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[R.Latha]

Sudha Ragunathan

Stress on sahitya

SVK

Sudha Ragunathan’s music was enjoyable, but the bhakti element was missing.

Photo: S. Thanthoni

ORNATE IN ESSENCE: Sudha Ragunathan.

Gopalakrishna Bharati is a composer whose kirtanas are at their best when the intense bhakti contained in them get their deserved treatment at the hands of performers.

Sudha Ragunathan, who sang after a function organised by the Festival Committee in association with Maadhyama Dharma Samajam, could not bring such a devout mind to the rendering of the kirtanas. For, Sudha’s briga bhani hardly reflected the subtle inter-relationship between emotion and sangita.

To the audience in general, her music was pleasurable but did not convey Gopalkrishna Bharathi’s yearning for Thillai. The sahityas were there, but not the serenity. In fact, such music of great composers has to be felt and not thought out. It is not enough if music is based merely on sapta swaras, but has to be on contemplative experience.

If this aspect was set aside, Sudha’s performance revealed enormous creativity loud and clear. Technical competence took care of expansiveness. Her objective in interpreting songs was to be emphatic even at the cost of daintiness. Exuberance of sangatis, startling expressions and vocal amplitude were the characteristic features. Being Tamil songs, the concert ought to have been a journey along their devotional contents making them transparent to Gopalakrishna Bharati’s bhakti.

Sudha’s Poorvikalyani raga sancharas were meticulously chiselled. Soaring manodharma covered the several shades of the raga’s terrain. Her’s was a continuous alapana process from the manobhava sthayi to the tarasthayi panchamam, at each level accurate.
Studded with swaras

The kirtana was ‘Thillai Chidambaram’. Sudha studded the song with a volume of swaras and sangatis. Her method of handling kirtanas was conducive to endowing impressiveness, ornate in essence. When at the beginning, she took up ‘Sivaloka Naathanai” (Mayamalavagowla), the mind switched back to the glorious way Dandapani Desikar sang in the film ‘Nandanar.’ That still remains an acme of serene singing. ‘Kanaka Sabhapatikku’ (Atana) and ‘Chidambaram Endrorudaram’ (Begada) were the other items.

The mridangist Neyveli Skandasubramaniam was quick to take advantage of the vocalist’s musical ways. His accompanying style was fanciful in design and dexterous in display.

His percussion partner was Gopalakrishnan (ganjira).

The violinist Raghavendra Rao was effective in his solo versions emphasising beauty in brevity.

http://www.hindu.com/fr/2009/03/20/s...2051300300.htm
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