Koteeswara Iyer: A homage and tribute

BY V.K.Viswanathan, Los Alamos,NM

Koteeswara Iyer ( 1869-1938) was one of the outstanding Composers in the Post-Trinity era in Carnatic Music. He was the Grandson of the noted Tamil Scholar and Composer Kavikunjara Bharathi from whom he learnt both Music and Literature. He wrote Poems and performed Harikathas even in his student days .While he was well educated (taught English in Sanskrit College & was Reporter in Madras High Court etc.) and held career positions, according to Sri.T.S.Parthasarathy the eminent Musicologist, Music was the ruling passion in his life.

Koteeswara Iyer(and later Papanasam Sivan) noted that while Great Compositions in Tamil by Arunagirinathar, Muthuthandavar, Gopalakrishna Bharthi, and Kavikunjara Bharathi existed, mostly the Compositions of the Trinity in Telugu and Sanskrit were featured in Concerts. Inspired by the Great Orator and Freedom Fighter Late S.Satyamurthy (Please see Rangaramanujam Iyengar's inspiring Thumbnail Sketch of Papanasam Sivan) Koteeswara Iyer was the FIRST to compose "Kanda Ganamudam" in Tamil in ALL the Seventy Two Melakartha Ragas .In addition he composed the Tamil Pancharatnams ( as part of Thirty Seven other Compositions) and songs in praise of Various Deities and Composers ( some of whom are shown in the right hand side of this article) . From Top to Bottom they are: Murugan,Vinayagar, Sivan, Meenakshi, Venugopalan, Saraswathi, and Dhihshithar.His other Composition was on Gurubhathi .His gratitude to his Guru and innate modesty is shown by his choice of Mudra(signature at end of compositions) as Kavikunjara Dhasan.

Sri S. Rajam has written down ALL the Koteeswara Iyer compositions along with proper Notation. Further he has done all of us and future generations an invaluable service by recording "Kandaganamudam"(in all the Seventy Two Melakartha Ragas) himself. Twenty Nine other compositions " Geetha Amudam" as an Anjali by his students is also available. His renderings of each of these compositions (along with the words and notation) along with his special observations ) will be featured on this web site soon . Sri B.R.Sankaranarayanan ( who has composed and recorded a few compositions himself) and a student of Sri S. Rajam is an avid fan of Koteeswara Iyer. He has been involved in assisting S.Rajam in highlighting the monumental creative contributions of Koteeswara Iyer.He will be coordinating the efforts to educate us about Koteeswara Iyer.

We also hope to present recordings (periodically)from live concerts by various artists of compositions of Koteeswara Iyer beginning with the inimitable rendering of "Ganamudha Bhanam" by the incomparable Madurai Mani Iyer.

Koteeswara Iyer was adept at in handling various Talas also. He has used Adi, Rupakam, Triputa, Misrachapu, Kandachapu, and Kandajathitriputa Talas.His Compositions featured "Chittaswarams", were in Madyamakalam, the names of ragas occurring appropriately in the compositions -all in the style of Muthuswamy Dhikshitar.Like Dhikshitar he passed awy on Deepavali day also.

We have been very fortunate in having two composers in Tamil in recent times(Koteeswara Iyer and Papanasam Sivan) who have enriched the Language and Music in such a gigantic fashion.