Muthuswamy Dikshitar happens to be my favourite Carnatic composer over a period of time due to reasons very well known to classical music lovers. The specific reasons I love his compositions for:
a. Erudition - the breadth and depth of his knowledge on a lot of traditional things (music, philosophy, purANic literature, Samskrtam, prosody)
b. Handling of many rare mAyA mALava GauLa janya ragas some of which were becoming almost extinct
c. The sheer gait (and weight) of his compositions is something that is compared to the movement of an elephant
d. His visualizations of various ragas is very definitive and defining. I love especially the start of the charaNams where typically he places phrases that descend from madhyama sthayi to the mandra sthayi panchama at least and that phrase alone is enough to get one to go into a meditative mood
e. Lots of quaint small ragas were handled by him. I love his versions of any raga that he touches. I have a special attraction to the following rare ragas that he touched:
a. Erudition - the breadth and depth of his knowledge on a lot of traditional things (music, philosophy, purANic literature, Samskrtam, prosody)
b. Handling of many rare mAyA mALava GauLa janya ragas some of which were becoming almost extinct
c. The sheer gait (and weight) of his compositions is something that is compared to the movement of an elephant
d. His visualizations of various ragas is very definitive and defining. I love especially the start of the charaNams where typically he places phrases that descend from madhyama sthayi to the mandra sthayi panchama at least and that phrase alone is enough to get one to go into a meditative mood
e. Lots of quaint small ragas were handled by him. I love his versions of any raga that he touches. I have a special attraction to the following rare ragas that he touched:
- ardradEsi
- mangalakaisiki
- mechabauli
- kannadabangAla
- ramakali
- sAmantam (I have heard 2 of his compositions in this one - very rare)
- ghantA
- kiraNAvaLi
- gurjari
- hindoLavasantam
- jyOti
f. He was a well-travelled man for his times. He visited a lot of places throughout India - a lot of South Indian temples, Kasi, Kashmir (maybe more in the North). He had imbibed the styles of North Indian music also and composed very beautiful krtis in some of them. He was also exposed to some amount of European music in Chennai, though I regret he may not have been exposed to Bach etc. If he had been, it would have been great to see what would have come out of his creativity as a result.
g. He was an Advaitin and his compositions are a doorway to reflection and a serene meditative state
g. He was an Advaitin and his compositions are a doorway to reflection and a serene meditative state
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