III I"' lie Journal Of fa Illufitc ^cadi'mw mii /Ifoabras II " ‘I , 1 A QUARTERLY DEVOTED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OP THE SCIENCE AND ART OF MUSIC V o l . XIII 1942 P a r t s I-IV EDITED BY T. V. SUBBA RAO AND Dr. V. RAGHAVAN ouew A u • iq*tA THE MUSIC ACADEMY, MADRAS ‘ KESARI KUTEERAM BUILDINGS ’ ROYAPETTAI!, MADRAS Annual Subscription:—Inland Rs. 4 ; Foreign 8 shs. Post Paid. NOTICE All correspondence should be addressed to Dr. V. Raghavan, Joint Editor, Journal of the Music Aca­ demy. Articles on musical subjects are accepted for publi­ cation on the understanding that they are contributed solely to the Journal of the Music Academy. All manuscripts should be legibly written or pre­ ferably typewritten (double-spaced— on one side of the paper only) and should be signed by the writer (giving his address in full). All articles and communications intended for publi­ cation should reach the office at least one month before the date of publication (ordinarily the 15th of the 1st month in each quarter). The Editor of the Journal is not responsible for the views expressed by individual contributors. All advertisements intended for publication should reach the office not later than the 1st of the first month of each quarter. All books, moneys and cheques due to and intended for the Journal should be sent to Dr. V. Raghavan, Joint Editor. ADVERTISEMENT CHARGES COVER PAGES: Full page. Half page. Back (outside) .. Rs. 25 Front (inside) „ 20 Rs. 11 Back (Do.) „ 20 „ 11 INSIDE PAGES: 1st page (after cover) .. „ 18 „ 10 Other pages (each) „ 16 „ 9 Preference will be given to advertisers of musical instruments and books and other artistic wares. Special positions and special rates on application. 5% discount for cash with order. V CONTENTS PAGES. In Memoriam 1. North Indian Ragas and Melas: Sri Eobindralal Roy .. .. .. .... 1—20 2. Some Leading Music Systems: Sri C. S. Ayyar .. 21— 32 3. Music in Training Schools: Prof. P. Sambamurti.. 33—43 4 Karnataka Composers: Sri T. Y. Subba Rao 44—70 5. Powada: Prof. G. H. Ranade .-. 71—73 6. The Parijataharana Nataka of Narayana Tirtha: Dr. V. Raghavan 74—76 7. A Tamil Song of Malavai Chidambara Bharati.. 77—79 8. The ‘ Kamba Ramayana ’ Tillana of Kunrakudy Krishnier: Sri M. S. Ramaswapii Ayyar. 80— 83 9. The Nati’s Song— A Reply: Prof. G. H. Ranade .. 84— 86 10. Comparative Music—A Reply: Prof. P. Samba- murti. 87— 88 11. Extracts 89— 90 IN MEMORIAM Vidvan Palamaneri Svamindtha Ayyar It is with great sorrow that we place on record here the passing away in December 1942 of Gayaka Siromani Vidvan Svaminatha Ayyar of Palamaneri, by which sad event yet one more of the few links with the last generation is snapped. The Vidvan was a member of the Expert Committee of the Music Academy and the President of the Academy’s Conference in 1931. Vidvan Svaminatha Ayyar was 72 when he died. He came of a family of Vaidikas, Scholars and Musicians, of the Cauvery village of Palamaneri in the Tanjore Dt. He was the brother of the well-known Advaita-scholar and Sannyasin, Palamaneri Svamigal, under whom studied eminent scholars like Mahamaho- padhyaya Prof. S. Kuppusvami Sastrigal. His father was Rama- svami Ayyar, a Vedic scholar and Svaminatha Iyer was himself one who had done Adbyayana. He was a Sanskrit scholar who had examined Sanskrit works on music, and was one of the pioneers to publish modern works on Music with notation. Nearly forty years ago, he published the treatise Ragavibhodim. Svaminatha Ayyar was a pupil of the famous Maha Vaidyanatha Ayyar, and the most successful of the pupils of that great musician. In his pallavi and svara singing, one could cadch glimpses of the art of Vaidyanatha Ayyar. He was the only musician to give concerts of vocal music, himself playing the violin, which he held up without resting it on the thigh. His forte was the rendering of the Padas of Ksetragna, of which he commanded a considerable number. He was also a capable teacher. Vidvan Venkata Subrahmanya Ayyar (Syama Sastri) With the demise in December 1942 of another member of the Expert Committee of the Music Academy, Venkata Subrahmanya Ayyar, familiarly known as Syama Sastri, it may be said that the Musical paramparya in his own family of the great composer Sri Syama Sastri becomes extinct. Venkata Subrahmanya Ayyar was the great-grandson of Sri Syama Sastri and the son of Annasvami Sastrigal who was himself a renowned Vidvan and composer and was the Samsthana Vidvan at the Udayarpalayam Zamin. He was originally a Drawing Master in a school, and thanks to this gift of his, we have a portrait of his great-grandfather, Sri