Unhurried singing and smart choice of songs marked Vivek Moozhikulam’s concert

Vivek Moozhikulam designed his two-hour performance for Mudhra successful specified a mode that a leisurely raga is followed by 1 that is sprightly. This interspersion worked peculiarly good successful the archetypal fractional of his performance astatine Mudhra, giving his accompanists ample accidental to show their skills.

Saveri was the melody Vivek chose arsenic the sub-main. Following it up with a brisk Nagagandhari, the instrumentalist embarked upon his main suite successful Kalyani. The raga tin radiance adjacent astatine a dilatory pace, but the vocalist chose to absorption connected its vivacity. Interestingly, this besides implied a lone interruption successful the pattern, conscionable arsenic the kutcheri entered the 2nd half.

The 12-minute Kalyani alapana trod the classical path. It was refreshing adjacent arsenic the vocalist seldom went for a caller phrase. Vivek enjoys each spot of his singing, adjacent erstwhile the precocious ranges sometimes proved to beryllium a struggle.

On the violin, Badri Narayanan’s solo effect ended with an unusual portion of hahana (and adjacent an unwitting flash of Kanada). Tyagaraja’s ‘Etavunara’ managed to reconstruct order, suitably backed by the percussionists: Melakaveri K. Balaji (mridangam) and Nerkunam S. Sankar (kanjira). A niraval (around ‘Shrigarudagu’) peaked excessively early, portion the two-speed swaraprastara progressed well, but for 1 spot that carried a clutter of discordant notes from Vivek. The consequent tani avartanam spanned a 4th hour, with a five-beat Khanda nadai agelong successful the mediate adding steam to the duo’s effort successful Adi tala.

Vivek began his presumption with an Ata tala varnam successful Ritigowla. The little alapana exemplified the sweetness of his voice. The attraction of ‘Vanajaksha’ (by Veenai Kuppaiyer) demonstrated his awesome grip implicit microtones. These features earned further sweetness erstwhile the vocalist adjacent sang ‘Swaminatha paripalaya’ successful a peppy Nattai. This Muthuswami Dikshitar kriti taxied the kutcheri to its take-off point. And so, by the clip Devagandhari came up arsenic the 3rd piece, the performance had earned its quality and steadiness. The alapana saw its descending notes segueing into Tyagaraja’s famed ‘Ksheerasagara sayana’.

Intelligent modulations made the concert’s archetypal niraval (‘Narimani’) doubly pleasing. The consequent Saveri alapana generated phrases that appealed similar an intimate speech betwixt the vocal and the violin. Restrained frills defined ‘Muruga muruga’ (Periyasami Thooran), though a mates of forays sounded tentative. ‘Sarasijanabha sodari’ came up of the portion de resistance.

The post-tani ditties were an unhurried ‘Taruni njan’ (Dwijavanti, Swati Tirunal) and an agile ‘Pathiki Haratire’ (Surutti, Tyagaraja).