A lifelong serenade

Violin virtuoso Lalgudi Jayaraman was not just an exceptional instrumentalist, but was also one of the most accomplished composers Indian classical music has ever seen.

It was ace violinist Lalgudi G Jayaraman’s love for Bengaluru and its weather that had made Nandi Hills his melodic getaway until the late eighties. His idea was to bring senior students away from their home for an “immersive camp for focused learning” and make them sing without any distractions, every year.

The Chennai-based musician, who has more than 100 compositions to his credit, had on one occasion told this reporter, “We need to ‘cleanse the mind’ amidst pristine greenery. Learning to play a song is different from choosing to marinate your mind in misty mornings to help create a vivacious tillana or a varna brimming with raga bhava. Nandi Hills helps me and my students glide over a serene Sahana or a lilting Behag.”

Jayaraman’s son G J R Krishnan goes nostalgic, “We created music all the time, except taking a break for lunch. Different groups under different trees would practice, and my father would go to each group to guide and correct.”

Intrinsic bond

The violin maestro, who set his creativity flowing on many tracks during seven decades of his performing years, had an intrinsic bond with the city from the time he first played at the Chamarajpet Sree Ramaseva Mandali concert as a 17-year-old. Madhuri Vaidyeswar, co-founder of the digital music App Twang, had brought out a multiple-track audio-file in 2015 to mark Jayaraman’s second death anniversary.

The curated package also had a recording of Karnataka’s icon Violin Chowdiah who had spun a lyrical descriptive in his felicitation speech at the Bidaram Krishnappa Mandira in Mysuru, when Jayaraman was newly married in 1958. “Jayarama was born in 1930 as Rama; with his violin-bowing, he became Kodanda Rama, winning multiple hearts he was called Jaya-Rama, and by getting married he has become Kalyana-Rama!” Chowdiah, who was always in awe of the unique flourishes of the Lalgudi bowing, had said to people’s thundering applause.

Lalgudi Jayaraman (Sept 17, 1930), who died in 2013, had his photographic memory intact even though he suffered a stroke in 2006, says his daughter Lalgudi Vijayalaksmi. “His insatiable thirst to create music, the revolutionary changes he brought about in his bowing techniques, and the schooling he imparted to more than 1,000 students across the globe was unparalleled. His unique craft gave rise to a signature style called the ‘Lalgudi Baani,” she adds.

Frontline performing vocalists such as Vishaka Hari, Bombay Jayashri, Saketharaman, who are senior students of Lalgudi, have spoken about the maestro’s penchant for manodharma, or the improvisations that he insisted upon to make the rendering more aesthetic, apart from adding to the cerebral quotient. Speaking about the stylised renditions, Vijayalakshmi explains that the Lalgudi style relies not just on vocalised formatting, but also ensures clarity in the sahitya (lyrics).

And this is transported to instrumentation too, says Krishnan. “Any student of the Lalgudi schooling, trained vocally to start with, will reflect these subtleties, and bring out the minutiae of the Lalgudi lineage. This is where understanding the sahitya helps express the bhava or emotions inherent in the kriti,” adds Krishnan.

Prolific artiste

Son of musician Lalgudi Gopala Iyer, Jayaraman was home tutored and exposed to math, Telugu and Sanskrit. He composed in Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit, and won many awards, including the Padma Bhushan in 2001.

Jayaraman set foot on the music platform as a 12-year-old and had started composing even before he turned 20, more because he “wanted to give expression to his creative disposition.” Lalgudi, as he was referred to, soon started playing alongside the masters of his own generation, including Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Dr M Balamurali Krishna and Chembai V Bhagavatar. “As the Lalgudi schooling had made him sing before he learnt the violin, his accompaniment too reflected his unobtrusive role, never overshadowing the main artiste. But, as a soloist later, he mirrored his prolific persona,” feels Srimathi Brahmanandam, Jayaraman’s younger sister.

Hero of tillanas

“I cannot forget Jayaraman’s tillana in Desh, it has complex framing of swaras in a good mix of speeds. His Pada Varna in praise of Lord Krishna in Charukeshi has charmed many,” renowned vocalist Maharajapuram Santhanam said in a concert before taking up the tillana.

Jayaraman was born for tillanas, people believed, as his mainstream composing was made up of tillanas and varnas. Most of them excitedly journeyed to the Bharatanatyam platforms too, as celebrated dancers felt it was a blessing to be living during Lalgudi Jayaraman’s time for the inspiration they derived from him. “I feel the stature of tillanas gained a new meaning with Jayaraman’s composing,” said dancer Leela Samson as the director of Kalakshetra in 2011.

But that was not all. Danseuse Chitra Visweswaran had once requested Jayaraman to compose a Pada Varna on Tirupathi Balaji. “Pada Varna contains more text and lyric to suit the dance format, and my father regularly visited the Balaji temple in Chennai and in five days, the Shanmukhapriya Varna was ready that Chitra soon danced for,” recalls Vijayalakshmi. Jayaraman believed tillanas and varnas have enough scope for both melody and rhythm as they have “ranjaka prayogas and vishesha sancharas.”

Golden era

It was the golden era of the
1960s when T N Krishnan, M S Gopalakrishnan and Lalgudi Jayaraman were known as the violin trinity. Where Jayaraman scored was in seeing his manodharma (creativity) blossom, which sashayed him across mediums. The violinist not just was seen as a virtuoso, but as a composer he offered four Pada varnas, over 30 Tana varnas and over 40 tillanas. He played jugalbandi with the stars of Hindustani music, he scored and wrote lyrics for a near three-hour musical opera, ‘Jaya Jaya Devi,’ commissioned by the Cleveland Cultural Alliance, and scored for the movie ‘Sringaram’ in 2006 that won him the National Award for best music. Unfortunately, the same year he suffered a stroke. “But, that was hardly a dampener, he still composed three more varnas as he was recuperating, with my mother writing down the notations!” says Krishnan.

Composing was innate, a natural extension of his persona. “While he would often get up in the middle of the night to see his tillana or a varna get completed, his creation of the Yamuna Kalyani tillana is something we will always cherish,” says Vijayalakshmi. “At the serene Ayurveda Vaidyashala in Coimbatore during his two-week stay in 1980, he would sing it in parts to us as he wrote them. After he pieced them all together, he sent the entire sahitya in an inland letter to my mother Rajalakshmi!” recalls Vijayalakshmi.

Even as Jayaraman was engulfed in fame, he was down-to-earth enough to note down his concerts and meetings in his diary since 1949. Notably seen here is his meet with Yehudi Menuhin at his London home in 1965. “I continue to use the violin presented by Menuhin to me,” the frail man soaked in melody had told this reporter in 2012, a year before his bow went silent.