Despite the easing of Covidinduced restrictions, online concerts continue to enthral listeners. The ability to hear music live from another city is irresistible; the additional option of hearing it at a convenient time is even more so.

Bangalore-based Kailas Sangeet Trust, headed by sitariya Anupama Bhagwat, recently held a concert in Hyderabad entitled “Saawan Aayo”. The two main artists were from Kolkata, though from completely different musical backgrounds. Ruchira Panda is a rare representative of the vocal Kotali gharana. Blessed with a pleasantly pitched bass voice, Ruchira, in deference to the festival theme, started her concert with the original raga of the rains, Megh. This is considered one of the original six ragas, though currently, the raga associated with bringing the rain is Malhar, specifically, the version of Malhar created by Mian Tansen in the 16th century, Mian ki Malhar.

Megh has a grandeur and simplicity that needs a confident musician to handle appropriately; light ‘harkat’ and ‘murki’ is not really suitable. Ruchira sang an ati vilambit Ek taal composition, Ai maa barkha ritu aayo, composed by her guru Manas Chakraborty. The centrepiece of the bandish came in just before the ‘sam’, in a lovely flourish, executed with fluidity by Ruchira. Her sweeping traverse of notes, with beautiful control between the notes, created a solemn and majestic presentation; keeping to the slow speed for well over 40 minutes. She then displayed with practised ease, taans, finally moving on to the second composition. Her next piece was in raga Aiman; the lyrics of the composition were appropriate to the monsoon theme, Dekho saawan aayo, piya na aaye.  This again was a composition of Manas Chakraborty.

Ruchira sings in an unusual tradition called ‘Kotali’ (a rich musical region in Bangladesh, to which the founder of the gharana Tarapada Chakraborty belonged). The music represents a 17-generation tradition; Tarapada Chakraborty added to his extensive taalim by learning thumri from the great Girija Shankar Chakraborty. His son Manas Chakraborty too was a fantastic musician and composer. Ruchira trained under him for decades till his death in 2012 and is today the senior representative of the style, whose primary focus is ‘raagdari’, and unusual compositions. The excellent accompanists were Rajendra Nakod (tabla) and Vyasmurti Katti (harmonium).

The next day featured Prattyush Bannerji playing the sarod, accompanied by Ojas Adhiya on tabla. Prattyush has trained in the Senia Shahjahanpur tradition, a sarod gharana that moved from Uttar Pradesh to Bengal. The finest known exponent in the 20th century was Radhika Mohan Maitra, and Prattyush learnt from his seniormost disciple Buddhadev Dasgupta. A noted composer, Prattyush has arranged the music in several awardwinning films too.

He started with the oldest extant Malhar, Mian ki Malhar. Though the format was the conventional alap and jod, his treatment of the notes, though perfectly grammatically correct, was played with his unique perspective, which gave the concert an unusual, interesting feel.

Prattyush’s music has a soothing reposeful quality; when he suddenly brings in perfectly crystal clear stroke work, it is dramatic and attractive. His jhala was specially interesting using a six-bol (stroke) and then a four-bol ulta jhala. (Seedha jhala is three strokes on the chikari string, one on the main string. ‘Ulta’ is the reverse—three on the main and one on the chikari). The composition he played was his own, in an 11-beat time cycle. Ojas Adhiya provided excellent accompaniment, matching the sarodist’s layakari perfectly and totally in sync with the mood; this was tabla sangat at its best.

Prattyush next moved on to another Malhar—combination of Mian ki Malhar with Jaijaiwanti, entitled Jayant Malhar. This again is a beautiful Malhar, but needs to be handled with care so as not to veer too much into either Malhar or Jaijaiwanti. Here, his gat was in 16-beats, and completely conventionally structured. One was in awe with his total assimilation with the musical tradition he represents that at will, he could create a composition that sounded like something created 100 years ago!

The third piece was the piece de resistance of the concert—a raga that arguably, only Prattyush could have played, as it is rare and very limited. Raga Sorath or Sorath Malhar, as he announced, is an old raga but so close to Desh that it has today become almost extinct. It is mentioned a lot in the Sikh Guru Granth Sahib, but even some traditional Sikh keertankars struggle with rendering it authentically. Prattyush maintained its identity beautifully, focusing on pa or ga, making it different from Desh. The composition he played is perhaps the only one there is in this raga, in a 12-beat time cycle, with the pick-up unusually on the fifteenth beat.

Bangalore-based Shaale.com organised a wonderful north-south jugalbandi ‘Sangeet Setu’ with Debashish Bhattacharya (guitar), Ambi Subramaniam (violin), accompanied by Anindo Chatterji (tabla) and V.V. Ramamurthy (mridangam). The duo chose raga Kafi as their main piece for the ragam-tanam-pallavi or alap jod jhala gat. This was novel in the north Indian tradition; Kafi is usually not played as the main raga. Debashish handled it like the master he is, sticking to presenting its lyrical face. Ambi maintained the authentic structure of the Carnatic raga Kapi, not getting tempted into straying into novel musical paths; his gamakas were subdued. Their alap was seamless without echoing the other’s musical thought process; this type of jugalbandi, though different from the conventional type where each player knows the others’ music inside out, was extremely attractive.

The composition in 16 beats was Debashish’s. Here the mood changed with fast interludes, fantastic percussion accompaniment building up to a racy finale, ending with a tani avartanam. Anindo additionally playing also with Ambi and Ramamurthy was a nice touch. The concert is available on shaale.com even for non-subscribers of Shaale.

The third interesting concert was presented by US-based Cadence Entertainment Arts, a vocal recital by Pune-based Agra gharana singer Pournima Dhumale. Female vocalists of Agra gayaki are rare; Pournima’s authentic and extensive taalim make her concerts even more so. Her wholehearted absorption in her gayaki was highly infectious. She presented raga Jaijaiwanti, an Agra gharana speciality. This is perhaps due to the fact their Jaijaiwanti is expandable with different, all authentic versions of rendering it. She sang an alap (called in their tradition ‘nom tom alap’) followed by two compositions. The ending drut bandish was the popular Morey mandirawa, immortalised by Faiyaz Khan. The raga rendition was fully satisfying in every way, with the slow unfolding giving way to the exciting ‘bol bant’.

Pournima’s raga Jog was astonishingly robust, and her meend play on the ga was truly admirable. She concluded her concert with raga Khamach, the bandish thumri, Na maanungi. She was ably accompanied by Avinash Mulye Patil and Madhav Limaye, with fine vocal accompaniment by two disciples, Kirti Kasture and Mugdha Kinkar. The concert is available online on Cadence Entertainment Arts.

SHAILAJA KHANNA

(Writes on music, musicians and matters of music)