Tiruppamburam Natarajasundaram Pillai hailed from a family of musicians who
migrated from Kalyancolapuram near Mayavaram to Tiruppamburam. He was born on
15th December 1869 as the son of a nagasvaram vidvan Swaminatha Pillai.
He and his brother Sivasubrahmaniam were put under the tutelage of Injikkudi
Kumarappillai. After learning the instrument, their father wanted them to
increase their keertana repertoires and located Umayalpuram Duraswamy Ayyar and
Sattanur Panchanadha Iyer who were then considered the repositories of Tyagaraja
and Dikshitar’s compositions, respectively.Swaminatha Pillai brought these two
musicians to his town and made his sons learn under them. Natarajasundaram
Pillai and Sivasubrahmanya Pillai started the tradition of nadaswaram rendering
as a duet. It was said that Ramanaathapuram Srinivasa Iyengar and Sarabha Sastri
were fond of their music. Sarabha Sastry is also said to have shown his
harikatha nirupanams to Natarajasundaram Pillai to seek his opinions on them.
The tavil vidvans who accompanied them include Srivanchiyam Govinda Pillai,
Mannargudi Pallupakkiri Pillai, Ammapettai Pakkiri Pillai Vazhuvur Muttuviru
Pillai etc. Among nagasvara vidwans, it was the more popular approach to learn
musical compositions as svaras and ignore the role of sahitya as it was not
applicable to an instrument. However the composition will shine only if the
sahitya elements are incorporated with the necessary blowing techniques such as
akaram and tuttukaram at the appropriate places. Natarajasundaram and his
brother were said to have achieved fame in playing compositions on the
nagasvaram keeping in mind the sahitya bhava, as well.
Veena Dhanammal also learnt her repertoire of Dikshitar Krtis from Sattanur
Panchanada Iyer and is said to have spoken highly of the raga bhava that she
found in Panchanada Iyer's renditions. Once, after many years Natarajasundaram
Pillai came to visit Dhanammal and suggested that they should sing together a
few Dikshitar kritis that they had learnt from their Ayya. It is said that both
sang and found, that after all those years there was not a whit of difference in
their versions. Both had retained the music to the minutest sangati.
Natarajasundaram Pillai published a collection of Dikshitar compositions as he
learnt from Sattanur Panchanada Iyer (who inturn learnt from Tiruvarur Shuddha
Maddalam Tambiyappa Pillai) titled Dikshita Kirtana Prakashika. This edition was
in Tamil and contained 50 notated compositions of Muttuswami Dikshitar. It
serves today as an authentic cross-reference of the compositions of Dikshitar
outside of the Subbarama Dikshitar lineage.
The famous flautist Tiruppamburam Svaminatha Pillai was his son. His other sons
include Somasundaram Pillai who served as the principal of the Pazhani temple
Nagasvaram school and Sivasubrahmanya Pillai , the lecturer of Annamalai
University. He passed away in the year 16.11.1938.