Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu

Dwaram Venkataswamy Naidu was a violinist of Vizianagaram in the first half of the 20th century.¹ He taught for many years at the town’s famous music college.¹² Musicians of his day saw him as an innovator, who showed what the violin could do in Carnatic music.¹

Fiddle Naidu

The Census handbook of Vizianagaram district (2011) says he was born into a family of musicians in 1893.¹ His natural gift for the violin earned him the name “Fiddle Naidu” when he was only fourteen.¹

His talent was first made known in Vizianagaram itself. An article in Bharati (1978) on Ganti Sastri, who edited the Kalyani magazine there, says that Sastri first brought out the gifts of “Fiddle Naidu” in the pages of Kalyani.³ Sastri also honoured him at a public meeting, and this led the way to the honours he received later.³ Naidu, the article adds, held Ganti Sastri in great respect.³

The music college of Vizianagaram

In 1919, at the age of 25, he was invited to join the music college at Vizianagaram as professor of violin.¹ The Census handbook of 1981 remembers him as “the renowned wizard on Violin” who taught there.² When Adibhatla Narayana Dasu retired in 1936, Naidu became the principal of the college.¹

His art

The 2011 handbook describes his playing. He proved that the violin could be used to play Carnatic music on a par with older instruments such as the veena.¹ He was known for a well-developed soft bowing, joined with a firm fingering.¹ The handbook says the sweetness of his playing impressed Yehudi Menuhin and Rabindranath Tagore.¹ His compositions were still popular, and well-known poets wrote words for them.¹

Younger artists looked to him as a teacher. An article in Bharati in December 1980, on the poet Narayana Babu, names Dwaram Venkataswamy and Devulapalli Krishnasastri as his two gurus, in music and in literature.⁴

Honours

The Madras Music Academy gave him the title Sangeetha Kalanidhi in 1941.¹ The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 1959.¹ He died in 1964.¹

Footnotes

1. Census of India 2011, Andhra Pradesh: District Census Handbook, Vizianagaram, Part XII-A (2014), p. 153 (censusindia.gov.in↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴

2. Census of India 1981, Andhra Pradesh: District Census Handbook, Vizianagaram District (1986), PDF p. 2 (censusindia.gov.in↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

3. “Nenerigina Ganti Sastri garu” (Ganti Sastri as I knew him), in “Kalagura Gampa”, Bharati, Vol. 55, No. 3 (March 1978), p. 64 (in Telugu) (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Article on the poet Narayana Babu, Bharati, Vol. 57, No. 12 (December 1980), PDF p. 28 (in Telugu) (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