Monday 24 December 2018

Excellent concert of Vidwan Prasanna Venkatraman in MFAC

21 December, 2019, Friday
Accompanied by Vidushi H M Smitha on violin, Shri Manoj Siva on mridangam and Shri B S Purushothaman on kanjira
Having heard quite a bit about this artist, who is currently mentored by Sangitha Kalanidhi Sanjay Subrahmanyan, we decided to attend his concert at the Mylapore Fine Arts Club, TAG Auditorium. Shri Prasanna Venkatraman started the concert with a nice warmup rendition of the darbAr varnam, calamEla, a composition of Shri Thiruvottiyur Thyagayya. Shri Prasanna's voice was well settled right from the word go. He then took up the Shri Gopalakrishna Bharathi composition sivalOka nAtanai in mAyAmALavagowLa. He unfurled his vidwat in the neraval at 'arpa sugattai' and followed it up with very good kalpana swarams. Vidushi H M Smitha accompanied very well in both the neraval and kalpana swarams.
Prasanna Venkatraman and team in full flow
The first rAgam taken for detail exploration was udayaravicandrikA a.k.a. shuddha dhanyAsi (as known in the current trend). Shri Prasanna gave a very good sketch of the rAgam followed by Vidushi Smitha's nice follow-up. Saint Thyagaraja's statement of the eternal truth - 'How much ever one has learnt, whatever places one has visited and seen; every single man among them is still a slave to the one wearing bangles' - was the composition sung in this rAgam. Yes, it is enta nErcinA that was sung, followed by very brisk kalpana swarams. One tidbit about the translated version of this song in thamizh - Dr. M Balamuralikrishna has presented about 12 Saint Thyagaraja kritis in 2 CD set. This song's lines in that set, (enta nErcinA) in thamizh as sung by the Maestro are - ettanai kaRRALum ettanai kaNDAlum; attanai AnROrum aRangin adimayE.
kalAvati kamalAsana yuvati of Shri Muthuswami Dikshitar was the next item that Shri Prasanna sang, which we thought would be the filler before the main song. However, he sang another fast paced composition, vararAgalaya of Saint Thyagaraja in cenjukAmbhOji following the kalAvati song. Shri Prasanna took up mukhAri for the main fare of the evening. It was very well elaborated in a steady build up. He has a style of his own, but at one or two points, there was a bit of influence of Shri Sanjay's mannerism and some phrases. Vidushi Smitha also presented a melodious mukhAri after which kArubAru of Saint Thyagaraja was rendered in a relaxed speed. The kalpanaswarams in mukhAri were also well covered before a superb tani avarthanam. Both the stalwarts Shri Manoj Siva and Shri Purushothaman enjoyed the exchange, which was a nice treat to watch.
Shri Prasanna immediately took up a rAgam tAnam pallavi exposition in mOHanam. It is quite difficult to pack all these into two hours and fifteen minutes and hence the AlApanA was a nice crisp one from both him and the violinist. The tAnam was also a nice show of his voice and skill, followed by the pallavi 'kanaka sabEshA jagadIshA nataNa prakAshA' set to Kandajati Triputa Talam in tisra naDai. He sang kalpanaswarams in HindOLam, nATTakurinji and bEHag.
The final song rendered was composition of Kanakadasa 'bArO krishnayyA' in a rAgamAlikA beginning with mAnD rAgam. A flawless concert we enjoyed.
If one were to point out any shortcoming, we can say that there was not enough neraval on the mOHanam pallavi. Maybe that could not be fit into the short time, but in my opinion neraval can be given priority over rAgamAlikA kalpanaswarams. Shri T N Seshagopalan, in his lecture demonstration on Pallavis at the Pallavi Darbar of 2018, had mentioned that the most important part of a good rAgam tAnam pallavi is the extended neraval on the pallavi. I agree with this thought, and hence hope that all artists give more weightage to the neraval. They can trim other parts of RTP when their is paucity of time.
Shri Prasanna Venkatraman has a very good voice and superb control over it. We will definitely show our patronage to his concerts as it is very much worth enjoying his good music.

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