Concert Strategy

Listening to the ‘mridangam’ (percussion) of Palghat Mani in the Ragam, Tanam and Pallavi feature of the Southern AIR stations last Thursday, one became vividly conscious of how Atlantean his art is. The fact that this item featured Ariyakkudi as the vocalist must have ensured its undisputed success. But the success of the item was due in larger measure to Mani than Ariyakkudi or to Krishnan who provided string support. Ariyakkudi’s music lacked its customary sparkle, and it was a rather bedraggled ‘Sankarabharanam’ that arose from the mists. Krishnan did nothing to brighten up the situation. One suspects that Krishnan gets lost in the inanity of self-appreciation as often as he lays the bow on the strings. With an uncanny sense of strategy, Mani got the situation under control and saved it from becoming dismal.

Is there among the younger ‘mridangam’ artists of today anyone who can be credited with such a sense of strategy on the concert platform? We have brilliant young men who have developed thoroughly individual styles on the percussion instrument. Apart from Mani and T.K.Murthy (who, in fact, should belong more to Mani’s generation than to the next), the three important ‘mridangam’ players in Karnatak music are Palghat Raghu, Vellore Ramabhadran and Umayalapuram Sivaraman. All the three, of course, owe a great deal of their art to the idiom and vocabulary of Palghat Mani, and at least one of them has been influenced also by the late Palani Subramania Pillai. Of these, Raghu is without doubt, the master artist. Raghu is arch in his style. There is a misleading off-handedness about his playing which conceals the most rigid discipline and the most daring improvisation. In his half ‘avarthana’ or one ‘avarthana’ improvisations Raghu can weave the most intricate patterns with deceptive ease. Compared to Raghu, Vellore Ramabhadran is a little flamboyant. But a lilting evenness of sound and a delicate tracery of ‘jatis’ mark him off from the others. Ramabhadran has perhaps derived these two ingredients of his art from Palani. Umayalapuram displays the elegance of a Beau Brummel in his art. His phrases are so measured and cut that they give the illusion of pre-fabrication. But his improvisations are no less daring than those of Raghu or Ramabhadran.

But in spite of the consummateness of their art, that indefinable quality which gives to Mani or Murthy his stature and pre-eminence is absent in these artists. One could attribute it to the fact that they are for the most part withdrawn and self-contained in their attitude to the music which they support. The quality of a Karnatak concert is determined, in the last analysis, by the ease with which ideas are exchanged between the singer and the violinist, or between them and the mridangam player. In the measure in which one of them refuses to enter into the mood of the concert, the concert itself suffers. One can find a number of reasons for the failure of these younger percussionists to participate fully in the exchange of ideas. For one thing, the reputation of the singer or the violinist acts as a check on the free exercise of their skill. For some time now, Raghu, Ramachandran and Sivaraman have enjoyed the status of privileged artists who are invited to support top musicians like Ariyakkudi and Semmangudi. But the very distinction conferred on them acts as a brake on their freedom as artists. In effect, they cannot take liberties on the concert platform., even when such liberties can be demonstrated to contribute to the quality of the concert standard. Where Mani or Murthy improvises with impunity, the younger artists have to improvise on sufferance. Holding their professional status at the pleasure of the vocalist or the string whom they are privileged to support, they cannot afford to pit their talents against the latter’s for fear that they might lose their status. This inhibits these younger artists from contributing vitality to the strategy of the concert platform.

Secondly, it is only by long association on the concert platform that a singer and a mridangam artist can develop the rapport which would contribute to a common strategy. Mani and Ariyakkudi have featured together in so large a number of concerts that they have developed a kind of intuitive understanding of each other. Each can anticipate the move of the other in every detail so that nothing comes as a surprise to either. A concert with Ariyakkudi and Mani is botha game and pretence – a game because you fell that they are pitting their talents against each other and a pretence because you know that they are both playing for the same side. That is how it should be, for in any enterprise of real import it is the community of interests that gains precedence over the individual points of view. Some time ago, there was a debate on whether the ‘mridangam’ player was to follow the pattern of ‘sangatis’ of the singer while a ‘kriti’ was sung, or whether he should play ‘sarvalaghu’. Palghat mani and Palani differed in their views, the former voting for the reproduction of the pattern of the ‘sangatis’ and the latter opting for ‘sarvalaghu’. However, it would not be easy for any percussionist who does not possess that intuitive understanding of the singer which Mani has, to play the ‘sangatis’ of the ‘kriti’ on the ‘mridangam’ accurately. The younger percussionists would have to acquire by patient understanding and long association a knowledge of the singer’s way before they can launch out.

Another important factor which contributes to the success of a concert is the interest which the musicians on the platform take in each other’s art. If a ‘mridangam’ player concerns himself only with his ‘jatis’ and ‘korvais’, without caring to understand the finer points of the singer’s or the violinist’s art, he insulates himself against the spirit of a common endeavour, and however proficient in his own domain, contributes little to the realization of the common end.

Above all, I should think it important for artists like Raghu, Ramabhadran and Sivaraman that they should give their support to the second and even third line of musicians as much as to the first. Apart from the fact that their own future lies with these musicians, it will remove their constraint and besides will be an excellent discipline in the art of pulling together.

The National programme of last Saturday featured T.K.Radhakrishnan on the flute. There seems to be a fatal link, except in the case of Mali, between the flute and exhibitionism in ‘swaraprasthara’. The reason for this may lie in the fact that flute as an instrument is normally capable only of non-‘gamaka’ swaras. The result is that almost every flautist of any standing attacks the ragas entirely from a swara base. Radhakrishnan’s ‘Natakurinji’ was an instance. In the elaboration of the raga, Radhakrishnan seemed to concentrate on little eddies and bubbles of swara combinations instead of on glides and curves. The danger is that too much of such bubbles would end up in froth. Radhakrishnan must have known that Natakurinji at any rate is the least amenable to be explored purely through swara combinations. The pre-occupation with swaras naturally leads to a strong sense of rhythm, and there is no flautist to my knowledge who does not revel in ingenious rhythmic patterns. In the swaraprasthara in the ‘Kalyani’ piece, Radhakrishnan chose to weave swara patterns at three different points of take-off in sahitya – namely : ‘Raga’, ‘Tala’ and ‘Gathulanu’ in the line “Raga tala gathulanu”. He could have been content with two – the first and the last since the points at which these occur (the fourth akshara in the first beat for “Raga” and the second akshara in the fourth beat for “Gathulanu”) afford sufficient space in between to weave brief and clinching patterns of swara before the take-off into sahitya. But Radhakrishnan obviously could not have too much of a good thing. He also chose ‘tala’ on the third akshara of the second beat for his point of arrival thereby making necessary a circumambulation through one whole avarthana for the take-off into sahitya. It is a pity that he chose to go farther and fare worse. The ‘pallavi’ in Adi tala in the four-beat tempo, with the “atita eduppu” was scholarly, and even the violinist, for a change, acquitted himself well in the rendering of the pallavi with the invariable ‘tisra’ conversion.

AEOLUS, 28 July 1963