By John Shand
TRIVENI
Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, July 7
★★★★½
Zakir Hussain’s hands don’t play the heads of his tabla, they dance upon them. The emergent rhythms, melodies and textures are as deep and mysterious as the music of the ancients, as sophisticated as the most complex composed music, and as innovative as tomorrow.
Zakir Hussain blends the two great strains of Indian classical music.Credit: Mallikarjun Katakol
No wonder he stands at the pinnacle of Indian classical music, while also being the most acclaimed tabla player in the west.
Equally reverential and forward-thinking, Hussain, like his father before him, dares to blend the two great strains of Indian classical music: Hindustani (from the north, wherein lie his own roots) and Carnatic (from the south).
Formed two years ago, Triveni features Hindustani violinist Kala Ramnath and Carnatic veena player Jayanthi Kumaresh, the name being the mythical junction of three sacred Indian rivers. Hearing the music, it could be two rivers with Hussain as the bridge spanning both.
They improvised upon Raag Charukeshi, beginning with the swoops of Ramnath’s violin, which had an opulence of tone akin to a viola, while the idiom’s love of glissandi made every note seem like an arrival or departure point.
Ramnath and Kumaresh initially passed the baton of pensive improvisation between them, until finally Hussain joined, and the sound quality was flawless as the violin cried like a grieving mother, and the veena evinced some subterranean connection to the blues.
You sensed the danger of the extraordinary hovering in the air before it exploded, just as Hussain seemed to know what his improvising colleagues would play before they did it. Now 73, he’s been performing this music for over 60 years, and is as heartfelt and intuitive as he is virtuosic.
His dialogues with the veena were more playful than those with the violin, as he mimicked Kumaresh’s glissandi, and gradually became ever more adventurous and ingenious. Yet, through all the complexity and sophistication came this childlike joy of playing games with each other – games that just happened to be musical.
Finally, Hussain soloed, beginning with figures of nursery rhyme simplicity, upon which he built and built, until you’d swear the resultant rhythmic and melodic edifice was the work of a multitude rather than merely a mortal with 10 fingers and two drums.
Here was a concert to expand and enliven the spirit; to make one feel human more intensely in a grey and often gruesome world.