Ulhas Kasalkar on stage

Bihaan Music’s idea of a ‘Heritage’ series of classical music was embodied in the release of the albums of veteran musician and author Pandit Kumar Prasad Mukhopadhyay and writer Sanjib Chattopadhyay on February 20. It took place at the 167-year-old Pathuriaghata Ghosh-Bati and was organised by Jalsaghar.

During the three day Sangeet-Mahotsav, Ulhas Kasalkar was very prominent. His two-hour recital commenced with a 10-minute alap in Puriya-Kalyan with an excellent combination of notes in the lower octave and dwelling on the tonic. The ektal bilambit was adorned with meend, small gamaks, skilful use of shrutis and rhythmic variations. Kut, gamak, and bol tans spanning the three octaves embellished the rendering. The drut teental tarana was interspersed with sapat and chhut tans. Next were 14 matra bilambit and teental and drut teental tarana in Chhayanat, followed by teental bandishes in Bahar and Basant. The ragas, generating moods ranging from tranquillity to euphoria, were all rendered with equal adroitness.

Mohan Singh opened with an alap in Gouri (Purvi that). His deep, melodious voice and tonal clarity were apt for the gamaks, meends and slow delineation of the raga. Madhya and drut teental bandishes were sprinkled with a diversity of tans and beautiful laykari. Next were Ram Ram kahiyo and Din ber ber — madhya and drut teental bandishes in the rarely heard Shaoninat. His voice-throwing, the deft use of shruti, the stress on the notes were reminiscent of the Agra gharana. He concluded with the Rabindrasangeet Eki e sundar shobha in Mishra Bhupali retaining its Rabindric style along with the classical origin. He was ably supported by his son Bikram Singh who has a good voice, proper training and a lot of promise.

Incipient artiste Uday Bhawalkar’s Imankalyan dhrupad in choutal rendered in his melodious voice was consonant with the sedate nature of the raga. The remarkable use of tibra and shuddha madhyam along with pancham brought out the quintessence of Imankalyan. The apposite shrutis of shuddha ni and tibra madhyam, the application of kan swars even in the lower octave, and tuneful bold gamaks made the 40 minute alap melodic rather than an audacious portraiture. Surprisingly shudh madhyam was not used in the last 25 minutes. He finished with a shultal bandish in Durga.

Rajan and Sajan Mishra’s Bageshree couldn’t do justice to their reputation. The Pallavi of Kaustavi Sarkar’s Odissi dance was full of supple rhythmic movement but ‘Sivtandav’ was less expressive. Shaunak Abhisheki’s Jogkaunsh was unimpressive due to defective voice-throwing in taankari. The phrase pa dha (komal) ni (komal) dha (komal) pa ma ga ma ga (komal) sa, ought to have been applied along with its variants with a tender touch, which would have brought out the essence of the ragrup. Biswajit Roychowdhury’s sarod and the sitar-sarod jugalbandi of Kushal Das and Suroranajn Mukherjee were satisfactory.