Flowing with rich creativity

That she is a veteran artiste became evident before she completed singing the opening item in her radio concert, “Sree Ganapatine” in the raga Sowrashtram. The delightful way in which the vocalist sang this slow paced song with an intelligible diction of the lyrics bringing out the sahitya and the raga bhava and also to a riveting rhythm was a treat to the radio listeners. The seasoned Seetha Narayanan was giving a vocal concert in a special National Programme of music of the All India Radio featuring the compositions of “Trinities and other Vageyakaras”. Seetha Narayanan had taken up Tyagaraja’s composition in her recital.

It was a short duration concert of about an hour and half (ironically that is the longest time allocated by AIR for classical music concerts). Despite this, by structuring her concert intelligently and intertwining into the kritis an appropriate dose of improvisation techniques (raga alapana, neraval singing and swaraprastharas), Seetha gave a complete feel of a full-fledged concert experience. AIR deserves credit for the programme as well as the choice of the artiste for this particular composer.

After singing “Illalo Pranatarti” in the raga Attana again in a delightful manner, Seetha moved to take up songs for detailed presentations. It appeared to be a well thought out selection of both the ragas and the compositions — Kalyani the pratimadhyama raga (65th mela) and Kharaharapriya the suddhamadhyama raga (22nd mela). The compositions were “Amma Ravamma” in which the composer pleads Mother Tulasi to come and protect him and “Chakkani Rajamargamu” in which the composer cautions the mind that while good, royal road is available why take to bylanes. For both these items, Seetha sang excellent raga alapanas bringing out the features of these ragas to fore delightfully, presented neraval of the phrases “Tamarasa Dala Netru Tyagarajuni Mitru” and “Kantiki sundaramagu rupame” and kalpanaswaras that flowed with rich creativity.

Seetha concluded her concert in a befitting manner by singing “Tava Dasoham” in the raga Punnagavarali in which the composer avers that he has taken refuge in Lord Rama after getting convinced that there is no other God like him in the world.

Usha Rajagopalan on the violin, J. Vaidyanathan on the mridangam and G. Ravichandran on the ghatam provided matured and understanding support to Seetha. The violinist’s takes of Kalyani and Kharaharapriya were enjoyable. So was the tani avartanam of the percussionists.

On the whole, a radio concert that will remain etched in the memories of radio listeners for a long time.

It seemed to be a bonus of sorts to the listeners of Carnatic music concerts on the Delhi station of AIR last Monday morning. The station had broadcast recordings of the vocal concert of Seetha. In the brief recording of about 20 minutes, the vocalist rendered Tyagaraja’s “Evarura Ninu Vina” in the raga Mohanam. She presented the composition in a detailed manner with raga alapana, neraval of a phrase and kalpanaswaras.