam as in most concerts didn't have much of a role, but S V Viswanathan gave a decent account of himself in whatever he played.
General remarks:
Voice: Pretty
malleable, good for gamakas.
Range: Comfortable and easy in 2 octaves from lower to higher Pa.
Had problem with sruti alignment though.
Ratings:
Sruti - 50 %
Kalapramanam - 70%
General tempo - Medium
Compositions - 60 %
Sahitya - 50 % (lacked clarity in many places)
Raga alapana - 65 %
Kalpanaswara - 60 %
Sowkhyam - 60 %
Overall effect:
Vocal - 60 %
Violin - 40 %
Mridangam - 80 %
Ghatam - 60 %
Concert - 55 %
Estimated audience ratings:
Audience in hall - 40 %
in the beginning and close to 90 % at the end (Raji's concert was followed
by K J Yesudas' concert)
Response - Lukewarm
Sugandha Kalamegham, featured in the morning slot, seemed over reliant on notes, even for items like Ranganayakam (Nayaki), Sripate (Nagaswaravali) and Evarimata (Kambhoji). While it does not look good on stage for an artiste of her seniority to frequently refer to notes on the side, it also causes a fading of the volume picked up by the mike in front of the singer. This results in variable delivery, as far as the audience is concerned.
As already mentioned above, her voice seemed rather out of form. Neither could she traverse the higher octaves, nor deliver sangatis with precision. Her sruti alignment also left a lot to be desired. Under the circumstances, one wondered why she took up Sripate at a break-neck speed. Not only could she not cope up with the speed, she downright faltered in many of them. What little she could manage were also rendered very superficially.
Her rendition of Ranganayakam was also unsatisfactory as several sangati-s had shades of Durbar in them. Kambhoji raga was pretty decent, but again in the kriti, her splitting of the Pallavi line (Evarimata vinnavo ravo) was done in a questionable manner as Evarimata vinna O ravo. More care should have been paid on the sahitya aspect too.
Another glaring defect was in her concert planning. There was an absolute lack of proportion, inasmuch as Kharaharapriya for RTP was taken up with just about half an hour to spare, leading to a quite perfunctory treatment. Otherwise, her ideas in general were well conceived and revealed her above-average vidwat. One only wished that the expression matched the conception!
R Hemalatha's accompaniment was of very high standard. Over the years, she has quietly and constantly been improving her performance. There is no doubt that she is one of the best accompanists of today and deserves more praise and encouragement than she is getting at present. Her rich and soothing tone on the violin were a good contrast to Sugandha's weak and recalcitrant voice. Her raga alapanas and swara renditions were done with a good grasp of the raga bhava and also intelligently.
Kallidaikurichi Sivakumar's accompaniment for kritis was very good. However, his Tani Avartanam bordered on the dull. Tirupunittura Radhakrishnan on the Ghatam was okay at best.
General remarks:
Voice: Generally
thin, but weak and uncooperative on that particular day.
Range: Reasonably comfortable in the middle octave. Failed to
touch the right notes, especially in the higher octaves on that particular
day.
Ratings:
Sruti - 40 %
Kalapramanam - 70%
Compositions - 40 %
Sahitya - 35 %
Raga alapana - 60 %
Kalpanaswara - 65 %
Sowkhyam - 50 %
Overall effect:
Vocal - 40 %
Violin - 80 %
Mridangam - 60 %
Ghatam - 60 %
Concert - 45 %
Estimated audience ratings:
Audience in hall -
About 250 strong.
Response - 50 %
- Jayadev
