99th Annual Conference of The Music Academy - Day 07

The first lecture of the day was titled “Compositions on Muthuswami Dikshitar” and was presented by Vidushi Shyamala Venkateswaran along with her disciples. Vidushi Shyamala Venkateswaran is one of the two Sangita Kala Acharyas for this year. In his introduction, V. Sriram observed that while there is an enormous body of compositions dedicated to Sri Tyagaraja, the corpus of songs composed on Dikshitar is comparatively smaller. A carefully chosen selection from that corpus formed the scope of this lecture.

The compositions discussed were created by Dikshitar’s disciples and musical descendants, including members of the Tanjore Quartet, Mysore Vasudevachar, Kotiswara Iyer, Dr. V. Raghavan, M. D. Ramanathan, and Dr. Balamuralikrishna. The Tanjore Quartet composed a set of nine songs, with the first one aptly set in Mayamalavagowla. It was clearly explained how this composition, “Maya Theertha Swaroopini,” followed the template established by Dikshitar and mirrored the structural framework of his Mayamalavagowla composition, “Sri Nathadi Guruguho.”

The lecture then moved on to the remaining compositions in this set, which were composed in the ragas Binnashadjam, Kambhoji, Sailadekshakshi, Varali, Pantuvarali, Ramapriya, Purvikalyani, and Shanmukhapriya. A few of these pieces were rendered by Vidushi Shyamala’s disciples, while she provided insightful commentary on their salient features.

This was followed by a ragamalika composed by Sangita Kalanidhi Mysore Vasudevachar. Set in six ragas, the composition offers a musical portrayal of Dikshitar’s life. Next came a composition in Devamanohari by Kotiswara Iyer. To mark the 200th birth anniversary of Dikshitar, M. D. Ramanathan composed a ragamalika viruttam describing Dikshitar’s qualities as a composer. The penultimate piece presented was a composition by Dr. Balamuralikrishna in the raga Sucharita. The lecture concluded with a verse composed by Dr. V. Raghavan.

One distinctive feature of Dikshitar’s compositional style is the format he adopted, which differs from the more common pallavi, anupallavi, and multiple charanams structure. Instead, many of his compositions follow a pallavi, anupallavi, and swaram format. The second lecture of the day focused on this aspect of his work. Sangita Kala Acharya Dr. R. S. Jayalakshmi presented a lecture titled “Chittaswarams for Muthuswami Dikshitar’s Compositions in the Sangita Sampradaya Pradarshini.”

The swarams discussed in this lecture are variously referred to as muktayi swarams or chitta swarams. Later in the presentation, there was also a reference to compositions containing two swaram sections, one identified as a muktayi swaram and the other simply as a swaram.

Dr. Jayalakshmi began with a discussion on swara graham, a topic that was somewhat beyond my comprehension. I suspect this section would have been particularly engaging for students of music and listeners with more advanced training. Once again, Dikshitar’s fondness for wordplay came to the fore through an exploration of the palindromic swarams found in the selected compositions.

A comparison of the various available sources highlighted how challenging it is to determine what constituted the original composition, what may have been added later, and what could possibly be the result of errors during documentation. There was also a discussion on why certain compositions in specific ragas do not contain swaram passages.

I found it particularly interesting to learn that Dikshitar also tuned compositions written by others, in addition to composing his own. One such example discussed was a song by the Ettayapuram Maharaja, which Dikshitar set to the raga Atana.

The post presentation discussion continued along similar lines, examining original compositions, later additions, and subsequent modifications. The fact that the discussion lasted nearly as long as the presentation itself was a clear indication of the audience’s deep engagement and passion for the subject.