Maestro ilaiyaraaja news & titbits

[Sureshs65]

No. It cannot be Thyagaraja. It must have been Raja himself or Bach or someone else. Thyagaraja was more an aspirer of Lord Shri Ram than of music. For Thyagaraja, music was his only means to attain Rama.

/Dig

That is the general perception and everyone has tried to stick to it. The truth is that unlike Purandaradasa and Annamayya, who used music as a vehicle for propagating their teachings and for devotion, Tyagaraja was a great musicologist. He was as much concerned about music as devotion. Otherwise he wouldn't have invented so many new ragas, would have given perfect grammar in those ragas and wouldn't have given so many krithi structures. Musicologist and musicians like S.Ramanathan and S R Janakiraman have expressed their awe for Tyagaraja as a musicologist. So in way I would differ from you here. For Tyagaraja, music was very important and not necessarily the means to attain Rama.

/End Dig