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In his own world:Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar (Photo Courtesy: Padma Narayanaswamy).

Born on May 19, 1890, Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar was considered the first citizen of the Carnatic music world during a long career that spanned 54 years, ending with his death in 1967. Much has been written about this wonderful personality — his musical prowess, his perfecting the modern concert format, his colourful lifestyle, his humour and most importantly, his great contribution by way of setting the Andal Tiruppavai and songs from the Rama Natakam to music. The tunes, still faithfully sung the way he created them over half a century ago, stand testimony to his musical prowess. However, a facet of his musical persona, namely that of a composer, has not received any attention. True, the corpus of songs is small and they are not sung on the concert platform today. But emanating as they did from the creativity of a great musician, they merit attention, at least from a historical point of view.

It must not be forgotten that Ariyakkudi hailed from a strong lineage of composers. His guru, Ramanathapuram ‘Poochi’ Srinivasa Iyengar was a well-known composer and performer. Srinivasa Iyengar had his tutelage under Patnam Subramania Iyer, the eminent composer, and he in turn learnt from Manambucchavadi Venkatasubbayar, a kinsman of Tyagaraja’s and one of his senior-most disciples. Venkatasubbayyar too was a composer.

Unlike the predecessors whose music lineage he came from, Ramanuja Iyengar does not appear to have resorted to composing as an expression of creativity. His songs, barring one, were done to coincide with some significant event or the other. The first such attempt was in the 1930s when the Tamil daily, Swadesamitran celebrated its golden jubilee. Iyengar was by then a front ranker among musicians. He was also reputed to bring good luck to any event with which he was associated and was the choice to perform for weddings, inaugurations and jubilees. For this occasion, Iyengar composed ‘Sundaramana Swadesamitran’ in raga Kalyani and sang it during the festivities.

CR Srinivasan, the owner and editor was so overwhelmed that he presented Ariyakkudi with a memento — a gold replica of a 78 rpm record! The song was later released as a 78 rpm record as well.

It is not clear as to what mudra Ariyakkudi used in the song. His next creation was a song in raga Khamas where he has used the mudra Ramanuja Dasan. This was in praise of Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar when the business baron and patron of culture celebrated his 60th birthday in 1941. Several musicians and poets created songs for this occasion. Significantly, at that time, Ariyakkudi and the Tamil Isai lobby led by Chettiar were at loggerheads with each other. Ariyakkudi, who had done much to propagate Tamil songs, disagreed with the Tamil Isai lobbyists on their stance that concerts in Madras Presidency ought to comprise Tamil songs alone. He refused to sing for the Tamil Isai Sangam till they eased their stipulations in the 1950s. The song praises the munificence and greatness of Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar.

When the diamond jubilee of the Swadesamitran was celebrated in 1944 (for some reason it was conducted in the paper’s 64th year), Ariyakkudi, once again invited to sing, composed two songs and used the mudra Ramadasan in them.

The first song, set in Surutti, ‘Seer Perugum Siranda Mitran’ paid tribute to the three great forces behind the paper’s success, namely G. Subramania Iyer, the founder (who also founded The Hindu), A. Rangaswami Iyengar who served as Editor between 1915 and 1928 (and later served The Hindu in the same capacity) and CR Srinivasan. The second song, ‘Kondaduvom,’ set in raga Sindhubhairavi, displays Ariyakkudi’s capability in prosody, for the pallavi has the srotovaha yati as seen in Muthuswami Dikshitar’s ‘Tyagaraja Yoga Vaibhavam’. ‘Kondaduvom’ was released as a record and did very well. The choice of mudra, namely Ramadasa, which was also that of Papanasam Sivan’s reportedly created some friction between the great composer and Ariyakkudi. They were also to clash on the subject of royalties from the sale of records of songs of Sivan’s that Ariyakkudi made famous. Sivan felt that a part of the royalties ought to be rightfully his and Ariyakkudi disagreed. The two legends sorted out their differences later.

It is interesting to see that all the above creations of Ariyakkudi are in Tamil, for they commemorated personalities and institutions associated with that language. But he composed in Telugu too. His tillana in Bilahari, which is perhaps his only piece sung occasionally by artistes, is dedicated to Lord Vishnu and uses the mudra Ramadasa. It is very much in line with the tillanas of his guru Poochi Iyengar. These five then, constitute Ariyakkudi’s oeuvre as a composer. Whether he merits inclusion in a list of vaggeyakkaras is open to debate, but the pieces reveal a less-known aspect of a top-ranking musician.

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