Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer's musical career has been an odyssey of tribulation and triumph. There have been several periods of enforced obscurity in his career through which he has battled with a heroic will and iron determination. If there is something even more desperate than for Samson to be 'eyeless in Gaza', it is for a musician to be let down by his voice. Semmangudi has been 'voiceless' at various irregular intervals but has come through the years of exile with greater vigour and command over his voice than before. Semmangudi's voice is not a gift of the Gods. It is what he has shaped for himself with unceasing exercise and probably unpalatable medication. In the 'thirties, one remembers, when there were so many other stalwart singers to contend with, Semmangudi's efforts to keep his voice in trim was something like a penance in the midst of the five fires ('panchagni'). Even so, the voice was as likely to go to seed, if not exercised for two days consecutively. It is this physical odds against his voice that has influenced his style.

The rhetoric in his music is the means by which he could be confident of mobilising his vocal energies to the artistic utterance he intends to make. The processional cadence of his phrasing in 'raga' or 'swara' was the result of his determination to have all the notes in marital order. Each 'swara' had to be pegged to its place with an atomic bond if it was to be prevented from slipping down. There is in his music none of the easy grace of phrases which streaked like lightning in Maharajapuram's music, though Semmangudi learnt his music from Maharajapuram also. There is more of the guttural and nasal in his music than of the palatal and the labial. This is not an index of his inadequacy but of his superb heroism. It I a cheap gibe to keep count of the number of times a note has gone out of place in Semmangudi's music. Such failings do not detract from the magnificent style of his music. His ideas permeate where perhaps his voice cannot.

Semmangudi's music has to be approached as one would approach vintage wines. His musical phrases have to be rolled in the mind as quality wine has to be rolled in the tongue, before assimilation. Whether in the stately pace of a "Ksheenamai tiruga" or "Chetasri Balakrishnam" or in the galloping tempo of "Makelara vicharamu", the quality of Semmangudi's music has a headiness that leaves one intoxicated. The music Semmangudi brings before our mind's eye a pageant of aristocratic gaiety and joie de vivre. If Semmangudi tries to bring a note of introvert philosophy into his musical utterances, it stands out as something contrived, for his natural metier is the assertion of the grandeur that surrounds life. He puts a lot of fervour in the singing of 'slokas', but the music in which the 'slokas' are couched chafes impatiently like a spirited steed to be given the reins in the succeeding composition.

Of late Semmangudi's music seems to have taken a fresh lease of youthfulness. His concert from AIR Madras recently showed him not to be lacking in the vigour of forcefulness of utterance that is the stamp of his music. Hid Todi was of honourable vintage. After a great many years, one could listen to the composition, "amba nadu vinnapamu".