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Sruti E - Issue 1 2 Sruti E - Issue Contents Introduction . 4 Life and Achievements . 5 Awards and Titles . 15 GNB & MLV : Parallels and Contrasts . 18 MLV & Cinema . 21 Some Personal Glimpses . 26 Sruti E - Issue 3 1 Introduction MLV was a brilliant vocalist and dedicated teacher, a pioneer who created space for woman-musicians on the concert stage, contributing significantly to the development of Carnatic music from the 1940s to the late 1980s. She came to be widely known as MLV. Her initials can be said to depict three outstanding features of her music: Melody, Laya and Vidwat. The combination of these in her music, in which melody enveloped the other two, won her the admiration of the cognoscenti but also appealed to the lay listener. 4 Sruti E - Issue 2 Life and Achievements The child Vasanthakumari wanted to become a doctor. She was always perhaps regretful about what might have been. “Doctors save lives,” she was fond of saying wistfully, voicing her admiration for the medical profession. Vasanthakumari’s parents—she was born as an only child on 3 July 1928 in Madras—were both musicians. Father Koothanur Ayyasami Iyer was well-versed in Carnatic music and had a keen interest in Hindustani classical music as well. Mother Lalithangi belonged to a family traditionally devoted to the fine arts. She had learnt music from Coimbatore Thayi and Flute Subba Rao, and padam-s and javali-s in particular from Veena Dhanammal. She was an active concert artist. She and her husband were both justly praised for their efforts to propagate the devarnama-s of Purandaradasa in the South (See Sruti 14). MLV grew up amidst sounds of music—listening to the songs of Purandaradasa, the kriti-s of the Tiruvarur trinity and other Carnatic music composers, and to khayals, thumri-s and dhun-s rendered by visiting Hindustani musicians. But genes more than environment probably accounted for the ability of Vasanthakumari, even as a two-year-old toddler, to identify the swara-s embedded in the melodies she heard. She was, in Sruti E - Issue 5 other words, a child prodigy, even though she was not so proclaimed or publicised by her parents. Although they taught her music at home, her father and mother were not keen on Vasanthi, taking up music as a career, thanks to their disappointment at not receiving adequate recognition for their own musical abilities and services. They admitted her in a convent school. (Vasanthakumari studied up to the Senior Cambridge level and developed a sense of curiosity, a broad bent of mind and proficiency in English). Despite her parents’ reluctance to let Vasanthi pursue a career in music, the gifted girl was allowed to accompany mother Lalithangi in her recitals. At the age of 11, Vasanthakumari began formally providing ‘pin-paattu’—back-up support or ‘backsong’, to use the catchy term used by an artist in a letter to AIR and recalled with glee by T. Sankaran—for her mother. She made stage appearances in this manner, in a concert held on 27 July 1940 in Simla, and another on 3 August 1940 in New Delhi. Both were organized by the Karnataka Sangeeta Sabha, a flourishing organisation in Simla and Delhi. Chance played a part in Vasanthakumari’s first solo recital in Bangalore in 1941, when she was 13 or thereabouts. Lalithangi was to have performed but withdrew because of an attack of asthma. Rather than cancel the concert, the Sabha officials decided to present Vasanthakumari in her place. The concert by ‘Madras Lalithangi Vasanthakumari’ was a success. MLV scored another first in 1941 when she cut her first disc, a recording on a 78 rpm ‘plate’ of Swati Tirunal’s Todi raga kriti Sarasijanabha murare. This opened the way for a contract with the leading recording company in India and its release of a few more MLV discs. 6 Sruti E - Issue The turning point in Vasanthakumari’s life and career was not either of these firsts but her enrolment as a disciple of G.N. Balasubramaniam, then a new star on the Carnatic music horizon. It came about a little earlier. GNB had first formed a favourable impression of Vasanthakumari’s potential as a singer in 1938. He, Lalithangi and D.K. Pattammal were rehearsing a radio programme based on Jayadeva’s ashtapadi-s. Vasanthakumari was present on the occasion and she was singing along in low tones, singing to herself really. GNB heard her, and asked her parents to let the girl receive music training under him. They demurred—and so did Vasanthakumari, who was keen on becoming a doctor. But GNB renewed his suggestion, now with greater force, when, in 1940 Lalithangi and Ayyasami Iyer called on him to show him the book on Purandaradasa’s compositions they had prepared. This time, the parents