Thyagaraja Swami
Tyagaraja is the most famous of the Carnatic
musical triad of saint-devotee-cum-musicians. He started composing when in
his teens. In him we see the rare combination of a complete knowledge of
philosophy, bhakti, musicology and poetics and a talent of singing his own
compositions in the most moving voice. Most of his compositions were in Telugu
and were composed and sung while he was in trance. We owe the propagation
of his songs to his pupils. His musical compositions are remarkable for their
quantity , variety and quality, both literary and devotional. He is said to
have composed around 24,000 songs out of which 800 or so are extant.
