Among the musical instruments, the wood-winds are about the most temperamental lot. They can be as witty and about as trying as the most coquettish of the heroines of Restoration comedy. The musician who has been wedded to a clarionet or to a flute has to solicit the mistress of his choice as arduously and ardently as the Restoration comedy’s lover is enjoined to do by his mistress. The predisposition to tonal infidelity in the case of the woodwinds is almost as great as the predisposition to marital infidelity in the ladies of the Restoration comedy. But when they are conquered, these instruments display the wit, the archness and the constancy of a Viola or Rosalind.
Thanjavur N. Veeraswamy’s performance on the clarionet from the Trichy station of the AIR last week left one in no doubt that there has come on the Karnatak music scene an artiste whose virtuosity is no less than that of A.K.C. Natarajan. Veeraswamy was more daring because he had for his accompaniments violin and mridangam, and very relevantly too, because in the seventy-five minutes of music that he gave, not once did the clarionet prove unfaithful to the tonic and the fifth of the scale. Veeraswamy’s Karaharapriya was masterly both in its expansiveness and its depth. The notes came off with the witty trip and the womanly poise of the romantic heroines. The kriti, “Nadachi Nadachi,” was given a treatment worthy of its theme. “To be happy in the company of Sri Rama, the perfect and self-exultant Lord, who shines with Sita, people walk and walk to distant Ayodhya, but do not see the Lord there (due to lack of real devotion).” The woodwind with its undertone of pathos in the held notes, is the most apt to express the sense of weariness of the search and the sorrow of disappointment. Incidentally the theme of the song and the sincerity of the artiste seemed to give a fitting reply to those critics to whom the clarionet is anathema not out of any incongruity in fact but out of the incongruity of their own notions. We are certain that Veeraswamy’s performance under review is not the single swallow that does not make a summer. For, after Karaharapriya came Kurinji prefacing the beautiful little piece “Sivadiksha.” It was evident that Veeraswamy possesses the temperament and skill to “arrive,” though our best bet is that he has already “arrived.” A.K.C. ‘s loss of a grip over himself, till recently, had made one fear that the heritage of A.K.C. was a short-lived one. It is now a matter of double blessedness that A.K.C. is once again in full possession of his true form and that there is another who can come a very close second to him in wielding the clarionet.
Ramani’s concert under the auspices of the Shanmukhananda Sangeetha Sabha in New Delhi brought to the fore the versatility, in competent hands, of the other woodwind, namely, the flute. Ramani’s career has been a patient advance, first with the prop of establishment’s patronage, then under the aegis of more popular musicians and since recently under his own steam. Thus Ramani represents the type of obedient scholar whose debut and subsequent rise have been achieved under the most unexceptionable auspices. His has not been the incubation of the cocoon, which the chrysalis rips open in the fulness of its growth but that of the egg, hatched by the solicitous care of patrons of the establishment and the profession. Hence one is not surprised to find the high degree of rectitude about his music. No stray thought mars the even flow of his music, no personal equation distorts the correct proportions of his scholarship. So great and pronounced is this rectitude that one often hears the remark: “What does Mali have that Ramani does not possess, except perhaps the quirks and absurd whimsicalities of the former?” One is tempted to say, “Nothing, except the quirk and the whimsicalities. But, maybe, it is the quirk and the whimsicality that save the soul; it is the element of absurdity that makes a child or an artiste or a mystic or a saint what he is.” That Ramani is not like Mali is, of course, no dishonour to him; but it need not be advertised as a point of honour. Even in his own right Ramani is a considerable artiste.
There are two kinds of impersonality in art. The first is the impersonality of sympathy and the other the impersonality of efficiency. Of the first kind is the impersonality of the dramatist and of the second kind is the impersonality of the imagist poet. Ramani achieves the impersonality of efficiency in eminently artistic terms. It is no accident that Ramani and Jayaraman and Venkataraman could achieve a corporate personality in the veena-venu-violin trio. To achieve such a corporate personality demands the submergence of the individual personality in the pursuit of efficiency. One could even hazard a prophecy that if the trio ever expanded into a quartet, the fourth member would be Nedunuri Krishnamurthy. The object of such corporate activity could have been achieved only when the absurd desire to express one’s own personality was submerged in the pursuit of a commonly held goal —that of efficiency. It was further mandatory that all quirks and whimsicalities should be sedulously eschewed. The delineation of the raga had to conform to prefigured lines of development. Instrumental ensembles in Western music are based on the accepted composition which is fixed in form. The only ensembles which can aspire to spontaneous creation in Western music are the jazz ensembles. But the veena-venu-violin trio did not choose to be guided by the spirit of jazz, which would have demanded a fierce individuality and even a resort to the absurd. It was meant to be spontaneously creative —but on the basis of skill and scholarship, rather than on the basis of mood and imagination. It was the artistry of “Anything anyone can do, I can do better.” Each phrase was bettered, by the next player and the game could go on till all got bored or tired or satisfied. What mattered was the way of saying, not what was said. Ramani’s solo performance on the flute carries the legacy of the corporate personality.
But Ramani’s efficiency with the instrument is as near perfection as Jayaraman’s with the violin. In a concert of over three hours, there was not one discordant note; if one threatened to arise in Ranjani, it was quickly averted. Ramani’s Ranjani was a perfect gem. The transition from ‘dhaivata’ to ‘madhyama’ in the descent in Ranjani negotiates a difficult interval of a tone and semitone. This difficult interval admits of pinpoint correctness and clarity in an instrument like the flute where the notes have no overtones, provided that the control of breath is absolute. But in stringed instruments or the human voice, where the overtones are multiple in number, it is not easy to achieve the same degree of clarity and correctness. Something equivalent to a flute’s performance may be achieved if the violin is played pizzicato; but even there it is fraught with considerable difficulty, because the ‘dhaivata’ and ‘madhyama’ would fall on different strings. If an attempt is made to play both the notes on the same string, the space between the notes would get gradually diminished as one goes upwards on the finger board. This makes possible the elision of two notes which in turn creates the feeling of discordance. This is particularly true in the faster tempo. Considering the great odds against, him, Krishnan played the raga beautifully, though there were a few lapses.
Ramani’s main ragas in the concert were Kambodhi and Kalyani. The kriti “O Rangasayee” in Kambodhi was spaciously conceived. Kalyani prefaced the ‘tanam’ and ‘pallavi’ which were excellently and pithily rendered. The Hindolam tag of ‘kalpanaswaras’ to the ‘pallavi’ gave an opportunity for Ramani to out-Bismillah Bismillah. Then came the bassoon and the three pieces in Sindhubhairavai (“Chandrasekhara”), Misra Peelu (“Jagadodharana”) and Desh (“Rathisubha sare”), each of them as perfect as the Blessed Damozel.
Vellore Ramabhadran’s accompaniment on the mridangam was sensitive and cultured. Underscoring every rhythmic pattern of the music, in subdued accents he built into the concert the strength that comes of pervasive — not obtrusive — design.
AEOLUS, 14 March 1971
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