The Trinity of Carnatic music composed new ragas and talas and had a remarkable ability to introduce innovations within the same raga. 
The Trinity of Carnatic music, also known as The Three Jewels of Carnatic music, refers to the outstanding trio of composer-musicians of Carnatic music in the 18th century, being Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar, and Syama Sastri.
Tyagaraja
Kakarla Tyagabrahmam, who came to be known as Tyagaraja, was the only one of the trio whose roots are in Andhra Pradesh.
Tyagaraja is most famous for his Pancharatna kritis (the five gems). However, his outstanding contribution was the introduction of the sangati - a set of variations on a theme - in the kriti format. Kritis are usually poems set to music.
Tyagaraja composed about 24,000 songs, most of them written in his mother tongue Telugu, but a few in Sanskrit, including the masterpiece Jagadanandakaraka that describes Lord Rama with 108 names.
The composition of many new ragas also marked his illustrious musical career. The 700-odd known kritis of Tyagaraja feature 212 ragas; of these, 121 ragas have only one composition each.
Muthuswami Dikshitar
Muthuswami Dikshitar, known by his signature name of Guruguha. His group kritis or group compositions on the planets and on the goddess, his preferred deity, and his 40 songs on Western tunes.
In his lifetime, Dikshitar created over 450 compositions, mostly on the Goddess in Sanskrit and in the kriti format, where poetry made music. He was the only composer who had kritis in all the seven basic talas of the Carnatic scheme.
He also composed all the 72 melakarta ragas in his sampurna mela scheme. His famous group compositions are the Navagraha Keerthanas and the Navavarna keerthanas.
Many of Dikshitar’s songs talk of the places he visited, the history of the temples, the customs and traditions followed and so on and have thus become valuable sources of historical information.
The Tanjore Quartet, revered as the prime composers of music for the classical dance form of Bharatanatyam, taught music by Dikshitar.
Shyama Shastri
Venkata Subramanian, known to the music world as Shyama Shastri, was a priest in a Tamilian Brahmin community. He credits with about 300 songs, of which only about 60 - 70 are available today.
Shyama Shastri, said to be the architect of the swarajathi musical form. The Ratnathrayam is the name given to a set of three unparalleled swarajathi by Shastri. Another famous work by him is the nine kritis known as the Navaratnamalika (the garland of nine gems) in praise of Goddess Meenakshi of Madhura.
The most outstanding feature of his work is his expert employment of rhythm to create magic in his music. Many a time, he has made use of five-syllable words like sarasamukhi, varamosagu and so on that correspond to a rhythmic musical phrase.
He specialized in the Misra Chapu tala, where he not only used the normal pattern (3+4)but also the reverse (4+3), called the Viloma Chapu. In using swarakshara, that is when both the notes and the words have identical syllables.
His favourite raga seems to be the Anandabhairavi, an old raga used in folk music, which gained a special status after he used it for some of his masterpieces.
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April 13, 2021
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