It was great to see a well represented srgm crowd at the Priya Sisters’ concert today. It was a very nice concert. They performed really well, in outstanding unison, which is their strength, I believe. One of them (Shanmukha Priya) seemed to have some trouble with her throat (One can imagine how tough it is for these artists to fly to a country on the other side of the globe and expected to perform as though they are singing at home!). But it was amazing to see the team effort where the other sister made up completely for it.
The Violin vidwan (Raghavendra Rao) and the Mrudangam artist (Neiveli Skandasubrahmanyan) were also equally good and gave a good group performance.
I hope you were able to recognize some of the ragas. From my decaying memory, here is what I recall.
They started with the Varna "Karunimpa" in the Raga "Shahana" (or Sahana). I haven’t sung that varna after my 10th grade graduation! It was a great recap. The next one was a Ganesha song (Kari mukha varada) in the raga Natti (or Nattai). They did swara improv on that, before concluding. The subsequent songs they chose were mostly songs on Rama and Sita due to the Ramanavmi season. The third one was "Seetamma Mayamma", an enchanting Tyagaraja Kriti in the raga Vasantha, followed by Akhilandeshwari in the raga "Dwijavanti". They sang it beautifully. The first raga they elaborated was "Bhairavi" (not to be confused with Sindhu Bhairavi, which is called Bhairavi in Hindustani. This is Carnatic Bhairavi, which is a bhashaanga janya raga originating from Nata Bhairavi). Hari Priya did the Aalaap in Bhairavi. I don’t recall which song they sang in Bhairavi, after the Aalaap. They also did Swara Prastara for this. The next two were in the Ragas Kamach (or Kamas) (Some of you must have noticed some endings of Brochevarevarura) and Aananda Bhairavi (Marivela). The latter is a slow going song, which suited perfectly for their melodious voices.
The second raga they elaborated on was "Kamavardhini" (or Pantuvarali). Some of you may have noticed the similarity to Purvikalyani (Vanaroththama Sahita). It was funny that both of them, while doing the kalpana swara, quoted at various points, the complete (well, almost) chitte swara of Vanarottama (GaMaPaMa.Pa Ga.MaRi.Ga Sa.RiGa.Ma). Only that much! After that it would deviate from Kaamavardhini due to a different Dha in Purvikalyani’s Aarohana. Shanmukha Priya started the Aalaap and went till upper Sa. Then Hari Priya took over. It was rendered beautifully. They chose the song "Ennagaanu raama Bhajana" by Bhadraachala Raamadas in this raaga and sang beautifully. They did the Kalpanaswara and Neraval for the composition. The swara prastara was very well organized bewteen the two of them and the violin.
After Kaamavardhini, they sang two more compositions before starting the big raga of the evening- Bilahari. I hope most of you recognized this – Rara Venu Gopabala!
The Raga aalaap was rendered mostly by Hari Priya, It was mermerizing. The composition they chose in Bilahari was "Dorakunaa Ituvanti Seva". It was just out of this world! The Neraval and Kalpana swara were very elaborate too, followed by "Tani" (which is Mridangam solo). After this, as usual practice, they sang some popular songs – a purandara dasa kriti, A few Sai bhajans. They also sang the song Vijaya had sung in one of our Samaroha’s, in Hindola raga ("Intheyu neeve"?). Some ragas they represented here were Darbari Kaanada (think of Shivashankari), Chakravaka (very briefly in Mangalam), Madhyamavati (same), Brindavana saranga, etc, Only one song I wasn’t sure of the raga was a bhajan which was a blend of the ragas Jana sammodini and Desh.
Overall, it was a very nice concert. One thing I couldn’t help observing was the devotion with which they were singing, made the songs sound even more melodious. One reason could be that these two are from Andra Pradesh and really understand the meanings of the Telugu songs. So they can bring out a lot more to music, in addition to shruti and Laya.
– Sunitha
