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Home , Chembai, Iyengar, Musiri Subramania Iyer, Palghat Mani Iyer, Patnam Subramania Iyer, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar

ARIYAKUDI 125 Pathfinder of Alepey Venkatesan riyakudi Iyengar (19 May 1890 - 23 Manambuchavadi Venkatasubba was a disciple Jan 1967) was the doyen of Carnatic music and of . the leading vocalist of the 20th century whose A Ramanathapuram Srinivasa Iyengar was often accompanied 125th birth anniversary was celebrated on 19 May 2015. He developed a unique style of his own; it represented by Tirukodikaval Krishna Iyer on the violin. Young a drastic, epoch-making departure from the prevailing Ramanujam playing the tambura at these concerts was concert in both form and content. The architect of the greatly attracted by Krishna Iyer’s style, which was one of modern concert format, he was a source of inspiration and the profound influences in shaping the Ariyakudi bani. Other a role model to great musicians after him. His concerts important influences were Veena Dhanammal, Malaikottai used to great advantage the skills of three generations of Govindaswamy Pillai, Sarabha Sastri and Sakharama the greatest accompanists. Rao among others. From Dhanammal he learnt not only padams and javalis, but the sense His music was a compendium of visranti and an awareness of of diverse but quintessential gamakas with which he tempered features of sound, tradition-based the racy style of Poochi Iyengar Carnatic music. These included to fashion the Ariyakudi style. a rich and choiceful repertoire Such close association with the of the compositions of a wide great masters of his time, helped array of composers, with central evolve a unique, distinct style of importance accorded in the his own, judiciously synthesising concert to the inspired creations of the aesthetic graces in the music of the Trinity; the central role of the his and other inspiring role madhyama kala; the primacy of models. gamakas, the lifeblood of Carnatic music; an intelligent voice culture The concert scenario which kept the voice consistently In the early years of the 20th musical; facile modulations of the century, music sabhas and other voice (thick gliding seamlessly to institutions featuring Carnatic thin without making a laboured music concerts were few and point of it) facilitating blending far between. Carnatic music with the sruti without the shouting thrived mainly on the patronage effect, especially in the tara of the kings of the princely sthayi; the scrupulous avoidance SAMUDRI ARCHIVES States, notably Mysore and of all ugly and unseemly mannerisms; the importance of , as well as the zamindars of various finesse in enunciation with just the right amount of stress principalities of south . Concerts were infrequent, so as to be intelligible but never so harsh as to degenerate audiences small and general level of awareness of nuances into speech and mar the musical continuity; the vital role low. The gurukula system was exploitative of disciples of laya, not as mere finger-counting arithmetic but as the and generally frowned upon youthful enthusiasm and very sheet anchor on which to mount the lilt and majesty aspirations as presumptuous and upstartish. Even at age 20, of the melodies; the knack of drawing the best out of the one was not considered concert material. accompanists, be they stalwarts or beginners; the antenna Such was the music scene that Ariyakudi took by storm in for assessing the expectations and absorption level of the the second decade of the 20th century. It is noteworthy that audience almost like a mind reader; and last but not the he started performing only in 1909. least, the hallmark of true mastery – the fine art of making the difficult seem deceptively simple. The pre-Ariyakudi format When Ariyakudi became a disciple of Ramanathapuram Typically, the concert lasted rarely less than four hours, “Poochi” Srinivasa Iyengar, he acquired the privilege of often stretching to 5 or 5-1/2 hours. Strangely, this format belonging to the sishya parampara of saint Tyagaraja. accommodated only a , 4 or 5 and a ragam- Poochi Iyengar’s guru was , whose tanam-pallavi. The reasons were twofold. In the first

