Iyengar gave his first public performance in 1943 at the Bangalore Gayana Samaja. He served as the Producer with the
All India Radio (AIR) in
Bangalore starting 1955. He was reluctant to carry on considering the bureaucratic and organisational demands of the post, and that he perform for the AIR at need, alongside auditioning and selecting musicians for the same. However, he was persuaded to stay by
Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, who was a chief producer with the AIR based in
Madras (now Chennai), assuring him of flexible hours and fewer burdens of administration. Iyendar put together
Gita Bharati for the AIR, Bangalore, which juxtaposed the compositions of
Tyagaraja and
Muthuswami Dikshitar with the Bengali songs of
Rabindranath Tagore, based on their musical structure. These unusual pieces had been composed by Tagore after his trip to southern India in the 1920s that included a visit to the Mysore court. Iyengar later became the first
Kannadiga and
vanika to perform for AIR's national programme. He was against
amplification as he felt that it robbed the music of its nuances and often distorted the tone. Iyengar's style of playing is sometimes referred to as the Mysore style. This distinctive style is marked by the movements from one note to another being achieved with the playing fingers (the index and middle fingers of the left hand) parted. This, along with his prolonged, medieval string plucking style enabled him to achieve the continuity of sound. Iyengar's son Balakrishna recalled that despite his father being "a purist, he listened to western music and
Fritz Kreisler was one of his favorites. Members of his family recalled that his all-time favorite pieces were by German and Austrian musicians. The
University of Mysore conferred upon Iyengar an honorary doctorate in 1975. Iyengar died of
hepatitis C on 8 October 1997. == Awards ==