gave their agreement to GNB’s proposal and placed Vasanthakumari under his tutelage. She received regular training from GNB for about 10 years. In lrubathaam Nootrandin Sangeeta Medhaigal (Alliance Co., Madras, 1988), a Tamil book in which Sruti Senior Editor V.S. Sundara Rajan wrote about the music maestros of the 20th century, there is a passage recording MLV’s recollection of her apprenticeship under GNB. She said her guru told her: “Take only the good aspects from my music. Don’t copy me in every respect, because that would amount to mimicry. Cultivate your manodharma, your own sense of imagination.” She added that her guru often asked her to listen to the concerts of musicians like Ariyakudi, Semmangudi, Madurai Mani, D.K. Pattammal and M.S. Subbulakshmi. His aim was to encourage her to observe interesting musical features and aspects of concert presentation and absorb those which, after analysis and discussion with her guru, seemed relevant to her own musical outlook and endowments. In 1951, Vasanthakumari married R. Krishnamurti, as proposed and arranged by her parents. Sruti E - Issue 7 A native of Madurai belonging to the landed gentry, Krishnamurti was one of the founders of a sabha that later became the Sathguru Sangeetha Samajam. Among those whose concerts he helped arrange for the sabha was G.N. Balasubramaniam. Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer was already one of his heroes and now GNB became another. Though he was younger than both, he gained their friendship. On GNB’s recommendation he arranged for Vasanthakumari too to sing at the Madurai sabha once or twice. During the nineteen fifties and sixties, Vasanthakumari’s career as a concert artist flourished. In 1953, she became a mother and the care and upbringing of daughter Srividya, and later of son Sankararaman, did require that some of her time and energies be diverted from the pursuit of her profession, As Srividya grew up and learnt Bharatanatyam, Vasanthakumari took on one more role as padam-singer at her dance recitals. But all this diversion did not affect her career as a concert artist. Despite carping criticism of her style of singing from some quarters of the Establishment—she was the target of such criticism partly because she belonged to the GNB school—Vasanthakumari was regularly featured as a star performer in virtually every important music festival conducted in south India and in the various outposts of Carnatic music in the rest of the country. She was also a regular performer on radio. Interestingly, AIR denied her the top grade until much later in her career. The person responsible for this delay was none other than her guru, who was an AIR producer when her case was reviewed and who perhaps took a firmer step on the path of rectitude than usual, because Vasanthakumari was his disciple. He told her: “You are still young; you can afford to wait.” Once she reached the top, Vasanthakumari stayed there. There was some slackening of her concert schedule in the 1970s, and, during the last three years of her life, she was under considerable strain because of health problems. Also, although there were occasional performances which could not be reckoned as successes and even when she was no 8 Sruti E - Issue longer in her prime—her music was best in the 1950s and sixties—she never gave reason for anyone to doubt that she was a first-rate artist, a truly great singer. Her music had many fine attributes, but she excelled in the exercise of manodharma and revealed a rare sense of adventure. And she had the competence—a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes—to deploy her manodharma and spirit of adventure to great effect. She enriched tradition, she did not violate it. In this respect she was a true disciple of her great guru. Over the years, Vasanthakumari evolved her own bani of singing, based on the new bani her guru had fashioned for himself. She did not copy her guru’s style completely. This is what her guru had wished her to do. According to R. Shankernarayanan of Hosur, a long time admirer and friend of MLV, GNB used to say to him: “Vasanthi typifies real discipleship. She applies her mind to all she absorbs and presents a glorious edifice of her own creation.” Vasanthakumari’s attitude towards her accompanists and disciples also confirmed that she was a true follower of GNB. Her interest went beyond the ‘loukeekam’ aspects, for she was genuinely interested in the musical contribution accompanists could make. She never hesitated to acknowledge their merit, or encourage them if they were young and junior to her. The way she groomed A. Kanyakumari as a first-rate violin accompanist is a story in itself. The role she played in bringing khanjira vidwan G.