27 l SRUTI June 2015 ARIYAKUDI 125 place, alapana, niraval and kalpana swara tended to such a request came, the concert time would automatically be lengthy, repetitive, sometimes boring and monotonous. get extended, enough to do justice to a small pallavi. Secondly, there were at least two percussion interludes, All these measures freed up a substantial chunk of time. He each taking up 30 to 45 minutes. Such was the concert utilised it in two ways. In the first place, he could present format which Ariyakudi revolutionised and transformed many more and kritis in each concert than would have into the “modern concert format”, which has stood the test been feasible under the previous dispensation. Secondly, of time and is still going strong, with minor modifications he made the tail-end miscellany longer, far more varied and dictated by the march of time and changing lifestyles of interesting. the rasikas. The first and most obvious effect of his format was that Ariyakudi’s concert format there was no ennui in an Ariyakudi concert. With one The most challenging part of the task, which he executed stroke, he transformed desultory, bored, yawns into joyous with consummate skill, consisted in drastically reducing enthusiasm, keen interest and edge-of-the-seat anticipation. the length of raga alapanas. The raga essay had to be The listeners were delighted to be treated to a wide variety brief, but without leaving the rasika dissatisfied or with a of songs of different composers in many more ragas than sense of incompleteness. Ariyakudi was the very man for had been in vogue in concerts. It also helped that he sang in this mission; for, he had both the fecundity of ideas and and in all the south Indian languages as well as a the fluency of voice to take us through a major raga like few bhajans in and Gujarati. or Todi in a matter of four minutes, Secondly, he brought a striking novelty, variety and and amazingly, give the listener a sense of wholesome popular appeal to the post-pallavi miscellany segment of experience of the raga. the concert. His famed concerts at Gokhale Hall, Madras in Having done that, he successfully prevailed upon the 1920s and 1930s used to start at 4.15 pm on Sundays. his violinists never to exceed his own duration of At 8 pm, he would launch the miscellaneous fare, by which raga alapana, even if the violinist happened to be a senior time the hall was overflowing with college students, ready artist like Malaikottai Govindaswamy Pillai. Too, he did not to raucously shout for an encore on every item. He used countenance the persussionists hogging a disproportionate to present javalis, Tiruppavai, Tiruvembavai, Tiruppugazh, part of the concert time. He quietly asserted the Arunachala Kavi’s Rama Natakam, (he was the tunesmith primacy of the singer and his prerogative as to time for most of these), nationalist/patriotic songs inspired by management for the success of the concert. His charisma the Freedom Movement in different languages. The young and leadership were such that even senior accompanists men who came in droves to listen to this light fare later came had to fall in line. to the earlier part of his concerts and learnt to appreciate his ragas, kritis, niraval, swaras and even ragam-tanam-pallavi. When he reduced the length of the alapana, his innate sense In this manner, Ariyakudi educated at least two generations of proportion led him to suitably prune the time spent on of music lovers, by gradually raising their awareness and niraval and kalpana swara. For example, if he sang a raga levels of appreciation. for 3 minutes and the violinist would play for 2- ½ minutes, the was rendered in 4 minutes, he would sing kalpana But the most significant consequence of the concert format swara for no more than about 4 minutes. If niraval was Ariyakudi created and perfected was this. But for such a sung, that might take another 4 minutes or so. Contrast this format which accommodated several songs even in a 2-1/2 with what we often find even in 2-1/2 hour concerts. The hour concert, many great and precious compositions of the musician goes on with a single suite (raga, kriti, niraval Trinity and other great vaggeyakaras might have gone out and swaras) for almost an hour, and as a result, is forced of currency and been lost to us. to make short shrift of the ragam-tanam-pallavi in under Salient features of his music 15 minutes. Such intelligent apportionment of concert time as he practised is more relevant today, since the concert Ariyakudi was a past master of gamakas. Even so, he duration has shrunk to less than half. rightly rejected the notion that gamaka richness implies indiscriminate oscillation of every note to the point of Though he sang many scholarly, complicated pallavis, he distortion. He recognised that certain ragas, if deprived of also composed an array of short, entertaining pallavis, to the plain note or two required for their sustenance, sound be deployed according to the time available for the pallavi withered. Aesthetic discrimination was the keynote of his in a particular concert. This usually happened in concerts artistry. in which he had not planned to sing a pallavi but a belated request cropped up. As a policy, he would not turn down Even as the bowing/blowing/fingering technique rasika’s requests, even if the timing was not too good. Once determines the character of instrumental music,

