Two Illustrious Contemporary Vaggeyakaras:
Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar & Mysore Vasudevacharya
Ashok Madhav (madhav_pgh@yahoo.com)
The 18th, 19th and 20th
centuries was the golden era for Carnatic music. After the Music Trinity,many
vaggeyakaras (composers) of prominence like Walajapet Krishnaswamy Bhagavatar,
Mysore Sadashiva Rao, Patnam Subramanya Iyer, Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan, Pallavi
Seshayyar and several others appeared.
Of these, two prominent vaggeyakaras are
mentioned here. One is Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar (Poochi) and the other is
Mysore Vasudevacharya (MV). Both of them were contemporaries and they
were disciples of Patnam Subramanya Iyer in Tiruvaiyaru and so they
belong to the sishya parampara of Tyagaraja through Manambuchavadi
Venkatasubbayya, who was the guru of Patnam Subramanya Iyer.
Poochi (1860-1919) was a senior disciple of
Patnam and MV joined the group later in 1900. Mys. V has documented his
experiences while he was undergoing gurukulam with Patnam in his book, which is
interesting to read. Both these musicians turned out to be good composers.
Poochi has composed most of his kritis in
Telugu and only one or two in Sanskrit, whereas MV has composed both in Telugu
and Sanskrit. They have both composed different forms like varnams, kritis,
javalis, thillanas, ragamalikas etc.
Poochi was born in Ramanathapuram in 1860 and
he came under the tutelage of Patnam around 1895 or so. He had a number
of disciples (such as Kandanur Srinivasa Iyengar, Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar,
Salem Doraiswamy Iyengar, Kariakuid Rajamani Iyengar, Kuttalam Srinivasa Iyer)
and the prominent among them was Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar. Poochi was
an asthana vidwan of Ramanathapuram court. Besides using the common
ragas, he employed ragas like Megharanjani, Nathabhairavi, Paras and a newly
created raga ‘Suraranjani’. He handled common talas for his kritis.
However, he has composed tillanas in ‘Lakshmisha’ tala with 25 aksharams and
another tillana with the 19 akshara tala called ‘Ragavardhini’.
Poochi made close to 100 compositions. Some of
these have nice chittaswarams too. For example, both Saraguna palimpa
(Kedaragoula) and Anudinamunu gavumaiyya (Begada) have been embellished with
beautiful chittaswarams. Some of his popular kritis include:
Poochi composed a kriti - Sadguru Swamiki in
rithigowla in praise of Tyagaraja. He also published his kritis with the
assistance from Salem Chellam Iyengar. People have always wondered how the
prefix ’Poochi’ was attached to his name. Poochi was a short man and he used to
walk fast and so he was nicknamed ‘Poochi’ , which means an insect in Tamil.
(The little man moved around so fast like an insect).
Mysore Vasudevachari was born in Mysore in
1865 and he did gurukulavasam with Patnam Subramanya Iyer from 1900-1906. Among
MV’s compositions (which number about 200) the more popular ones are
For his compositions, MV has used many common
ragas plus many uncommon ragas like Sunadavinodini (new raga), Megharanjani,
Pushpalatika, Shudda salavi etc. He has also employed several types of talams
such as chaturasra rupaka, tishra rupaka, adi, ata, tishra triputa, khanda
triputa,mishra triputa, mishra jampa etc in his compositions. Mys. V has
composed captivating chittaswarams for some of his kritis. Two examples will
suffice here. “Rara-Rajeevalochana” in Mohanam and “Sri Chamundeshwari” in
Bilahari. It is noteworthy that MV has elevated the stature of minor ragas like
Abheri (Bhajare re manasa), Behag (Bhavayeham Raghuveeram) and Khamas
(Brochevarevarura) by composing major kritis in them. Note that these kritis
were composed at the turn of 20 th century even before these ragas were
popularly rendered. (Poochi has used both Behag and Khamas for composing
Javalis only). Another interesting aspect is that MV introduced Kakali nishadam
for his Khamas instead of the conventional kaishiki nishadam as in Tyagaraja’s
Khamas. MV’s Khamas is equally appealing raga also. Around 1930’s ,
Maharajapuram Vishwanatha Iyer rendered MV’s kriti- ‘Brochevarevarura’ in
Khamas with much polish in his concert. MV, who happened to be at the concert
remarked to Vishwanatha Iyer “My composition like a simple girl was
metamorphosed into a beautiful damsel. That is how well you beautified the
kriti with your embellishments” . MV published 150 of his compositions himself.
MV has also composed a kriti-“Srimadadi Tyagaraja guruvaram” in Kalyani in
praise of Tyagaraja.
He too trained a number of disciples (Yoga
narasimham,V.Ramarathnam, N.Chennakeshavaiah, C.Rangaiah, BK.Padmanabha Rao,
CR.Mani, D.Paushpathi and others ) both in Mysore and Kalakshetra, Madras. He
was honored by the Music Academy with a title of Sangeetha Kalanidhi.
Earlier, he was a teacher of music to Maharaja Jayachamaraja Wodeyar in Mysore.
He became an asthana vidwan of Mysore Court. Almost when MV was in his
60’s, he was invited by Rukmini Devi Arundale to join the Kalakshetra faculty.
He became in charge of the music department .While in Kalakshetra, he composed
several javalis and thillanas for the benefit of dance students in the school.
Both these illustrious composers, Poochi and
MV, have used their own names as mudras for their compositions.