Indian Carnatic musician
Mysore Venkatesha Doreswamy Iyengar
(1920?1997) was a
Carnatic musician
and one of the greatest exponents of the
veena
in modern Indian history.
[1]
[2]
Early life
[
edit
]
Doreswamy Iyengar was born in Gaddavalli, a village in
Hassan
of the erstwhile
Kingdom of Mysore
(in present-day
Karnataka State
of India). His grandfather, Janardhana Iyengar, sang compositions of the dasa saint-poets, including
Purandaradasa
. He was a son of Venkatesha Iyengar, a learned
vainika
and royal musician at the court of the
Maharaja of Mysore
.
[3]
Iyengar started learning the veena from his father at an early age and soon became a disciple of
Veena Venkatagiriyappa
, a friend of his father. Doreswamy performed in the presence of the then Maharaja,
Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV
, at the age of 12 for the first time. A few months later, he was appointed the junior
vidwan
in the
palace orchestra
. He then passed the examination in advanced theory of Western music conducted by the
Trinity College London
and at 16, was nominated the court musician of Mysore, the youngest to win the honour. Iyengar, who was never interested in studies, managed to secure a
bachelor of arts
degree from
Maharaja's College, Mysore
, with the help of his friend,
R. K. Narayan
. He was married at the age of 12 to Sharadamma.
[3]
[4]
Career
[
edit
]
Iyengar gave his first public performance in 1943 at the Bangalore Gayana Samaja.
[
citation needed
]
He served as the Producer with the
All India Radio
(AIR) in
Bangalore
starting 1955. He was reluctant to carry on considering the bureaucratic and organisational demands of the post, and that he perform for the AIR at need, alongside auditioning and selecting musicians for the same. However, he was persuaded to stay by
Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer
, who was a chief producer with the AIR based in
Madras
(now Chennai), assuring him of flexible hours and fewer burdens of administration. Iyendar put together
Gita Bharati
for the AIR, Bangalore, which juxtaposed the compositions of
Tyagaraja
and
Muthuswami Dikshitar
with the Bengali songs of
Rabindranath Tagore
, based on their musical structure. These unusual pieces had been composed by Tagore after his trip to southern India in the 1920s that included a visit to the Mysore court.
[3]
Other programmes produced by Iyengar included those were he set to tunes to poems of many Kannada-language poets such
G. S. Shivarudrappa
,
N. S. Lakshminarayan Bhat
.
[5]
Iyengar later became the first
Kannadiga
and
vanika
to perform for AIR's national programme.
[3]
Iyengar participated in music conferences including one in
Shiraz, Iran
, in 1969, where he was also invited to perform at the Shiraz Persepolis Festival of Arts as a guest artist. He performed at the Festivals of India event in Germany and the
Soviet Union
; in the latter, he presented his five veena recitals (
pancha
).
[3]
Concerts of Iyengar, accompanied by
Chowdiah
on the
violin
, became very popular.
[5]
He also performed duets with other violinists such as
Lalgudi Jayaraman
,
T. N. Krishnan
and
M. S. Gopalakrishnan
, and vocalists such as
M. Balamuralikrishna
and
K. V. Narayanaswamy
. He participated in many
Jugalbandis
, including with popular Hindustani classical instrumentalists such as
Ustad
Ali Akbar Khan
,
Mallikarjun Mansur
and
Amjad Ali Khan
.
[3]
Iyengar was regularly accompanied on
mridangam
by V. S. Rajagopal.
[
citation needed
]
The noted vainika C. Krishnamurthy was one of Iyengar's main disciples, alongside his son
D. Balakrishna
.
[3]
Iyengar composed music for
operas
, notably to those of
P. T. Narasimhachar
, such as
Gokula Nirgamana
and
Hamsa Damayanti
. He also scored music for a few Kannada-language films, notably
Subba Shastry
(1966).
[3]
In an age when most of the other vainikas had started using the contact
microphone
, Iyengar stuck to the acoustic Veena.
[6]
He was against
amplification
as he felt that it robbed the music of its nuances and often distorted the tone.
[3]
Iyengar's style of playing is sometimes referred to as the Mysore style.
[
citation needed
]
This distinctive style is marked by the movements from one note to another being achieved with the playing fingers (the index and middle fingers of the left hand) parted. This, along with his prolonged, medieval string plucking style enabled him to achieve the continuity of sound.
[
citation needed
]
Iyengar's son Balakrishna recalled that despite his father being "a purist, he listened to western music and
Fritz Kreisler
was one of his favorites.
[5]
Members of his family recalled that his all-time favorite pieces were by German and Austrian musicians.
[3]
The
University of Mysore
conferred upon Iyengar an honorary doctorate in 1975.
[
citation needed
]
Iyengar died of
hepatitis C
on 8 October 1997.
[3]
Awards
[
edit
]
Iyengar was awarded the
Mysore State Sahitya Academy Award
in 1970,
[7]
the
Padma Bhushan
by the
Government of India
in 1983,
[8]
the
Sangeetha Kalanidhi
of the
Madras Music Academy
in 1984, the
Sangeetha Kalasikhamani
of the Indian Fine Arts Society in 1994, the Sangeetha Kalarathna of the Bangalore Gayanasamaja, and the Chowdiah National Memorial Award.
[3]
References
[
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]
External links
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