Bangalore, April 23, 2013:
Lalgudi Jayaraman, who passed away in Chennai, yesterday at the age of 82 after he had a stroke, breathed music, dreamt of music and lived a life only for music.
For a very large number of music lovers across the world, Lalgudi Jayaraman was the musician of the century and not merely a violinist of the century. He was a great composer giving beautiful shape to a large number of old kirtanas thereby embellishing the beauty of ragas in which they were known.
As a teacher he was the greatest teacher ever as his disciples would emotionally agree. Teaching was a passion for him and he put his heart and soul into the job of communicating music to his disciples. As a human being, he was equally great.
Born in the lineage of the saint musician Thyagaraja, the legendary violinist went on to invent a whole new style designed to suit the needs of Indian Classical Music popularly known as ‘Lalgudi Bani’. Lalgudi has flawlessly composed several ‘Kritis’, ’tillanas’ and ‘vanams’.
Hailing from Lalgudi in Tiruchi, Jayaraman accompanied Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, G. N. Balasubramaniam, Madurai Mani Iyer, K.V. Narayanaswamy, Maharajapuram Santhanam, D. K. Jayaraman, M. Balamuralikrishna, T. V. Sankaranarayanan, T. N. Seshagopalan and flute maestro N. Ramani among others.