Syama Sastri. Latterly, he took interest in his family-art of music and taught many pupils in Madras the compositions of his family. NORTH INDIAN RAGAS AND MELAS R obindralal R oy, Calcutta. (1) Is Svara Learning after all necessary? (2) Can it not be altogether avoided? This attitude of high-quarter music-critics in Bengal is perhaps more menacing than anywhere else, and hence there is a great opposition to what is known as Pandit Bhatkhande’s “ That System ” in which he has made it necessary for the student of music to learn the svaras of only Ten Melas. The underlying aesthetic support of this school seems to be that tunes are not made from scales and that North Indian Ragas do not properly come under the scope of .scales but depend on resemblance of different tunes. It would be interesting to investi­ gate how far tunes composed by North Indian Musician-composers fall outside the scope of scales. Before we enter into this investigation it would be useful to remind every student of music and every composer that tunes can never be distinguished from each other without the knowledge of svaras. Hence many of our poet-composers go on composing cheap tunes without knowing that such tunes have been repeatedly composed by the same and different poets and have been repeatedly rejected by musicians as commonplace. The second and the most important point almost completely lost sight of in musical criticism is that a tune or Dhoon (Dhvani) is not the Raga itself. It is the neucleus or home of the Raga, the Raga being a comprehensive term applied to the whole development or Vistara, Alapa, etc. of the tune, which means addition of musical phrases in keeping with the central tune or theme to which all developments must ultimately return. This simply means that the composition of a good tune is extremely difficult because it must simultaneously have a definite shape as well as a very comprehensive musical effect so that a large variety of musical phrases may be found to emphasise or suppress its central effect according to the desire of the musician. It has to be powerful without being rigid, simple in form but capable of being twisted into highly complex variation. Thus Haydn was perfectly right in saying that “ Melody is the charm of music and the invention of a fme air is a work of genius.” Melody or tune is really the problem of all great music, oriental or western. The so-called Genus-species system, often supposed to be fundamentally different from the Murchhana-Jati-Raga system, 1 2 THE JOURNAL OF THE MUSIC ACADEMY [VOL. XIII when properly analysed, will be found to be closely related to scales as we shall presently see. But we might as well note that the Genus-species system based inherently on the similarity of tunes or perhaps of tune-forms, is not a later invention as many theorists try to make out. Take for instance the Gauda varieties mentioned in the Parijata. Even the Ratnakara mentions Karnata Gauda, Deshbal Gauda, Turushka Gauda and Dravida Gauda. The Sangita Parijata mentions Kedara Gauda, Karnata Gauda, Saranga Gauda, Rlti Gauda, Narayana Gauda, Malava Gauda and Gauda as also Gaula. From the Parijata’s brief description it would be found that they belonged to our different scales, that they used different sharp and flat or Tlvra and Komala svaras. , Hence the question arises why they have the same suffix, like a family name, Gauda. According to their description, all these Ragas have one common feature: they all omit (with the exception of Rlti Gauda) Dha and Ga both or one of them in the Aroha. This gives us a common phrase of the Gaudas Sa Ri Ma Pa Ni, or Sa Ri Ma Pa or Ma Pa Ni. It is clear also that the form of the Ragas is common in the ascent having the general formula Sa Ri Ma Pa Ni. In the case of Malava Gauda this is Sa Ri Ma Pa Ni (Komala Ri and &uddha Ni), in case of Karnata Gauda, the Ri is shifted to our present Komala Ga though this appears to be a variation stretched too far. I Similar is the case with the Natas: all Natas have Ma Ri or Ni Pa or Ni Pa Ma Ri and in very different scales sometimes, (as in the case of Kalyana Nata or Vairati NatasJ? This family has the family characteristic feature in the Avaroha. Thus the significant form of the Raga undergoes a variation far enough to create a different emotional effect but not far enough to have a different shape.1 But this ability on the part of the musician requires a very accurate knowledge of different scales; for instance, no layman can find the structural resemblance between the phrases Sa Ri Ma Pa Ni Dha Pa (our present Desh) and Sa Ri Ma Pa Ni Dha Pa (of our Jaunpuri-Todi Group).