Shankaranaryanan’s two-hour live performance by no means misplaced momentum

V. Sankarnarayanan with R. Raghul (violin), Poongulam Subramaniam (mridangam) and Trivandrum Rajagopal (kanjira).
| Picture Credit score: RAGHUNATHAN SR

The items of a chessboard have distinctive roles, very like a two-hour live performance. Within the menu of songs, every has a task to play to additional the live performance — acceleration, deceleration, manodharma plank, laya expertise, emotive impression…Shankaranarayanan, singing for  Parthasarathy Swami Sabha, embraced this idea with well-manicured items at each stage. The live performance by no means misplaced momentum even with a few patiently rendered songs. 

‘Bhavayami raghuramam’ (Swati Tirunal, ragamalika, Rupakam) is never an opener, however Sankaranarayanan gave it a brisk therapy, together with a quick niraval within the Madhyamavati strains (‘Vilasita pattabishekam’) on the finish. It, maybe, has the identical impact of a Navaragamalika varnam. 

A short Bahudari alapana was adopted by ‘Sada nanda thandavam’ (Achyuta Dasar) that zipped previous rapidly. ‘Chetasri Balakrishnam’ (Dikshitar, Rupakam) was sung in an excellent kalapramanam permitting for enjoyment of the masterpiece, shunning the mule-speed trundle that one hears typically. 

In a live performance, there is no such thing as a opponent to defeat. However, the satan is commonly throughout the performer and might come up from overconfidence, attempting an excessive amount of or blissfully ignoring the viewers’s pulse. Sankaranarayanan deserves credit score for holding such forces at bay. For instance, he saved the Manji track, ‘Brova vamma’ simply lengthy sufficient for an excellent relish and essayed a 12-minute raga alapana of Kalyani with out over-pampering it. 

Earlier, ‘Sunada vinodini’ made a shock look. The raga alapana was compact, avoiding adjoining solutions. Raghul on the violin excelled within the descendsof the alapana. ‘Devadi deva’ (Tyagaraja, Adi), the well-known kriti on this raga, had sangathis aplomb. Sankaranarayanan confirmed nice restraint by way of holding to the fragile sway of the Manji kriti, ‘Brova vamma’ (Syama Sastri, misra chapu), a traditional that’s getting rarer by the day.