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 Bharatha
Rathna M.S. Subbalakshmi, popularly called MS, was
perhaps the most charasmatic and popular Carnatic
musician we have known. She captured the popular
imagination like no other and was the face of
classical music for both the masses and critics for
over 6 decades.
M.S. Subbalakshmi was born in the temple town of
Madurai on September 16th, 1916, to veena player
Shanmukhavadivu. Her Grandmother Akkammal was a
violinist. Her father, a lawyer by profession, was a
music lover.
Her first guru Madurai Srinivasa Iyengar passed away
rather too soon. But she kept practicing on her own
and having a musician mother helped a lot. Her first
recording was at the age of ten, when she recorded a
couple of songs for HMV in Madras.
She started giving concerts at a tender age, first
accompanying her mother and then as a solo vocalist.
She was the child prodigy of Madurai. She has by now
given concerts all over the world like the ones at
Edinburgh festival and at the United Nations,
Carnegie Hall as the the inagural concert at the
festival of India in London in 1982.
In 1940 she married Sadasivam, a well known figure
in the Madras Congress circle, and a protege of
Rajaji. They had met four years earlier and with his
wide connections in the journalistic and political
world, he became instrumental in the continued
success of her already flourishing career. She
started acting in Films too, in 1938. Her movies
were quite successful and her final movie "Meera"
released both in Hindi and Tamil was a mega hit.
After that she quit movies to concentrate solely on
music. The money from movies went into the magazine
Kalki.
A series of top musicians, notable among them
Semmangudi, Musiri, Brinda, composer Papanasam
Sivan, 'bhajan' singer Sidheswari Devi of Banares,
were persuaded to teach M.S. fresh compositions and
styles of singing. Kalki magazine played a big role
in projecting M.S. as a saintly musician, that has
endured to this day.
M.S., the Nightingale of Carnatic Music, in the
cultural renaissance of the 1940s and the succeeding
decades is a legend. She has become an institution
and the face & voice of the classical traditions of
carnatic music. Thousands see her as the embodiment
of grace and tradition of Indian womanhood - kind,
considerate, compassionate, self-spoken, self-sacrifying
and somewhat unworldly.
She has got every award a musician in India can get
... from "Isai Vani" in 1940 to Bharath Rathna in
1998. Her husband and inspiration Sadasivam passed
away in 1997, after which she stopped giving public
concerts. MS passed away on 11th Dec 2004, leaving
behind her large repertoire of classical, bhajan and
film recordings.
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