Compositions in Melakartha ragas
Ramana Mani
Around the turn of the century, Kotiswara Iyer composed Kanda
Ganamudham - a collection of kritis in all the 72 Melakartas. After
Maha Vaidhyanatha Iyer's mela ragamalika, I believe this was the first
set of compositions in all the 72 Melakartas.
Vidwan S. Rajam has released a set of 10 cassettes with all these
kritis. I believe it was produced by the Pittsburgh Venkateswara
Temple.
Many of these kritis were sung regularly by prominent singers like
MLV, S. Kalyanaraman, Vairamangalam Lakshminarayanan etc.
Ramana
P.S. Muttuswami Dikshitar has also composed kritis in (almost??) all
the 72 melakartas - however he followed the asampoorna melakarta
scheme of Venkatamakhin.
Srini Pichumani
>|>
>|> An interesting note: Papanasam Sivan has written the Foreword to Kanda
>|> Ganamudham where he says that (a loose translation) " our Vidwans due
>|> to their laziness have not sung these (Vivadi) Ragas and so
>|> some of these Vidwans even claim that there are only 32 Melakartas.."
>|> If I remember right Sivan uses the words "MuyaRchiyinmai" and "SOmbal"
>|> to describe the attitude of the anti-Vivadi clan.
It is somewhat unfortunate that Papanasam Sivan said this. Maybe he
meant to gently encourage the vidvans to sing these kritis of Koteesvara
Iyer. It would be interesting to know how many melakartas Papanasam
Sivan has used in his compositions - after all, he has composed over
2000 kritis, correct ? - or how many melakartas he attempted to sing
in his own lifetime...
Ramasubramaniam wrote:
>
>I am not sure if it is "SOmbal" which is responsible for some melakarthas
>or even janya ragas not heard often. Not every one of the melakarthas sound
>pleasing. If a piece of music does not appeal to the listener, it is unlikely
>that it is heard. One can't be fair to every melakartha just because it is
>"equivalent" by some scheme to another melakartha.
Exactly. And just because a Koteesvara Iyer or Balamurali or S.Rajam
or Balachander composed/sang/played assiduously in these melakartas,
these scales do not become a full fledged melodic entity like the
ragas of ancient and recent vintage, or even brand new scales with
greater "melodic worth". Some of their attempts are laudable but an
equivalent or greater number of their attempts end in "ragas by
proclamation". Well, no one denies them their first amendment rights :-)
Consider this if you will:
The detractors of the 72-melakarta system have been no lazy blokes
themselves. Practically, the entire peria mElam community of
nAdasvara/tavil vidvAns have been against this system and were led
in their opposition by stalwarts like Madurai Ponnuswami Pillai
earlier on in this century. Vidvans like Semmangudi, Madurai Mani,
who were strongly inspired by their music have also voiced their
opinion against this system. Even GNB, despite his other innovations
and successes, does not seem to have laid much store by these scales.
(however, his disciple S.Kalyanaraman has brilliantly sung some of
the rare melakartas - more often in their form as envisaged in the
asampurNa paddhati via Dikshitar kritis like kalAvati kamalAsana
yuvati - and even dvi-madhyama ragas)
Prof.V.Subramaniam of Carleton University, Canada, while writing
on Muttu Tandavar, a key pre-Tyagaraja composer, says that the
scientization of the raga system by Venkatamakhi has traditionally
pitted people into 2 camps - with the nAdasvara community forming
a major part of those opposing it.
Rangaramanuja Iyengar says, after reviewing 690 kritis of Tyagaraja
carefully, that some of the kritis strayed into the vivAdi wilderness
in the confusion of the late 1800s; and he opines that, Tyagaraja
being the perfect aesthete that he was, would not have composed
in these scales which were not even blessed by their progenitor...
>I would like to learn about how old are some of the ragas. My generic question
>is how old is rAga "x". Is there any documentation that may answer this
>question?
This is a whole new can of worms.
You will have to do some serious musicological reading to get good
answers to such questions. There is a lot of source material
available in the form of books, dissertations etc which deal with
ragas from ancient and medieval treatises e.g. The Ragas of Somanatha
by Emmie Te Nijenhuis. An example of a recent publication is
Prof.SRJ's "Ragas of the Sangita Saramrta" where he discusses the
treatise of Tulaja Maharaja of Tanjore (circa 1730).
There is the research on the 103 Panns and their modern equivalents.
Here are some examples : Prof.S.Ramanathan's deduction that the
Mullai paN was the equivalent of Mohanam was accepted after much
discussion in the 50s at the paN research conferences. Recently,
Prof.T.Viswanathan played the tEvAram "kAdalAhi kasindu" in the
traditionally intended paN - kausikam - at a SPICMACAY concert in
Ann Arbor; in both his notes, and the discussion on the previous
day, he pointed out that the modern Bhairavi (which of course has
a lot more embellishments that have accrued over the centuries)
has its antecedents in this paN.
K.C.D.Brhaspati has pointed out that there were medieval processes
like "svara-vyAtyAsa" or interchange of svaras from komal to tIvra
and vice versa in the lower and/or higher tetrachords by which
ancient scales like shrI raga changed between the northern
and southern systems.
Similarly, Dr.N.Ramanathan's articles discuss the history of rAgas
like madhyamAvati over the medieval centuries as svara nomenclatures
changed, as notions of fixed tonic and fifth came about, and as
authors kept insisting that only the shaDja grAma of Bharata has
survived.
-Srini.