M.S. Subbulakshmi

Musical career and style

In 1926, at age 10, Subbulakshmi recorded her first piece, the Tamil song “Maragatha Vadivu,” at the Twin Recording Company studio in Madras. The following year she gave her first public performance, in Trichinopoly (now Tiruchirappalli). In 1933 she performed at the Madras Music Academy, becoming the first woman to sing at its annual conference. Her recital was well received by senior musicians, scholars, and connoisseurs.

Her vocal style evolved throughout her career. Subbulakshmi’s early performances were marked by technical agility, clear brigas (fast-paced musical phrases), and an expressive tone influenced in part by vocalist G.N. Balasubramaniam. Over time she focused more on bhajans (devotional music).

Though sometimes critiqued by purists of classical music for favoring bhajans and lighter devotional compositions, she maintained a command of Carnatic music. She performed challenging pieces, such as Melaragamalika—a composition spanning 72 ragas—and several ragam-tanam-pallavis, a Carnatic form combining melodic and rhythmic improvisation.

Subbulakshmi performed live concerts, recorded and released albums, and sang playback for movies in multiple languages, including Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati, and Bengali. Her repertoire included works by Carnatic composer Tyagaraja, Sanskrit author Tulsidas, Hindi poet-saint Kabir, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, and Telugu composer Annamacharya. Her recordings of “Bhajagovindam,” “Hanuman Chalisa,” and “Venkateswara Suprabhatam” remain popular.

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Subbulakshmi’s music resonated with listeners across the country. Moved by her performance at a concert in New Delhi in the late 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, reportedly said:

Who am I, a mere prime minister before a queen, a queen of music.

Subbulakshmi helped bring Carnatic music to international audiences. She performed at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1963, the United Nations General Assembly in New York on UN Day in 1966, Carnegie Hall in New York in 1977, and Royal Albert Hall in London in 1982. At the UN she performed “Maitreem Bhajata,” a Sanskrit benediction composed by Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, the Sage of Kanchi.

Film career

Subbulakshmi acted in six films between 1938 and 1947—five in Tamil and one in Hindi, the latter a remake of her Tamil film Meera. Her debut movie, Sevasadanam (1938; “House of Service”), was directed by K. Subrahmanyam and addressed themes of women’s emancipation and prostitution. In 1940 she and Sadasivam produced Sakuntalai, based on poet and dramatist Kalidasa’s Sanskrit play Abhijnanashakuntala (“The Recognition of Shakuntala”). The film was a critical and commercial success and featured some of Subbulakshmi’s celebrated film songs. She is best known for her iconic portrayal of Mira Bai, the 16th-century saint-poet, in the film Meera (1945, Tamil; 1947, Hindi). The film expanded her audience across India. At the Delhi premiere of the Hindi version of Meera, political activist Sarojini Naidu reportedly relinquished her own title—Nightingale of India—in Subbulakshmi’s honor. Following Meera, Subbulakshmi withdrew from cinema to focus exclusively on music.

Charity through music

Subbulakshmi gave more than 200 benefit concerts during her lifetime, raising funds for institutions such as the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust, which provided health and welfare services to women and children in rural India; Sankara Nethralaya, an eye hospital in Chennai; the Cancer Institute in Chennai; and the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, the trust that administers temples including the Venkateswara Temple in Tirumala, Andhra Pradesh. Together with Sadasivam, she donated earnings from concerts and recordings to religious and social causes.