Rajrupa Chowdhury (née Sen), who was featured in a recital at the Calcutta School of Music’s Sandre Hall on the evening of June 28, is a young sarod player who had drawn notice when she was a teenager through outstanding pitch-accuracy among other things. At the recital, the modified tuning of the 5th and 6th (drone) strings and striking phrase development in the 20-minute alap in Ragesree announced that she has come a long way since then.

Rajrupa’s double-directional meends in the initial stage showed selective absorption of the craft of Amjad Ali Khan, Vilayat Khan and Nikhil Banerjee. As the alap progressed, it became clear that she had carefully welded a large variety of absorbed material into a firm, intelligent and individualistic structural framework.

Rajrupa started the 11-minute jod in the rhythm of three, very much in the usually ignored tradition of the Gwalior sarod gharana stemming from Ustad Ghulam Ali Khan. The faster runs that garnished the rhythmic patterns were in the measure of four, also a traditional feature. Gamaks in the rhythm of three were also a part of the fare. Then came patterns in the rhythm of five, called kuad. These were decorated with faster taankari, which adhered to the older sarod tradition by usually having at least two strokes per note. Finally, there was the rhythm of six, once a capital part of the music of Amjad Ali Khan. However, she left out ladant, the grand finale of the Gwalior sarod gharana jod.

The vilambit teental gatkari quickly went into quadruple taans that developed very much along the Agra-Gwalior axioms brought into sarod-playing by Radhika Mohan Maitra. Rajrupa developed these taans expertly and often ended them with improvised figures known as upaj rather than with set tihais. Then came rhythmic movements with breakaway taans and even some jhala work with the bass strings providing the melody. The keyword here seemed to be variety and convergence.

Finally, Rajrupa sprang a surprise by playing the vilambit gat antara, something nobody plays anymore, but very much a part of the vilambit gatkari tradition. However, the old rule was to first play asthai, manjha and antara and then go in for gatkari. But Rajrupa brought in the antara as the head of the final section, somewhat in the manner of contemporary vilambit khayal, and with regal aplomb. She elaborated it with taans and rhythmic figures and followed up with thhok, gamaks and a final burst of taankari ending with a chakradhar tihai. The drut and ati drut teental gatkari were in a version of Meerabai ki Malhar and ended with excellent jhala. She finally played a composition in Desh in deepchandi tala. Parimal Chakraborty gave her good support on the tabla.