& June 2001 |
Internet Edition
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Spotlight (Continued) (Reproduced
from Sruti 201 - June 2001)
Tyagaraja Aradhana
A Remarkable Samajam Sri Sadguru
Sangeeta Samajam, in Purasawalkam, Chennai,
came into being in 1955, as a result of the merger of three other
institutions. The moving
spirits behind this great achievement were violin vidwan
T.R. Ratnavelu, M.V. Doreswamy
Iyengar, P.B. Chittibabu,
Prof. P. Sambamoorthy, Sangeeta
Bhushanam R.T. Srinivasa,
P.P. Govindan and some others. These men were
motivated by their desire to conduct the aradhana of Tyagaraja every
year in a meaningful manner. This the Samajam has
been doing ever since its inception; only the venue has changed from the Through his
untiring efforts, Doreswamy Iyengar
(who, alas, is no more) could muster the support of a galaxy of vidwans like Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Musiri Subramania Iyer, K.V. Narayanaswamy,
N. Ramani, T.K. Govinda Rao, Therazhandur
V. Srinivasachari, Srirangam V.S. Krishnamurthy
Rao, G.N. Dandapani, B.V. Raman & B.V. Laksmanan, P.S. Narayanaswamy,
Calcutta Krishnamurti, A. Sundaresan,
S. Nataraja Iyer, M.N. Krishnaswamy,
P.K. Madurai, Ramnad A. Eswaran,
Palghat V.A. Sundaram, Sangottai
M. Sundararajan, Kalpakam
Swaminathan, J. Ganapathy, D. Damodaran, Nanganallur V. Ramanathan, M.V. Vidya Shankar, T.N. Sriraman, D. Govindarajan, B. Karthikeyan,
S. Of course, the
redoubtable Prof. P. Sambamoorthy, who was the Samajam's first President, also played an important role
in building it up. Too, another
stalwart, Dr. R. Krishnaswami- enduringly known as
Dr. R.K.- an ardent Tyagaraja
devotee, brought into play his enormous energy and influence to bear on
the steady growth of the Samajam over the years,
with admirable dedication and religious fervour.
As part of its
annual observance of the aradhana, the Samajam conducts an akhandam- a
24-hour, non-stop programme at which different
musicians sing different compositions of Tyagaraja,
without repeating any and restricting themselves to the kalpita
or precomposed aspect. In 1980, celebrating its
silver jubilee as well, it also presented, over the 25 days between 6
February and 2 March, a series of music recitals in different parts of
Chennai. The Samaja celebrated its golden jubilee with an extended akhandam of 50 hours, between 28 February and The Samaja followed the tradition in 1991, its diamond
jubilee year, The akhandam, spanning 60 hours, was
conducted under the guidance of a special committee consisting of Semmangudi R. Srinivasa Iyer as
President, T.K. Govinda Rao as Secretary and
R. Yagnaraman of Sri Krishna Gana
Sabha as convenor. It
covered 533 songs of Tyagaraja, rendered by 55 vidwans and vidushi-s without
the manodharma aspects of raga alapana,
niraval and swaraprastara.
(The total number of published Tyagaraja
compositions is about 700). Each one of the participating musicians sang at
least one or two rare compositions- thus helping achieve the main purpose of
the akhandam-s, which is to make better known more
and more of the not-so-well-known compositions of the savant. Notably. members of the Ramakrishna Bhajana
Mandali brought out 20 compositions. Likewise the
singers sent by Sadguru
Samajam of Tiruchi
presented, in two long sessions of four hours each and that too in the wee
hours of the night, about 80 songs in all, drawn from the divyanama keertana-s and the
two opera-s, namely, Prahlada Bhakti
Vijayam and Nauka Charitram. Some musicians
scheduled to take part in the akhandam did not turn
up. At very short notice, a few others, including M.V. Doreswamy
Iyengar, completed the songs allotted to the
absentees, which included some rare kriti-s.
The rare
compositions of Tyagaraja rendered during the akhandam included those taught
by Semmangudi Srinivasa
Iyer (10), T.M. Thiagarajan (50), and Lalgudi Jayaraman (20), to their disciples and others
eager to learn. Besides
observing the annual aradhana of Tyagaraja in Purasawalkam since
its inception in 1955, and conducting akhanda gana sessions in
Chennai, the Samaja has also been engaged in
various other musically constructive activities. l It has been organising
akhandam-s in Tiruvaiyaru
and Tiruvarur every year. l It has been arranging
group-singing of Tyagaraja's compositions on every Panchami day in Purasawalkam.
Whenever a Bahula Panchami
falls on a holiday, the singing session is conducted as far as possible in
one or another of the places of pilgrimages visited by the savant, such as Kovoor, Tiruvotriyur, Kanchipuram, Tirupati and
Srirangam. On such occasions, the participating musicians render the kshetra kriti-s sung by Tyagaraja in praise of the presiding deity.
SAMUDRI ARCHIVES
l The Samajam has provided funds for the repair, renovation, mahasamprokshanam and kumbhabhishekam
of Tyagaraja's samadhi in
Tiruvaiyaru, and for monthly observance of aradhana in that town. l The Samajam has further put up marble-stone
slabs inscribed with the texts of the relevant compositions of Tyagaraja, not only in Tiruvaiyaru
but also at the other kshetra-s he visited. The selfless dedication of the late Srirangam Sundaram Iyer, a retired mail sorter, in this regard can
never be forgotten. All this would
not have been possible without the unflinching
support, enthusiasm and encouragement of the numerous musicians associated
with the Samajam as well as of music-lovers
and munificent donors. It has been an enviable
cooperative endeavour of wide dimensions not
seen l The Samajam has also brought out a dozen and more
publications covering the Srirangam, Lalgudi, Kovoor, Tiruvotriyur and Tiruvaiyaru kshetra kriti-s, and the Tirupati
and Kanchipuram kshetra kriti-s, as well as the Ghana Raga Pancharatna
kriti-s, with notations by Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Lalgudi Jayaraman and T.K. Govinda
Rao who, incidentally, accounts for more than a moiety of these kriti-s. Apart from the
Samajam, the financiers of these publications were
N. Ramaswami Iyengar of Swadesamitran, Dr. R. Krishnaswamy,
Bombay Sisters C. Saroja
and C. Lalitha, R. Suryanarayanan and the disciples
of mridanga maestro Palani
Subramania Pillai.
Interestingly enough, these publications were released at the respective kshetra-s by distinguished personalities during Tyagaraja aradhana observances.
The Samajam has also distri-buted
attractive and authentic pictures of Tyagaraja for
daily The crowning
glory of the Samajam is the publication
in a single volume, in Tamil, of 675 Tyagaraja
compositions with lyrics, meanings and an index of proper pronunciations,
which has proved to be an invaluable guide to the vast majority of
Tamil-speaking professional and amateur musicians, students and rasika-s not much conversant with Telugu, the bard's own
tongue. This book,
titled Sree Tyagarajaswami
Keertanaigal, was released by V.V. Giri, then President of India, at
Tyagaraja's samadhi in Tiruvaiyaru during the aradhana
festival in 1967. The cost of The labour of love bestowed by the
indefatigable T.S. Parthasarathy is writ
large on every page of the volume between its two covers. It was the veteran
Dr. R. Krishnaswamy's single-minded dedication to Tyagaraja that enabled the Samajam
to add to its credit this remarkable achievement. Looking to the
future, Sri Sadguru Sangeeta
Samajam has a very ambitious project: to
build a tape library of all available compositions of Tyagaraja.
Another project to be taken up subsequently is aimed at establishing an K.J. IYENGAR |
