It is double honour for the Rudrapatnam Brothers - R.N. Thyagarajan and R.N. Tharanathan. Chosen for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar, the brothers have also landed the Sangeeta Kalacharya Award announced by The Madras Music Academy. With 2,500 concerts, they are the only brother-duo to have marked a 60-year span of on-stage performances, this year. For Thyagarajan, who has a Masters in Mathematics, and Tharanathan, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry, music was inevitable as their lineage goes back four generations of Veda and naada practitioners from Rudrapatnam in the present-day Hassan district of Karnataka.
The Rudrapatnam Brothers, Thyagarajan and Taranathan.
The strikingly serene village on the banks of the Cauvery has produced over 500 prolific scholars, all of them belonging to the Sanketi community. The Rudrapatnam Brothers, senior-most musicians representing Karnataka today, are happy that they have been able to adhere to tradition, in form and content, embellishing their concerts with rare ragas.
The grandsons of Harikatha vidwan Rudrapatnam Krishna Sastry, sons and disciples of R.K. Narayanaswamy, who learnt under Musiri Subramania Iyer; and nephews of the late R.K. Srikantan, the brothers were professionally trained under their uncle violinist R.K. Venkatarama Sastry.
Thyagarajan worked as a Math lecturer for several years before joining All India Radio in 1976. He joined Doordarshan, Chennai Kendra, before retiring as Deputy Director, Doordarshan, Bengaluru Kendra, in 2003. Tharanathan, who retired as Additional Director from CFTRI in Mysore in 2006, was a visiting professor and Fellow in a German University and has presented 180 research papers for international journals.
The brothers have trained nearly a hundred sishyas, many of whom are Akashavani A-graders. Juggling both music and responsible careers, they have had an unstinting focus on their music that emerged from an amalgum of time-honoured styles taken from Musiri, Semmangudi, Lalgudi, GNB, Alathur Brothers and Ramnad Krishnan.
The duo is on the selection committee of music auditions at Prasar Bharati, just they as they have been invited as Examiners for Singapore Fine Arts Society’s higher music exams. “It will be healthy if children in their formative years keep away from fusions, jugalbandi and reality shows and instead participate in competitions for exposure,” they say.
The stalwarts spoke to this supplement ahead of receiving the Sangeeta Kalacharya award. Excerpts:
It will be interesting to hear you talk about a childhood soaked in music...
Thyagarajan: Apart from attending concerts at Bidaram Krishnappa Mandira and Palace concerts, we regularly had vidwans such as Musiri, Semmangudi, Tiger Varadachari visiting home and discussing music with my father, Narayanaswamy and my three uncles, Venkatrama Shastri, Ramanathan and Srikantan. Although we did not realise it at that point in time, a strong foundation had been laid for our music.
But you never thought of music as a career, did you?
Tharanathan: Although mother Savithramma was the force behind our achievements today, our father whom people thought sang much like Musiri was clear that academic education was mandatory. Never depend on music for income, have a profession he often said, and that’s how it finally happened.
In other words, you had to manage two tracks...
Tyagarajan: Absolutely. It seemed to happen naturally, in a way. Summer holidays and December were spent in Madras with uncle Venkatrama Shastry. He took us to several concerts and stalwarts’ houses for learning and to hear their expert talk. Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Semmangudi, Musiri, Lalgudi Jayaraman and Ramnad Krishnan were among those whom we visited. We were taught to look for the nuances in their renderings of ragas such as Nayaki, Darbar, Kannada, Atana, Poornachandrika Janaranjani and Malavi.
Tharanathan: The challenge was to listen to different styles and evolve one of our own, incorporating the valuable ingredients.
When we received the notations of Tyagaraja’s ‘Mokshamu Galada’ of Musiri baani we were thrilled. We traced the notations of our radio recordings and even had our uncle Srikantan share more with us. We were inspired to take up even such rare scales as Phalamanjari for elaboration.
Balancing career and art would have been a real task...
Thyagarajan: Well, our weekend were packed with rehearsals and performances. Tharanathan travelled to see me at Madras and his CFTRI colleagues called the train from Mysore the Tharanathan Express. and we were called Weekend Brothers! Looking back, it’s amazing that we made it happen when technology and communication were still developing.
Music presentation comes in different forms these days. Has that had an impact on your accepting concert offers?
Tharanathan: Our presentation in its entirety is steeped in tradition. Innovation is within the prescribed boundaries. We have never demanded stipulated sums. We are happy to oblige when our art is accepted as it is. If there is any compromise, we politely decline.
