If the medium tempo brings out the essence of Carnatic music greatest, then the Malladi Brothers carried its spirit via their live performance at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s competition. The vocalist duo intelligently sequenced compositions in ragas of contrasting profiles, individually delineating the registers which swimsuit each. Sreeramprasad would let his youthful brother Ravikumar discover the higher notes, the place he all the time sounded stronger.

This was evident proper from the opening alapana in Ritigowla. An invocatory viruttam gave option to Tyagaraja’s ‘Bale balendu bhushani’. The swaraprastara revelled in undulations typical of the rakti raga steeped in bhakti, contrasting refreshingly with the sprightly ‘Manasa etulortune’ that adopted.

After this Malayamarutam piece, the brothers got here up with a niraval, uniquely selecting the anupallavi for lyrics. ‘Dinakara kulabhushani’, they reasoned subsequently, highlighted the literary crux of the Telugu kriti (vis-à-vis the customary ‘Kalilo rajasa’ within the charanam).

Into the third suite, Ravikumar took up an alapana that in the first place appeared like Shanmukhapriya however quickly wove in threads of Thodi and Subhapantuvarali. Bhavapriya, because it turned out, could be difficult to not simply the listener however the musician too. Each the vocalist and the violinist, H.N. Bhaskar, rolled out the kaleidoscopic high quality of this forty fourth Melakarta raga, highlighting it additional in one other Tyagaja kriti, ‘Srikanta niyeda’.

A fast ‘Nadupai’ reiterated the tenderness of Madhyamavati whilst its meditativeness functioned right here as a filler. The centrepiece in Begada bore the janya raga’s classicism, with the brothers sharing the alapana in two halves and happening to sing ‘Thyagarajaya namaste’ by Muthuswami Dikshitar in Rupaka tala of three beats. The duo sounded a bit hurried and skipped niraval, however gave Manoj Siva (mridangam) and Krishna Sriram (ghatam) a good likelihood to showcase their talent in a well-proportioned and crisp thani. General, the bundle spanned 45 minutes in two-and-a-quarter hour programme.

Soothing rendition

When the brothers sing collectively, their sound good points a soothing high quality. This function got here via within the subsequent kriti, tuned to Kalavati raga by their father Malladi Suri Babu. With its affiliation to Chakravakam, ‘Bhalira vairagyamento’ by Bhadrachalam Ramadasu ushered in a streak of morning glory to the night present.

This was adopted by Chenchurutti, shifting the tampura’s drone to madhyama sruti. ‘Ethanai thaan sonnalum’ by the nineteenth century composer, Neelakanta Sivan, resonated with the flavour of the Harikamboji-born raga, typically utilized in people songs.

The concluding tune got here in sprightly Jhonpuri, sometimes exhibiting a possible for the voice to traverse to the higher octave. ‘Pahipahimam paramakripalo’ (Narayana Tirtha Tarangam) carried the contact of the brothers’ mentor, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, who set it to tune. Even the mangalam in components sounded fairly the best way it used to when rendered by the guru.