Today there is no house in Telugu land that did not hear his compositions, perhaps even without knowing that he composed and wrote the lyrics too. Ammadonga ninnu choodakunte naku benga, Okkasari mavooru velliraavaali and some more, his own lyrical works are quite popular.

Palagummi honoured

The maestro brought the classical music into public domain.
The Hindu on Friday, Apr 18, 2008

Renowned music composer and lyric writer Palagummi Viswanatham is in a way harbinger of light music into Telugu homes. Well known names like Balamuralikrishna, S.P.Balasubrahmanyam, P.B.Srinivas and the first playback singer of Telugu cinema M.S.Rama Rao and also the recent breed of noted names in light music like Chittaranjan, K.B.K.Mohanraju and Vedavathi and many others rendered his musical compositions under his baton.

Today there is no house in Telugu land that did not hear his compositions, perhaps even without knowing that he composed and wrote the lyrics too. Ammadonga ninnu choodakunte naku benga, Okkasari mavooru velliraavaali and some more, his own lyrical works are quite popular. Neepadamule chaalu rama, Rama charanam, Narayana Narayana Allah Allah and many more of Devulapalli were his great musical compositions. Palagummi’s long association with AIR as music producer projected many a poet’s work from Devulapalli to Puttaparthy Natrayanacharyulu to Dasarthi and C. Narayana Reddy. Palagummi Viswanatham was born in 1919 in East Godavari district. As a child he was musically influenced by his grandmother and mother. On the literary side he is influenced by his brother Palagummi Padmaraju.

Brother’s support

Viswanatham says that his brother Padmaraju encouraged him to learn classical music. “My first teacher was Marla Suryanarayanamurthy of Kakinada. Later I was under the tutelage of Eemani Sankara Sastry”. Palagummi took to veena, attracted by Eemani’s ingenious talent and technique.

Viswanatham says that his brother Padmaraju encouraged him to learn classical music. “My first teacher was Marla Suryanarayanamurthy of Kakinada. Later I was under the tutelage of Eemani Sankara Sastry”. Palagummi took to veena, attracted by Eemani’s ingenious talent and technique.

He was learning simultaneously vocal from Marla and veena from Eemani. Both his gurus went to Chennai as Marla joined AIR as staff artiste and Eemani became music composer in Gemini Studios. So Palagummi too shifted to Chennai but joined the musical ensemble of the dancer Uday Shankar. He too worked in the musical group for the film Kalpana that Uday Shankar produced.That was also the time he was introduced to Sangeetha Kalanidhi .S. Ramanathan"

Ramanathan too was a vocalist and also a veena player. He opened to me new vistas of Carnatic music and its application to other forms," This helped me to a great deal to set songs in music," Palagummi reveals.

The turning point in Palagummi's life came when he joined Hyderabad station of All India Radio in 1955. “While composing songs I stressed on the need of taking the essence of classical music nearer to the lay listeners of radio. That was the reason I took to light and light classical music," he informs. He worked along with Devulapalli in radio and together they contributed to the production great musical features too. There was no 'Ugadi' sans a song written by Devulapalli and tuned to music by Palagummi. Naturally, Devulapalli too was inspired by Palagummi’s tunes for penning his songs.

"There were days when I sat by his side and played veena as he penned the lyric simultaneously," he reveals. Their combination was a rewarding one and is still remembered as 'golden era' of light music. Palagummi also produced some rare musical features over radio under the caption 'Rasa Tarangini' narrating how sahitya and music inspire each other. A remarkable feature was ‘Uyyala Jampala’, a comparative study of lullabies across the world. In the post-retirement period Palagummi began composing songs for Christian Mission at Amrutha Vani, Secunderabad at the instance of Brother Hubert, a Dutch priest. They were broadcast over Radio Ceylon and Radio Veritas in Philippines. Palagummi’s services were sought by the Telugu University to launch and develop a light music faculty and he did it with great reverence.

The university asked him to write a book on the birth and development of light music in the state which he did. He also prepared a syllabus for this faculty.

On Sriramanavami, Palagummi was Felicitated by the Sanatana Dharma Trust with a cash gift, a shawl and a citation. Palagummi’s name is still hot in this field and he is now busy making CDs with some of the rare songs of poets of the past like Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Basavaraju Appa Rao and many more to preserve for the posterity.