Mysore
Vasudevacharya
(1865-1961)
Mysore
Vasudevacharya was a towering musical personality
encompassing a part of the last century and major part of this
century-having
lived for 96 years. He is a composer of great merit, tracing his
musical
lineage to Saint Tyagaraja through Manambuchavadi Venkatasubbayyar and
Patnam Subramania Iyer.
Young
Vasudeva learnt music initially from Veena
Padmanabhayya of Mysore. Having come to know of his precocious talents
in music, the Maharaja of Mysore arranged for the teenager, Vasudeva be
sent to Tiruvaiyaru to learn music under Patnam Subramania Iyer. There
Vasudeva started his gurukulavasam at his mentor's. After he finished
this
stint in Tiruvaiyaru, Vasudeva came back to Mysore and he was appointed
as an Asthana vidwan of the Royal court in Mysore palace. Much later in
his life, he came to Madras on the invitation of Rukmini Arundale to
join
the faculty at the famed Kalakshetra school of music and fine arts. He
became the principal of the school eventually. His contemporaries at
the
Kalakshetra were stalwarts like Tiger Varadachariar, Veena
Krishnamachariar
and Mazhavaraya-nendal Subbarama Bhagavatar.
He
was a prolific composer -with more than 200
compositions which include pada varnas, thana varnas, kritis, javalis,
tillanas and ragamalikas. He has used Telugu and Sanskrit as the media
for his kritis. Vasudevacharya's lyrical Telugu used in his kritis is
more
chaste than that of composers of his time. For his compositions, he has
used many common ragas plus several unusual ragas like Megharanjani,
Sunadavinodini,
Pushpalatika, Shudda salavi etc. He has also employed several types of
talas such as chaturasra rupaka, tishra rupaka, adi, ata, tishra
triputa,
khanda triputa, mishra triputa, mishra jampa , etc. in his
compositions.
Vasudevacharya
has composed captivating chittaswaras
for some of his kritis. Two examples will suffice here- 'Ra-ra-rajeeva
lochana' in raga Mohana and 'Sri Chamundeshwari' in raga Bilahari. It
is
noteworthy that Vasudevacharya 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 20th
century even before these ragas were
popularly rendered. He introduced kakali nishada for his
Khamas instead
of the conventional kaishiki nishada as in
Saint Tyagaraja's Khamas. Vasudevacharya's
Khamas is eqaully appealing raga also. Around 1930's, Maharajapuram
Vishwanatha
Iyer rendered Vasudevacharya's kriti- 'Brochevarevarura' in Khamas with
much polish in his concert. Vasudevacharya, 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
composition
with your embellishments".
Vasudevacharya had a number of
disciples trained
while he was in Mysore and later in Madras. He published 150 of his
compositions
himself. Recently, a set of 21 cassettes containing more than 140
compositions
of Vasudevacharya has been commercially made available. The kritis of
Vasudevacharya
are appealing and I wish more vidwans present these kritis in their
concerts.
Written by Ashok
Madhav
List
of Mysore Vasudevacharya Compositions
(compiled by Todd McComb, CA)