Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer:
Viswanatha Iyer was born in Maharajapuram to Rama Iyer, a singer in
1896.
He was trained initially by Umayalpuram Swaminatha Iyer, a direct
disciple of Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer. Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer
had learnt from a direct disciple of Tyagaraja and
thus Viswanatha Iyer represents the fifth generation of the Tyagaraja School.
His prominent disciples include Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Mannargudi Sambasiva Bhagavatar, and his own son Maharajapuram Santhanam..
He won several awards including Sangeetha Kalanidhi and Sangeetha Bhupathy.
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Died at the age of 74 in the year
1970
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From V.Sriram's book:
MVI in his early years had an incredible voice and could sing in F#
(4.5 kattai) and at unbelievable speed. His raga alapanas had incredible
imagination (look at his elaboration of Ataana).
However he also got influenced by not so favourable company at some
time and got into some bad habits -- he temporarily lost his voice at one point
–
after which Ariyakudi regained his top spot for good.
However he recovered most of his voice (it had gone husky and he had
lost his range in the lower octave -- all the recordings I have show that he
was just able to sing at shadja). He didn't lose his brighas or his speed or
the range in his upper octave though and used it to his full effect.
His ragas and svaras were always fresh. His raga singing especially
could always keep bringing out fresh dimensions and he would sing ragas to the
limit of their acceptable boundaries. He even borrowed Hindustani touches into
CM ragas and that's how he developed his unique style of mohanam.
However his fresh imagination meant that he never sang a krithi the same way twice and always kept improvising different sangathis every time making it difficult to students to learn. He would get impatient with his students if they didn't immediately grasp his lightning flashes.
However his fresh imagination meant that he never sang a krithi the same way twice and always kept improvising different sangathis every time making it difficult to students to learn. He would get impatient with his students if they didn't immediately grasp his lightning flashes.
On top of it, his memory was notorious and he once took one song of
Tyagaraja in Harikambhoji till the anupallavi and then sang the charanam of
another krithi of the composer instead due to a memory slip!!
When Santhanam once chided him for that, he was supposed to have said
that it didn't matter because both songs were in the same raga and tala and by
the same composer and both were anyway on Lord Rama only!!
Once, to explain repeating a krithi quite often, he picked someone in
the audience, looked at him in the eye and said that he had been requested to
do so by that person!
In concerts, he went wherever his music took him and it was all spontaneous.
In concerts, he went wherever his music took him and it was all spontaneous.
Being totally dependent on his moods, audiences would have to wait till
he managed to settle into the "singing mood", but the music was well
worth the wait. Once he was in form, the organizers would immediately put up
the notice outside the hall and it was not long before the hall would be filled
up.
On one occasion he kept twiddling his buttons till K.B. Sundarambal got
up and asked him if he was in control of his voice or the other way round. That
did the job and soon he was in full flow!
More details about him are at: http://www.carnaticcorner.com/articles/mvi.txt
http://www.mediafire.com/folder/yqk2br4u7mu11/Maharajapuram_Viswanatha_Iyer
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