An old friend of mine used to tell me an apocryphal story relating to Poet Byron. It seems the author of the “Prisoner of Chillon”was so handsome and meant so very much in English society that urchins used to limp like him (Byron, it may be remembered, suffered from a deformity of the leg).
When I listen to a concert of the modern vidwan I am reminded of that story. Almost without exception the young vidwans of today imitate one musician, not only in his music but in his manners also. It is Mr. G.N. Balasubramaniam.
Be it said to the credit of Mr. Balasubramaniam that he deplored this in no uncertain terms when his attention was drawn to it. He told me that his advice to his pupils was always to cultivate a good voice, both in range and depth. Unless an artiste is endowed with a good voice his scholarship would be of little avail.
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Though only in his forties, Mr. Balasubramaniam's views on the subject of music have the stamp of maturity and certainly for a practicing musician he is very outspoken. Probably the greatest money-spinner in the present-day Carnatic music world, G.N.B. is by no means anxious to pander to “popular” tastes.
He said, “Our position can be compared to the ancient mariner who found 'water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink'. Music, we have in plenty, but it is all of a very cheap quality. This is undoubtedly due to the democratisation of art we see going on all around us, like the surge of a flood, which we are helpless in fighting against. Apart from the mechanical contrivances contributing to this (we are living in an age of gadgets) it is very disheartening to notice that artistes who supply music on the platform and are hence responsible for the growth and development of music culture, also descend to the level of playing to the gallery and thus lower the standards of taste in the art. Whether we are all moving towards an inevitable communism in our political life or not, communism has taken very deep roots in the manner and matter of music propagation—the most dangerous canker that can kill the rise of classical music.”
The genius of our music was that it permitted the artiste unrestricted freedom in the exercise of his creative abilities at the same time conforming strictly to defined rules.
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Mr. Balasubramaniam was equally forthright in his views on musical composers. He did not agree with those who maintained that the last in composing had been done by the Trinity and that it was a sheer waste of time to attempt to produce anything that may be greater than the works of those three great masters. G. N. B. said. "True, but Patnam Subramaniam Aiyar, Ramnad Srinivasa Iyengar and Muthiah Bhagavatar had composed beautiful pieces not because they felt they were greater than the Trinity but because they had the creative urge and the music world of to-day is really the better for their gifts." G.N.B. himself has been trying his hand at compositio- varnas , kritis , etc. His “Sadapalaya” in Mohanam is quite popular.
In the course of my talk with him I could not help feeling the artiste's pronounced partiality for Sri Tyagaraja. G. N. B. did not hesitate to acknowledge this fact. He said that it was not the mere repertoire of Sri Tyagaraja that had dragged him to the Saint of Tiruvayyar, but the genius of the composer in couching his works in the simplest language and with no unnecessary hyperboles or impossible allusions. Mr. Balasubramaniam added that, notwithstanding the risk in the performance-value, he had made it a point to include in his concerts Tyagaraja's less-known kritis . "They may be rare but look at the abounding rakti therein. Don't you think that for this reason alone we should include them in our concerts?" he asked. At this point he sang snatches of “Bagayanayya”in Chandrajyoti and said that this kriti was not ordinarily sung because of the difficult ghandara prayoga in it. But he had pledged to popularise it even as he had kritis like “Teliyaledu Rama” in Dhenuka, “Ni-daya” in Vasanta-bhairavi, etc.Talking of loud-speakers in music concerts, G. N. B. agreed that the subtle cadences and graces peculiar to a trained and experienced voice are lost in transmission through the mike. Such a state of affairs could be remedied by building big music halls with good acoustics, on the lines they do in the West.
Mr. Balasubramaniam was born in Gudalur - village in Mayavaram taluk on January 6, 1910 (G.N.B. is very proud of his date of birth because on this day one hundred and five years ago Saint Tyagaraja attained samadhi ). His father, Mr. G.V. Narayanaswami Aiyar, popular Headmaster of the Hindu High School in Triplicane (Madras), was a great lover of music and knew hundreds of kritis also.
Before taking leave, Mr. Balasubramaniam requested me to emphasise the importance of young vidwans cultivating good habits. He said that our elders had rightly put down the period of brahmacharya as ideal for learning. Sage Narada and Saint Hanuman were both brahmacharis.
G.N.B.'s admiration for Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar is unbounded. He considers that Ariyakudi represents the eternal verity in Carnatic music and is confident that his supremacy in the field of music would remain unchallenged.
A happy father of nine children, Mr. Balasubramaniam is a kind parent and a kinder teacher. Among his prominent pupils may be mentioned T.R. Balasubramaniam.