By Rasika Viswanath
Every once in a while there comes a person whose life and
accomplishments touch you very deeply. Savithri Satyamurthy’s life and musical
journey touched the hearts of many accomplished musicians, students, music
connoisseurs as well as rasikas across
eras and cities.
Born to Meenakshi and Ramanathan, Savithri started learning
music in the town of Hosur with violin lessons from Madurai Subramania Iyer. A
move to Trichy opened up a whole new world of music for her. She earned her
stripes under the strict tutelage of Erode Viswanatha Iyer. Her growing years involved spending three years as an
inmate of the Ariyakudi household, when she also honed her violin technique
under guru RajamanickamPillai. Imagine the wealth of musical experience she
would have gained in those early years with these stalwarts as her guiding
light, RajamIyer, K.V.Narayanaswami, Madurai Krishnan as co-disciples and as a
regular accompanist to Dhanammal.
Right from her childhood, Savithri was a meticulous stickler
for discipline and punctuality. She learfnt these lessons from her primary
school teacher in Trichy and lived by it all through her life. Marriage and a
move to Bombay changed the direction of her music career, and the birth of
“Teacher Savithri”. Her musical knowledge and urge to keep learning combined
with her inherent qualities made her set exacting standards and expect nothing
short of perfection from her students.
Her music education continued in Bombay through the visits of stalwarts
like Kumbakonam Rajamanikkam Pillai, Madurai Mani Iyer and Ramnad Krishnan, who
stayed at her residence in Mumbai. Madurai Mani Iyer was especially fond of
Savithri’s special idlis for breakfast.
After seeing her children well settled in life, Savithri
came to Chennai in 1972 and
the move resurrected the concert artist in Savithri. The musicians she began to accompany in
concerts represented the who’s who of the Carnatic music world.
M.S.Subbalakshmi, D.K.Pattamal, T.Muktha, Mani Krishnaswami and R.Vedavalli
were examples.
The shift also saw her blossoming as a teacher under the
guidance of Dr. S. Ramanathan to whom she had also become a regular concert
accompanist. Her students would tremble
at the thought of facing her even if they were a minute late to her classes or
unprepared from the previous lesson. The quality of her teaching was the same
regardless of where when and how she taught. Her students from across
generations having learnt from her several decades apart could come together
and sing the compositions learnt from her in perfect unison. It was this rigour
that produced from among her students a number of concert artists as well as
music lovers and connoisseurs. A strict disciplinarian as a teacher, she was a
deeply loving person and friend to her students outside of her classes.
Complete devotion to music and her gurus as well as implicit
faith in Lord Krishna were facets of her life that really stood out. Her
meticulous maintenance of her music notations drew admiration from not only her
students but many stalwarts as well. A number of Dr. Ramanathan’s compositions
are alive today, thanks to her painstaking notation. She will be fondly
remembered by all her students as well as the music fraternity.
(Rasika Viswanath is a granddaughter and disciple of the
late Savithri Satyamurthy)
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