page_title: Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar / Music
caption_attribution_description: Sardar Patel with the Maharajah of Mysore during his visit to the State.
context_page_description: Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar; 18 July 1919 – 23 September 1974, was the twenty-fifth maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore from 1940 to 1971, ruling from 1940 until the monarchy was abolished in 1950, continuing to hold the title of maharaja until princely titles were abolished in 1971, and remaining head of the erstwhile royal family with the unofficial title of maharaja thereafter through his death. He was a noted philosopher, musicologist, political thinker, and philanthropist.
context_section_description: He was a connoisseur of both western and Carnatic (South Indian classical) music and an acknowledged authority of Indian Philosophy. He helped the Western world discover the music of a little-known Russian composer Nikolai Medtner (1880–1951), financing the recording of a large number of his compositions and founding the Medtner Society in 1949. Medtner's Third Piano Concerto is dedicated to the Maharaja of Mysore.  He became a Licentiate of the Guildhall School of Music, London and honorary Fellow of Trinity College of Music, London, in 1945. Aspirations to become a concert pianist were cut short by the untimely death of both his father the Yuvaraja Kanteerava Narasimharaja Wadiyar in 1939 and his uncle the Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV in 1940, when he succeeded the throne of Mysore.
  He was the first president of the Philharmonia Concert Society, London in 1948. See below copy of the programme sheets of some of the earliest concerts held at Royal Albert Hall on 13 April, 27 April – 11 May 1949.
   
  Walter Legge, who was invited to Mysore by the Maharaja in this regard has stated:
  "The visit to Mysore was a fantastic experience. The Maharajah was a young man, not yet thirty. In one of his palaces he had a record library containing every imaginable recordings of serious music, a large range of loud speakers, and several concert grand pianos...."
  "In the weeks I stayed there, the Maharajah agreed to paying for the recordings of the Medtner piano concertos, an album of his songs, and some of his chamber music; he also agreed to give me a subvention of 10,000 pounds a year for three years to enable me to put the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Philharmonia Concert society on firm basis...."
  This largesse proved sufficient to transform Legge's fortunes in 1949. He was able to engage Herbert von Karajan as conductor. The repertory the young Maharajah wished to sponsor were Balakirev's Symphony, Roussel's Fourth Symphony, Busoni's Indian Fantasy etc. The association produced some of the most memorable recordings of the post-war period.
  The Maharaja also enabled Richard Strauss's last wish to be fulfilled by sponsoring an evening at the Royal Albert Hall by London's Philharmonia Orchestra with German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler in the lead and soprano Kirsten Flagstad singing his Four Last Songs in 1950.
  The Maharaja was equally a good critic of music. When asked by Legge to pass judgement on recent additions to the EMI catalogue, his views were as trenchant as they were refreshingly unpredictable. He was thrilled by Karajan's Vienna Philharmonic recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony ('as Beethoven wished it to be'), held Furtwängler's recording of the Fourth Symphony in high esteem, and was disappointed by Alceo Galliera's account of the Seventh Symphony, which he would have preferred Karajan to record. Above all, he expressed serious doubts about Arturo Toscanini's recordings. 'The speed and energy are those of a demon', he wrote to Legge, 'not an angel or superman as one would ardently hope for'. One of the reasons he so admired Furtwängler's Beethoven was that it was 'such a tonic after Toscanini's highly strung, vicious performances'.
  Writing in the July 1950 edition of "THE GRAMOPHONE"  Walter Legge sums Maharajas's monumental contribution to Western Classical Music:
  ....Many more correspondents have written expressing their admiration for the vision, constructive enterprise and generosity of the young Indian Prince who conceived this plan, and who is making it possible for the music lovers throughout the world to learn, enjoy and study works which but for his knowledge and love of music, would never have been recorded.....
  After becoming Maharaja, he was initiated to the Indian classical music (Carnatic music) due to the cultural vibrancy which prevailed in the Mysore court till then. He learnt to play veena under Vid. Venkatagiriappa and mastered the nuances of carnatic music under the tutelage of veteran composer and Asthan Vidwan Sri. Vasudevacharya. He was also initiated into the secrets of Shri Vidya as an upasak
caption: The Maharaja with Sardar Patel
exif: {"Image Software": "Picasa", "Image DateTime": "2012:08:29 19:49:35", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image ExifOffset": "96", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:08:29 19:19:42", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "300", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "217", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "300", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "217", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "228", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "1f582ff1a37c256342b60cf642272a69"}