TAMIL
Colossus of Carnatic music
SULOCHANA PATTABHI RAMAN
ENGUM NIRAI NADHABRAHMAM: Shankar Venkatraman; Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Foundation, 7/4, Bhujanga Rao Street, Chennai-600015.
Rs. 150.
M.S. SUBBULAKSHMI, THE most fragrant bloom in the luxurious flora of Carnatic music in the 20th century, was a gift to the entire sphere in no uncertain terms. She enjoyed a colossal stature throughout her reign of more than seven decades. Shankar Venkatraman, a young writer belonging to a proud musical lineage has traced her life from her birth in Madurai in 1916 till her last moments on December 11, 2004 with meticulous care and the passion of an evangelist. Several gurus such as Madurai Srinivasa Iyengar, her mother Shanmukha Vadivu, violin vidwan Sethur Sundaresa Battar and Mayavaram Krishna Iyer laid the strong foundation for Subbulakshmi's art.
Stalwarts and giants from other walks of life, her forays into the field of cinema, her bountiful donations to various deserving causes, the titles and awards that were conferred on her, the couple's unswerving faith and devotion to Paramacharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, and her foreign tours as a musical ambassador including her concert at the U.N. in 1966 are all vividly described by the author in fluent, flowing Tamil.
That M.S. was the second lady musician to occupy the concert platform at the Tiruvaiyaru Tyagaraja Aradhana festival in 1964 much later than Bangalore Nagaratnammal, an ardent devotee of Tyagaraja, is a factual error.
Female singers were given opportunities to sing much earlier and the All India Radio had relayed their programmes. M.S. Subbulakshmi received the Sangeetha Kalanidhi award from The Music Academy in 1968, not in 1973.
Sadasivam and Subbulakshmi were an ideal couple. The photographs are a treasure house reviving nostalgia. Shankar Venkatraman's biography of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer has already been published, and Lalgudi Jayaraman's is on the anvil.
This book would receive a hearty welcome from all music lovers and her countless admirers.
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