Jugalbandhi - Sikkil Mala Chandrasekhar & Anupama Bhagwat

[chayote]

Krishna Gana Sabha presented Sikkil Mala Chandrasekhar on Flute and Anupama Bhagwat on Sitar in a Carnatic - Hindustani jugalbandhi on New Year’s eve. They were ably supported by Patri Satish Kumar on mridangam and Viswanath Nakod on tabla. It was a lovely concert where no one who attended stirred from their seats. While the attendance was not poor, it was still sparse considering the competence of all the artistes - is there a reason why instrumental concerts are seeing less attendance? Instrumental concerts offer such a melodic treat for all - and caters beautifully to the lay listener. Do share your thoughts. I was really tempted to go and pull people from outside and ask them to treat themselves to the music that followed.

As this writer wondered if, as with most jugalbandhis, this might begin with Hamsadhwani, Mala, after mentioning that this was their first collaboration together, announced that they would begin with Nattai in which Mala played Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s Maha Ganapathim. Anupama interspersed this with the grammatically close Jog. The confluence of the diverse instruments by two artistes well matched in ability, supported by an excellent percussion team, was a treat to the ears.

The two artistes then presented a solo piece each, beginning with Anupama who played Gurjari Thodi, similar to the Carnatic Shubha Pantuvarali, but without the panchamam. She essayed a crisp alap that induced pathos in the listener, followed by a few faster sequences similar to jod (thanam). Anupama played two pieces, one in the 12 beat Ek taal, followed by a traditional composition for vocal “Bhor Bhay” in Teen taal. Viswanath Nakod provided excellent support.
Mala followed with Bilahari, suiting the morning concert. Following a beautiful yet succinct alapana, she played Thyagaraja’s Dorakuna with creative and rhythmic kalpana swarams that Patri Satish Kumar accompanied impeccably.

They then played the main piece of the concert, a Ragam Thanam Pallavi (Alap, Jod, Jaala in Hindustani ). Keeravani being a Carnatic export to Hindustani, has the same scale in both schools. The emphasis of notes, however, is different. It was a pleasure to hear the diverse portrayal of the same raga with both artistes bringing out the authentic flavor of their respective styles. A fast paced and exciting ragamalika thanam followed with Anupama and Mala alternating with Jaijaiwanthi, Abhogi, Miyan ki Malhar, Hamsanadham and Sohini. They followed with a pallavi in Adi talam 2 kalai (effectively Teen Taal) with sarva laghu kalpana swaras and some interesting kanakkus during the koraippu. An thought provoking aural treat followed in the thani avarthanam. Patri Satish Kumar demonstrated why he is one of the most sought after mridangists with beautiful variations in nadai, excellent kanakkus and naadham that could not be bettered. Viswanath Nakod’s solo never betrayed the fact that Hindustani does not have the concept of a thani aavarthanam. He brought forth the multi-tonal quality of the instrument with well thought out variations.

Lalgudi Jayaraman’s Maand Thillana was then played in unison followed by a second synchronized piece - a traditional Hindustani composition in Sindhu Bhairavi, Baat Chalathu Nayi Chunri Rang. A lovely conclusion to a beautiful concert.

Artistes in jugalbandhis often traverse across schools and meet midway, but this concert demonstrated that both styles could be adhered to traditionally and yet presented as an integrated and pleasing whole. Collaborations often include ego clashes which are noticeable. Here, it was the opposite. All artistes, particularly the main artistes, obviously respected and enjoyed each others music and it was a team mentality throughout. A delight to see in this often dog eat dog scene.

The sound system was not synchronized practically throughout, and volume levels oscillated in between too. This seems to be a frequent occurrence in sabhas. This writer would suggest that the systems be tested with people seated in the audience area– otherwise, there tends to be frequent adjustment of individual volumes without consideration of the overall balance.

[varsha]

It was a memorable concert indeed ...

[rshankar]

How were the pitches of the instruments? In the violin-veNu-vINA concert (Smts. Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, Mala Chandrasekhar, and Jayshree Jairaj), the marked differences in the pitches of the 3 instruments was rather unexpected.....

[mahavishnu]

Ravi, not sure I understand.
How can they each be tuned to a different pitch?

Perhaps you mean that one was in, say, C3 when another was in C4 one octave apart. Anything else would be completely discordant in CM. In the Lalgudi-Ramani-R Venkataraman trios they usually had it tuned to an E (3 kattai).

[rshankar]

Wrong use of the word 'pitch' - Your understanding is corrrect - they were tuned octaves apart.

[chayote]

The instruments were tuned correctly to the same octave - no problem there. Anupama-ji, Satish Kumar-ji and Nakod-ji spent quite some time to get the tuning correct. The problem was the volume setting of the mikes and some feedback issues for the artistes.