The piano that MS played
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Pianist Anil Srinivasan writes about discovering the instrument on which the legendary musician played many a times…
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If you listen very carefully, there is so much melody wafting in the breeze. Especially if it happens to be one that was made immortal by a shy lady in a black-and-white film that I once saw years ago. Sometimes, when I sit alone by the piano, my fingers automatically find the notes and begin playing the song, one tantalising note after another, and I find her presence by my side, singing along. Hers is one of the most melodious voices we have ever heard, and in the quiet that follows, I often find that the restless wandering of my mind has finally found a pause. The worries that infested the day have literally packed up their tents and sailed along with the breeze.
Such is the power of the legendary M.S. Subbulakshmi, and such is the sheer beauty of the song ‘Katrinile Varum Geetham.’ A few weeks ago, I was taken to the instrument room at Kalakshetra by its director and my friend, Leela Samson. As the doors were thrown open, I was arrested by the sight of a beautiful baby grand piano. It looked lonely, but when opened and played on, I felt it come alive and smile, the frayed strings and damaged felt notwithstanding. It was an original Steinweg, a brand that later modernised itself and acquired a more anglicised name of ‘Steinway.’ I am not sure what love at first sight is. If it meant a certain powerful electric shudder when first coming across someone or something that evokes instant recognition and innate desire, I probably know what that means now.
An arduous task
The instrument chooses the musician, and never the other way around. The power to create music is a privilege that the instrument chooses to bestow. This is an arduous task, especially given this particular instrument’s journey across time and distance. I try to think of its birth nearly 150 years ago in East Germany, and the travails and stories it probably tries to share, sitting quietly in that sun-kissed alcove near the window. The vibrations it has captured, the hands that have played on it and the sensibilities of its various owners before it came to rest in the music room of MS amma’s home at Kalki Gardens in far-away Madras and its part in the creation of such immortal classics as ‘Hari Tum Haro’ (Composer:Meera; Raga: Darbari Kanada). Even as her dear ones tell me about her sitting at that piano and playing a few chords to accompany her singing, I find the vision vivid and somehow, my eyes turn moist. This is not an ordinary instrument. It is both a part and the whole of a living continuity, a repository of some of the greatest stories of Indian classical music and musicians, and a great pioneer by itself.
After all, it is one of the first instruments that have crossed into our shores in its original, pristine state. Long before ‘monsoon conditioned pianos and the more ubiquitious digital pianos and keyboards’ became the fashion. To be able to take part in its restoration, aided by the fantastic workmen at Musee Musicals and guided by the ever-reassuring vision of Leela akka, has been a benediction in itself. I feel like I finally belong, and I feel that I have been inexorably tied to a certain part of musical history.
As I look ahead to the concert on July 24 at Kalakshetra to celebrate MS and her piano, I feel nervous and exhilarated. It is a milestone in my life. And that languorous melody is still playing softly in the breeze, and I can sense a beautiful smile on that divine face, looking benignly on. I am home and I am about to play her piano.
(With inputs from Leela Samson, director, Kalakshetra)
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