Finespun Sarangi Concert by Pt. Santosh Mishra - Review Blog

Sarangi: Pt. Santosh Mishra

Tabla: Ramdas Palsule

Sarangi (sangat): Sangeet Mishra (son of Pt. Santosh Mishra)

Tanpura: Vinay Chitrav

Organizers: Talayan Music Circle and Gandharva Mahavidyalaya

Venue and Time: Vishnu-Vinayak Sabhagruha of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya (Pune) on 6th January at 6:30PM

 

 

Namaskar!

 

Even though there have been many interesting concerts taking place in Pune this week, my schedule permitted me to attend only one :(. Sarangi concerts are rare and hence I decided to attend this one, and undoubtedly it turned out to be a great choice :).

 

The confusion started in the concert publicity itself! Even though the weekly calendar published in Sakal last week listed Pt. Santosh Mishra's concert for 6th January (which I had listed on the blog), yesterday's edition of Sakal had two advertisements on the same page! One announced the artist's name as "Ramesh Mitra" while the other one announcing it as "Santosh Mishra".

 

Anyway, as I reached the venue at exactly 6:30PM and grabbed a front row seat on the bharatiya baithak, sounds of drut teental bandish in raga Jog played on Sarangi were audible from the green room. The concert began in about 10 minutes with Pramod Marathe (well known harmonium player and principal of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Pune) clarifying the advertisement goof-up and introducing the artists.

 

As expected Panditji started the concert with raga Jog.  The sarangis were well tuned with very rich sound quality. The alaap was short, captivating and very effective in establishing mood of the raga right at the onset. The meends around both the gandhars involving shadja and madhyam were sublime. Panditji continued with bada khyal in vilambit ektaal. The raga vistar was unhurried and well-rounded. After the antara, Panditji performed beautiful layakari by means of jod, absolutely exquisite! The taans were crisp, tuneful and well executed. The bada khyal was followed by drut teen taal bandish - sajan more ghara aaye (I suppose so). This is one of the best renditions of this bandish, either vocal or instrumental, I have heard. The variations around the second line of the asthayee were intricate and delicate. In the drut section for a few minutes Panditji played a different mukhada bearing the weight of Jhaptaal - very nice.

 

After this Panditji played a thumri in raga mishra khamaj set to addha teentaal. He sang a bit to introduce the lyrics - sanwariya lage tose naina followed by a very popular dadra in the same raga (dagar bich kaise kahu...). As part of the dadra Panditji played raga-mala containing Hamir, Kedar, Chandrakauns, Malakauns, Charukeshi and Darbari (hopefully I haven't missed anything).

 

Panditji concluded the concert with a beautiful kajari in pahadi set to kaharwa. While he did sing the words, I could not catch them properly. Panditji explained that it was a song of a lady who is angry with her brother for not coming to take her to the maternal home during the month of Sawan. In the song she says that she wont go with him even if he were to come now including elaborations like she will serve him food in gold plate but wont care even if he does not eat! Beautiful composition that was played very well and enjoyed by the audience.

 

Ramdas Palsule's tabla sangat was enjoyable as always. The solos he played during the drut teen taal bandish were very well executed. I suppose it is because of the clarity of bols, tonal quality as well as perfection to laya that Ramdasji's solo sessions sound so good (as opposed to the noise and disruption by many contemporary tabla players). The session having Jhaptaal bearing (followed immediately after Panditji played a Jhaptaal bearing mukhada during the teen taal bandish) was quite remarkable.

 

Sangeet Mishra provided good support on Sarangi. He sounded quite tayyar. There was noticeable difference in the sound qualities of the two Sarangis. I overheard somebody talk about the possibility of Panditji's Sarangi having leather strings whereas Sangeet's having synthetic strings… Not knowing much about Sarangi, I am not in a position to comment further. The difference could even have been due to mike settings!

 

Now some small complaints:

While Panditji as well as Sangeet possess good voice and singing the lyrics does enhance the overall experience, I feel that they should practice the singing more seriously and avoid sounding out of tune.

I felt that the ati-drut section of the teentaal bandish was somewhat stretched without much content. Also the instruments - sarangis and tabla both had gone slightly out of tune at that time. Quite avoidable really!

 

I felt that the concert ended abruptly! A short bhairavi would have provided the icing on the cake.

 

Overall a very interesting, enjoyable and memorable concert!

 

Cheers!

Bansuriwala

PS:

I found the mukhada having the bearing of jhaptaal played in drut teen taal to be quite interesting. Here is an attempt to put it in jhaptaal notation -

S, n

S, n P

G M

- P n