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Youth on a high

Photo: Dhruba Dutta

Appealing Violinist Asghar Hussain.

Asghar Hussain is the talented son of tabla player Anwar Hussain; hence a keen sense of rhythm comes to him naturally. Taking to the violin at a very tender age, Asghar has learnt under Gauhar Ali Khan and Zahoor Ahmad Khan of the Dilli gharana. Curr ently he is being groomed with the nuances of the gayaki ang by Ustad Iqbal Ahmad Khan, the doyen of the Dilli gharana. Persistent hard work and excellent training have rewarded Asghar with sustained tunefulness, grammatical accuracy and technical virtuosity with effortless ease.

At his concert at the Epicentre, he played raga Jhinjhoti at great length with a detailed alap followed by three compositions in Jhap tala and Teen tala respectively. The authentic unfolding of the raga with meticulous elaboration during the graceful and aesthetically appealing alap bore out in full measure the sweep of his imagination and capabilities, but after reaching the Nishad and provoking high expectations for the taar Shadja, when he did reach the note dramatically in the madhya saptak, it unfortunately missed its mark. Asghar did undo it though, when he perched on the desired taar Shadja the next time, and proceeded till the ati taar Shadja (upper Sa of the higher octave).

The accurate and orderly exposition of Jhinjhoti during the alap badhat and the variety of gat todas and gamak ki taan, alankarik and sapat taans vouched for his proper training and relentless practice. The fast (drut-gat) composition was set to Sitarkhani or Addha theka and was followed by another faster gat in Teen tala to culminate in the unnecessarily prolonged super fast jhala.

Akhtar Hasan on the tabla hardly got any opportunity to show his prowess and when he ultimately got it during the medium tempo composition, he could not make much out of it. Although there was also a sawal-jawab sequence, it came pretty late. The prolonged programme ended with a dhun in Pahadi set to dadra theka. There was no need of an elaborate alap again in the concluding piece; in fact the whole recital needed drastic editing to avoid repetitions.

Shailendra Kumar Goswami at the Attic presented his vocal recital based on the bandishes of the famous composers Sadarang and Adarang, the court musicians of Mohammed Shah Rangile. A lecturer in Music, Shailendra has obtained his Ph.D. on “Sadarang Parampara” and has therefore a sumptuous collection of the bandishes of the legendary composers. He opened his concert with raga Puria Dhanashri with two popular compositions set to slow Ek tala and Teen tala respectively. The tuneful ambience of the finely tuned pair of tanpuras and the initial aochar (introductory alap) of the timely raga set the pace favourably well, but the desired sequence during the delineation of the composition was missing.

Instead of the conventional ‘sur-dar-sur’ barhat to reach and sing the second part (antara) of the composition, and progressing to the rhythmic play with the words of the song thereafter, he would treat the vistar at his own sweet will. He would for instance play with the rhythm even before reaching the antara or take a fast akaar taan whenever he felt like it and then would go back to resume the alap.

As for the selection of compositions, he offered quite varied treat. There was a composition with shringar as its mood raga Kedar, another one in raga Megh depicting the dark clouds and the rains of the monsoon, and a Suha Kanhara composition for a festive mood before concluding with a melodious one in raga Desh.

Vinay Mishra’s seasoned harmonium accompaniment added charm to Shailendra’s vocal recital, while Pradeep Mukherjee ably accompanied him on the tabla.

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