28 l SRUTI June 2015 ARIYAKUDI 125 pronunciation determines the character of vocal music. A stable kalapramana is one of the high ideals of Carnatic The type of pronunciation which, in the name of music. Once you start rendering a kriti in a particular bhava, muffles, distorts, chews and mangles the kalapramana, you are expected to maintain it through words, making them unintelligible, may be considered the kriti-rendering, niraval and kalpana swara singing. ‘tamasic’. True bhava neither needs nor justifies this Ariyakudi, more than any other singer we have heard, was transgression. the musician who could do justice to the widest variety of kalapramana. He had the vocal dexterity and versatility At the other end of the spectrum, we have the spashtam to execute easily and flawlessly a wide range of speeds, (clarity) zealots, whose pronunciation is so harsh as to ranging all the way from Neekelana (Devamanohari), rob the music of all finesse and continuity of melody. Nee padame (Navarasa Kannada) and Ninnu joochi Such “recitation” of music may be considered ‘rajasic’. (Saurashtram) at the fast end of the spectrum to Sree But the manner of enunciation of lyrics which is Subramanyaya (), Akshayalinga vibho distinct enough to be intelligible but soft enough to be (Sankarabharanam), Amba nannu brovave (Todi, 4-kalai musical may be called ‘satvic’. My revered guru was an Desadi), and padams like Sundasepu (Sankarabharanam), exemplar of satvic pronunciation. Tributes to the master, Upamu gane (Yadukulakambhoji) and Magadocchi written by the likes of Musiri, GNB and Palghat Mani (). Iyer bear eloquent testimony to this important aspect of his excellences. Though he was at home in so many different kalapramanas, he found that while in the vilamba kala, you get a greater The maestro’s mastery over laya was phenomenal. Palghat scope to express gamakas, too many slow songs tend to make Mani Iyer said that Ariyakudi’s music was a constant the concert boring and tiresome for the average listener, challenge to the mridangist and an exhilarating one at while offering a treat to the musicians and connoisseurs. that. He confessed to finding the kalapramanas adopted On the other hand, pacy songs rob the concert of a sense of by Ariyakudi tricky and elusive in the early years of their repose and fullness. In the medium tempo (madhyama kala), association until he got used to them. The kalapramana may while his voice had the ability to execute many gamakas be called the most appropriate speed at which to render a which would have been difficult for others, it also served particular kriti. This is determined by trial and error, taking to avoid the feeling of drag and keep the concert lively. into account various factors, such as the mood of the raga, the sentiments expressed in the lyrics, the distribution of Therefore, he hit upon the madhyama kala as the recipe the syllables in the time cycle and the richness or otherwise for a successful concert. He devoted a substantial portion of the raga in gamakas. of the concert time to the medium tempo, judiciously interspersing such songs with a slow, ponderous item here and a brisk, flighty number there. The proof of the pudding, The composer after all, is in the eating – the success rate of his concerts was pretty close to 100% ! He composed a tillana each in and Kanada. He also composed a few Tamil songs to commemorate He had to his credit many an innovative take-off point for special occasions. These were: his niraval and swara singing and a wide variety of pallavis, Golden jubilee of the Tamil Daily Swadesamitran: from simple entertaining ones to long, scholarly ones. In Sundaramaana Sudesamitran, in . recent memory, he was the first musician to successfully Diamond jubilee of Swadesamitran: Seer perugum siranda attempt the novelty of a multi-raga pallavi, with his famous Mitran, in Surati, and Kondaduvom in Sindhubhairavi. 4-raga pallavi, “Sankarabharananai azhaittodi vaadi Kalyani, darbaarukku”. While arithmetic has a special A song in at the 60th birthday celebrations of place in a pallavi, he showed that there is much more to Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar. pallavi singing. Tanam and niraval, in which you can find The tunesmith any number of musicians puffing and stumbling, came naturally to him with full-throated ease. Above all, he never In this activity, his output was much more prolific. He was a tunesmith of rare sagacity. For many years in allowed the laya arithmetic to transgress the acceptable the 1930s, the Tamil weekly Swadesamitran used to musical standard of “sraavyam”, maintaining that the publish one kriti of the Trinity or other great composers pallavi need not and should not leave the uninformed notated by Ariyakudi every week. But his most significant listener bewildered. contributions consist in his setting to music and popularising in his concerts the 30 Tiruppavai of Andal, The depth and range of his repertoire have few parallels. as well as the Rama Nataka keertanams of Arunachala But what is noteworthy here is that he practised a kriti Kavi. Many other sahityas, including Alarsara paritapam of Swati Tirunal (Surati) were set to music by the master. a hundred times and thoroughly internalised it before presenting it in a concert, with the result that it glowed with

