In life in general and in art in particular, we come across the gross and the subtle.
In music, ranging from brass wind instruments from the West to our own Nadaswarams, there are some instruments that sound best when listened to outdoors. As a striking contrast comes art forms such as Dhrupad and the instruments of the Veena family – Rudra Veena, Chitra Veena, Saraswathy Veena and so on.
There are two distinct approaches to handling classical music – gayaki (vocal) and tantrakari (instrumental). Many vocalists follow an instrumental way of singing and many musicians try and make their instruments "sing". Because of this, it is ideal if an instrumentalist were to be trained in vocal music and vice versa.
On September 27, 2014, lovers of good music celebrate the birth centenary of the man with the singing veena, Koduvayur Sivarama Narayanaswamy ( K.S. Narayanaswamy), who embodied everything that was subtle, aesthetic and refined in our music.
Along with other legends such as Chembai, M.D. Ramanathan and Palghat Mani Iyer, K.S. Narayanaswamy, (popularly called KSN sir) formed part of an elite band of classical musicians who hailed from Palakkad, Kerala. When one thinks of him – both his music as well as his personality – one thinks of images like the tender, fragile creeper that succeeds in splitting a huge boulder into two!
Narayanaswamy sir (as I used to address him) answered loudness with silence, virtuosity with sensitivity, speed with grace and poise, brute force with subtlety, aggravation with tranquillity, theatrics with understatement and excess with balance and proportion.
While music that pours out in torrents, drenched in raw emotion, certainly has it's own merits, Narayanaswamy sir proved that following the rules and having an analytical mind need not necessarily render an art form dry, pedantic or boring, except perhaps for those who equate ‘chaste’ with ‘boring’.
Trained initially in singing, Narayanaswamy sir later switched to veena playing when he developed problems with his voice. But he maintained total fidelity to singing in the way he played the veena, right until the very end.
He imbibed the best of Carnatic music from legends like Thanjavur Ponnaiah Pillai, Tiger Varadachari, Musiri Subramania Iyer, Sabhesha Iyer and others during his stint at Annamalai University, where he assisted in bringing out books containing Tamil songs by Neelakanta Sivan, Arunachala Kavi and Gopalakrishna Bharati. Few people know that it was Narayanaswamy sir who set the music for the very popular song in Purvikalyani by Neelakanta Sivan, ‘Aananda Natam Aaduvaar’.
To listen to him give a discourse in Tamil was an experience in itself! He was equally at ease belting out the heaviest, most classical form of Senthamizh to bantering in lighter forms of colloquial Tamil and he would unfailingly moderate his words to suit the convenience of the listeners. Almost every other observation or insight into music that he would give, would inevitably be prefaced by the line ‘Periyavaa Solluvaar...’ (the great people say, perhaps implying people like Tiger Varadachariar and others of their ilk). Endowed with a razor sharp brain like his, I would often wonder how many of these amazing insights that he attributed to ‘Periyavaas’ from the so called Golden Age of music were in fact, his own!
Narayanaswamy sir won the highest levels of recognition from various quarters. He was awarded the coveted Sangeetha Kalanidhi by the Madras Music Academy, the Central Sangeet Natak Academy Award, the Padma Bhushan and so on.
He was a revered guru and beloved member of the family for many luminaries in the music field and has had artistes like M.S.Subbulakshmi play supporting veena for him during a concert. But, largely by his own choice, he spent the last few years of his life in near obscurity.
One of the most precious and vital elements of my own personal, musical ‘Golden Age’ were the years I spent with him when he lived in Thiruvananthapuram and, later, the final years at Madras [Chennai].
Unlike many parents and teachers who ask their children to do something and then back it up with the catch phrase ‘Because I said so!’, Narayanaswamy sir was an extremely reasonable man.
He not only tolerated questions but welcomed them and actually revelled in them! Any musical observation of his would instantly be backed up by dozens of references to the great masterpieces of the great masters like Tyagaraja where they had used similar phrases.
In the music field, a lot of talk goes on about patantharam or the version of a song that is handed down from generation to generation. The same song may have several minor or major variations, depending on who sang them. Narayanaswamy sir would explore every version available, incorporate the best of all the versions, weed out the less than aesthetic phrases that might have cropped up over the centuries, one of the biggest disadvantages of music being handed down from generation to generation orally, and come up with his own version – wholesome, balanced and aesthetic.
If one were to compare music to food, Narayanaswamy sir’s music was pure vegetarian, organic, healthy and Satvik, with nothing in it that one needed to discard. In these days of pollution in almost everything, starting with the very air we breathe, the kind of values that Narayanaswamy sir represented, both as an artiste and as a human being, are extremely rare, to say the least. But those of us who were privileged to learn at least a little bit from this institution that was Narayanaswamy sir, continue to pass on the great musical wealth that we inherited from him, to the next generation. Unlike Narayanaswamy sir, who prefaced every other phrase of his, with ‘Periyavaa Solluvaar…’, we are much more specific about our Periyavaa....and tell our students “Narayanaswamy sir Solluvaaar…..” and the tradition continues the Narayanaswamy sir way; quietly and unobtrusively.
(K. S. Narayanaswamy’s centenary will be observed in Thiruvananthapuram with a three-day fete from September 27. The veena maestro served in the Sri Swathi Thirunal College of Music and retired as Principal in 1970)
