A Great Book on Carnatic Music Remembered

Great Masters of Carnatic Music 1930-1965 Author: Indira Menon, Publisher: Indialog Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2004 ISBN: 81-87981-53-9, 308 pages A review by V.Ramaswami*

This delightful book is comparable to a grand onam saddhya (feast) with a variety of exquisite dishes embellished by the right amount of spice and seasoning, prepared by an expert chef for discerning palates, and served in a regal style. It should serve as a standard bearer in a field where a majority of work on the lives and times of musicians is but a shallow exercise in sycophancy or derision based mostly on gossip and innuendo, focusing more on personalities than on the art, and worsened only by poor editing, paper quality and printing. Be it in artistic content, language or presentation, this book is an example worthy of emulation.

A chapter is devoted to each of the following grand vocalists who reigned during the golden era of Carnatic music – Ariyakudi, Maharajapuram (Viswanatha Iyer), Musiri, Chembai, Semmangudi, MS, GNB, Brinda-Mukta, DKP, Madurai Mani, MLV, KVN and MDR – and the book also contains a set of highly informed and informative articles penned by some of them. Eschewing both the ubiquitous beginning with inconsequential natal facts and standard clichés like “hails from a musical family,” the author starts each essay with several pages describing the stature, style and significant contributions of each vocalist – the raison d’être for inclusion in the book.  Often the details of birth etc., appear well after five or six pages that describe the uniqueness of the musician in a way that brings out the nuances of Carnatic music like sarvalaghu and laya and the differences between styles such as the briga-laden and gamaka-laden and serve as valuable pieces of reading that can improve one’s own level of music appreciation, a facility clearly highly honed by the author through critical listening. The narratives are interspersed with a variety of related information on other grand masters of previous eras, various locales in Southern India and, occasionally, even spicy humor (like Semmangudi’s remark that Chembai’s voice needs not a microphone but a silencer), and these make them highly readable.

Through beautiful command of the language supported by a level of cultured, cultural erudition not so common these days, the author wins the respect of the reader comparable to that evoked for the subjects her pen has served well to embellish. I quote some example text below.

"If architecture could be described as frozen music, then the best analogy of Chembai’s style would be a column of the Doric order, solid and beautiful in its simplicity. Just as it would be ridiculous to say that the Doric order had something missing, namely, the fluted columns and floral decoration of the Corinthian order, so would it be ridiculous to say that Chembai’s music lacked the glides, graces or emotional fervor of, say, Musiri’s music.”

“The difference between the Brinda and GNB styles (to take two extreme examples of gamaka- and briga-oriented styles) may be likened to (that between) a river of the plains winding slowly along and a torrential mountain stream.”

“A briga that consists of a cluster of creative ideas sung in a fast tempo can be very exciting. But if speed is used for merely traversing up and down the scale …. or for the display of virtuosity, there is no aesthetic joy in it. It is like a sprinter who enjoys a special thrill while sprinting, but who cannot claim to have noticed the landscape around him”

While being unabashed in the expression of her admiration for the artist, the author avoids sycophancy and does provide a balanced portrait bringing out their deficiencies too in the most inoffensive manner. Thus, while MLV with a style “more cerebral than emotional, … excelled in all aspects of improvisation and opened up new worlds for lovers of Carnatic music” and “displayed a hitherto unprecedented flow of ideas of a rich and fertile imagination,” the “tara sthayi was MLV’s Achilles’ heel … and her rendering of kritis was mannered and lacked spontaneity.” Read in their context, these criticisms could evoke only a nod with tempered acquiescence even from ardent admirers of MLV like this writer.

It is tempting to write more about this book and to quote from it, but it would rob a potential reader the pleasure of directly partaking from it. So, I will rest by simply recommending the book as a “must read” for the serious connoisseur of Carnatic music. The only ‘negative’ I can say about this book is that its pages have an addictive characteristic, and once you start reading, you can barely keep it down, and when you are done, you may wish to start all over again.

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The author of this blog also wrote the books 'Innovation by India for India, the Need and the Challenge' as also 'Bhaja Govindam - A Topical Exposition'  besides writing and editing several books in his fields Applied Probability & Telecommunications.  He is a former President & Secretary of CMANA, the Carnatic Music Association of North America under whose Presidency its Sangeethasagara award was instituted.  He has penned over 40 compositions in Carnatic music.  A probabilist by profession, he has been a serial inventor with many patents, and among his positions was one as Chief Scientist at Bellcore.  He was named a Distinguished Science Alumnus by Purdue University, an honor given to a very small percentage of its graduates.