Does Peter Principle apply to fine arts?

This morning I was listening to Dr. N Balamuralikrishna’s Nagumomu Ganale, which is a live recording of his rendering in Indian Fine Arts Society, Madras in 1961.  It means that this song was recorded half a century back! Hence this post. 

Way back in 1968 Peter Principle was first put forth by Dr. Laurence J. Peter a psychologist, which, later on he published in his book called ‘Peter Principle’. He observed that in an organizational hierarchy, every employee rises or gets promoted to his or her level of incompetence. The Peter Principle is based on the notion that employees will get promoted as long as they are competent, but at some point will fail to get promoted beyond a certain job, because it has become too challenging for them. Employees rise to their level of incompetence and stay there. Over time, every position in the hierarchy will be filled by someone who is not competent enough to carry out his or her new duties. Dr. Peter explains it in simpler terms, "The cream rises until it sours." So this is Peter Principle.

I now come to fine arts, South Indian Carnatic music. I am a great fan of Dr. N. Balamuralikrishna and I have been listening to his music over two decades now. May be more! In my opinion he is a genius and no one living today can be compared with him! Musician par excellence!

My observation of him over the years now, made me think that Peter Principle probably works in fine arts too.

I have a collection of a single song sung by Balamuralikrishna in different places spread over 38 years. The song is Nagumomu ganale set to Ragam Abheri. He has sung the same song in different places over four decades! The first one was recorded in 1961 and the last one in 1999.  Spread over 38 years or four decades!!!

The one recorded in his early days are superb and you can actually feel the enormous effort that has gone into the song. His popularity as an acclaimed Carnatic singer was not big in those days. He was climbing up the ladder of his career during those times. As it was recorded in the early stages of his career naturally his repertoire would have also been limited.  Ironically with all these limitations the net effect of the songs that were recorded in the early stages of his life are brilliant!

But the same song recorded after he became an acclaimed singer and internationally popular are not so good! (What I actually mean here is that lot of songs that are recorded recently are not so good when you compare them with those recorded during his early days)

Is it because in later stage of life after one reaches the top, one starts to think that whatever he sings will automatically be appreciated? Or do they become complacent? Or because in the later stage he started to experiment more because he no longer fears anything as he has already reached the top position? Or he has become more creative and fears nothing and in that process fails more often?  Or is he indulging in more ‘sondha sahityams’ – own compositions, which are yet to become popular? Or finally is it because they reach the level of incompetence as Peter would say?

Whatever it is, in my opinion there is no one comparable to Dr. Balamuralikrishna and he is the best in today’s South Indian Carnatic music. As my daughter would say “He is God level”

(The above pictures were taken from internet and not taken by me)