29 l SRUTI June 2015 ARIYAKUDI 125 SAMUDRI ARCHIVES SAMUDRI

Ariyakudi in concert with T.N. Krishnan (violin), Palani Subramania Pillai () and Madurai N. Krishnan (tambura) a mellow perfection and also that he never had to carry life to live all over again. Pat came the reply, “To sing like notebooks, textbooks or bits of paper to any of his concerts, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar”. least of all to the hallowed samadhi of Tyagabrahmam, as has become the unedifying fashion these days. His favourite accompanists The remarkable thing about his career is not so much that When it came to mridangam, there was a special chemistry he became famous with a short gestation period but that he between Ariyakudi’s artistry and that of . remained famous and the acknowledged leader, right up It was a synergy that had no parallel. Therefore Mani Iyer to the end of his days. Right from being the first Carnatic was easily his most cherished mridangam partner on stage. As for the violin, Ariyakudi did not favour the technique musician to receive the Presidential Awards when those of accompaniment, wherein the violin is silent through awards were instituted in 1952 to the privilege (accorded half a minute of vigorous alapana by the vocalist and then by consensus of the galaxy of musicians) to perform plays just the tail-end phrase. He expected the violinist to the abhishekam to Saint Tyagaraja’s idol in Tiruvaiyaru on be always on the alert, follow him closely like a shadow, his Mahasamadhi Day, he had it all, as a matter of well- reproducing most of what he sang at his usual challenging earned right. pace and fluency. T.N. Krishnan fit the bill perfectly, not His contemporaries only because of his felicity of expression and robust tonal quality supplementing those of Ariyakudi but also because In the first half of his career, his notable contemporaries he brought with him a good insight into the Ariyakudi were the Madurai Brothers (one of the brothers died young; style and repertoire, having been, for some years, as a boy, the surviving brother Srirangam Iyengar continued to under the care and tutelage of a senior Ariyakudi disciple, perform off and on for many more years), Maharajapuram namely, Alleppey Parthasarathy. No wonder, then, that Viswanatha Iyer, and T.N. Krishnan was his preferred violinist. Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar. Ariyakudi and Palghat Mani Iyer In the second half of his career, his famous contemporaries were Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, G.N. Balasubramaniam Ariyakudi and Palghat Mani Iyer were made for each other. and Madurai Mani Iyer. But Ariyakudi was an admired and They were the finest example of shared ideals, matching revered margadarsi and manaseeka guru to all of them. excellence and mutual admiration. Their first meeting was GNB hailed him as “the Sangeeta Dharma Paripalaka” perhaps in the early 1920s at the home of Rathnachalam for upholding the pristine classical values and his music Iyer in Tiruchi, a good friend and admirer and host to many as the “Gita of Sangeeta” because his music typified the musicians of the time. Ariyakudi was about 34 and Mani “Golden Mean, an ideal of the Bhagavad Gita”. Madurai Iyer 12. The introduction, heralding a historic partnership Mani Iyer, who had been hailed as “Mohana Mani”, shed destined to take audiences by storm wherever they went for tears listening to Ariyakudi’s sonorous mandara sthayi the next 40 plus years, was made by Flute Sanjeeva Rao. panchama in Nannu palimpa. Semmangudi, at the fag- Ariyakudi was known to have a special affinity for the end of his long and distinguished career, was asked in an mridangam, as well as an uncanny insight into its potential, interview what his highest ambition would be, if he had his in the right pair of hands, to raise the concert to dizzy

30 l SRUTI June 2015 ARIYAKUDI 125 heights. A fact not widely known is that Ariyakudi used to Ariyakudi and GNB play the mridangam at home, for the love of it. And when GNB looked up to Ariyakudi as his manaseeka guru, and he ran into Mani Iyer, it was as if he had found the very Ariyakudi always treated him with a paternal solicitude. man he was looking for. Mani Iyer was instantly swept off But GNB’s rise in the 1940s was so meteoric that there his feet because he felt he was in the presence of the trail- were rasikas who believed he had eclipsed Ariyakudi. But blazer of the times and a legend in the making. the doughty veteran was unfazed. When asked whether the Ariyakudi’s aesthetic refinement, his adherence to wholly Ariyakudi Samrajyam was over giving place to the GNB dignified methods of holding the attention of the audience, Samrajyam, the consummate diplomat that he was, he his natural and effortless voice culture and last but not least, replied, “No doubt, Mani has a gandharva saareeram, he his laya prowess created an abiding, reverential admiration is a buddhisaali and nalla chittam ulla payyan” (a young which was to last literally upto Mani Iyer’s last breath. man with his heart in the right place); but, even so, I have something called anubhavam. If Mani Iyer could “play the song itself” (quite a few notes, while he was at it), there is a solid reason for it. He made it My reminiscences a point to learn the songs inside out. Whenever Ariyakudi My earliest recollections of the Master go back to the late cut a disc, Mani Iyer was thorough with it by the very next 1950s, when I used to go to the temple festivals in , week. It was this habit of internalising the melodies that whenever an Ariyakudi concert was scheduled. Usually, enabled Mani Iyer to reproduce on the mridangam the for any concert anywhere in Kerala, our home in Alleppey mood of the music, be it sedate or spectacular. was his headquarters. Attending on him, learning from For me, personally, Ariyakudi and Mani Iyer are the most him during the day and going with him to the concert special duo in the world of Carnatic music, since they were, venue were all cherished experiences. The temple concerts respectively, my guru and my mentor. used to start by 9 pm and go on till 1.30 am or beyond. I remember sitting behind him on the dais and looking Since I had the privilege of a close association with the around at thousands of people seated all over the vast mridangam maestro for many years, I have heard him speak temple grounds, listening silently and with rapt attention. with deep insight about nuances of my guru’s music. Applause was not a routine ritual in Kerala at the end of each alapana and each song. But whenever he shook them Ariyakudi and Semmangudi up by effortlessly hitting the tara sthayi panchama, there The overall impression I have gathered is that through the was thunderous ovation. decades of a long association, the two musicians shared a Even at an advanced age, he conscientiously avoided professional relationship which was generally cordial. the afternoon siesta on concert days, in order to keep the Back in 1935, when preparations were under way for the voice warm and ready for flight. Once his mandatory four-day celebrations of my cousin’s wedding in Alleppey, Gayatri japam and Sundara kanda parayanam were done, my father told Ariyakudi: “I will have the muhurtam on he would spend the daytime, humming music or teaching a date convenient to you, so that you can sing the main or narrating anecdotes. It seems Raj once asked concert; but whom would you suggest I invite for the other him what special care and nourishment he gave his three days?” Ariyakudi said, “There is this very promising voice to sing so effortlessly, traversing the octaves even youngster Seenu, a disciple of Maharajapuram Viswanatha at age 74. He replied that the main nourishment was Iyer. Why don’t you invite him to perform at Alleppey?” music. Many of his rasikas know he was fond of spending hours Thus, obviously, Ariyakudi considered Semmangudi a on his favourite swing. My last recollection is seeing him talented junior professional who deserved his encourage­ taking an afternoon nap on that swing in his Mandaveli ment. For his part, Semmangudi was an ardent admirer of house in Madras, in the first week of January 1967, a few Ariyakudi all his life. He always had his picture next to his days before he passed into history. But he remembered to guru’s in his living room. He spoke in glowing terms about bequeath his tambura to me on his deathbed. his upholding classical values. He was grateful to the doyen for educating two generations of music lovers and making At the feet of the Master. Carnatic music accessible to a wider audience, in the same (The author is a disciple of Ariyakudi, has been performing in manner Subramania Bharati made Tamil poetry accessible India and abroad for over four decades. His areas of specialisation to the common man (a simile he frequently used). When are theme concerts, lecdems and pallavi singing. His website is Semmangudi was the asthana vidwan at the Travancore www.alepeyvenkatesan.com) palace, there were many occasions when Ariyakudi and For the unabridged version go to www.sruti.com����������������� ���and Semmangudi performed in tandem for the royal family. www.srutimag.blogspot.in

31 l SRUTI June 2015