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The greatest figure in Kerala's musical tradition who ranks one among the greatest personalities in the history of the Karnatic system of Indian music is Swati Tirunal. He wrote eight works, six of them in Sanskrit and two in Malayalam. They are mostly hymns and commentaries. His greatest contribution was in music. His musical compositions are supposed to number over five hundred.

Swati's ambition was to assimilate the best in all traditions and reutilize the native heritage. He invited to his court  Kannayya, the disciple of Tyagaraja; the brothers Vadivelu, Meru Swami from Maharashtra; Lakshmana Das from Gwalior and Suleiman and Allauddin who were the exponents of the Hindustani music.

Swati has given songs in Sanskrit, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Besides 'Kritis', typical of the south, he has composed Dhrupads, Tappas and Khayals. Several of the compositions are in rare ragas like Saranganatta, Lalita Panchamam, Mohana Kalyani Dvijavanti and Gopika Vasantam. Some of these sacred songs are epitomes in a miniature, of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. One of his brilliant achievement is Ragamala on the ten incarnations of Vishnu. Each stanza is a different raga. In many of his compositions he worked the name of the raga into the lyrical text in such a way that it becomes a word meaningfully fitted into narrative. He managed it in Ragamalas and in one instant, in a ragamala in Hindi. The syllables pertaining to percussion instruments have been skillfully interwoven into the texture of some compositions like Nrityati in 'Sankarabharanam' and Sankara Sri in 'Hamsnandi'. The starting point in his kritis are varied. In Smarajanaka he has used atitagraha i.e. the song starts before the first beat of tala, slow and fast tempi are dexterously interwoven in kritis like Karunakara in Begada and Bhogindra in Kuntalavarali.

This virtuosity reached astonishing heights in the class of compositions known as Varnams. They are longer composition than kirtanas. Here Swati tried to weave the phemomes sa, ri, ga, ma which are the standard notation for the scale notes, into the lyrical text where they become accented and therefore conspicuous phonetic elements of words meaningfully used. 

Swati was aiming at some pervasive spread of musical culture. He laid down what ragas should be sung or rendered in instrumental music every day at the Padmanabha temple, Trivandrum. He composed kirtans for this daily service. He composed a Garland of nine gems, nine compositions. One for each day of Dussehra festival. He had cadjan leaf copies made of these compositions and distributed them to other centres in the state as well as outside it.

The stabilization of classical music in daily and seasonal ritual was a historical stop in the evolution of Kerala's musical tradition. Swati introduced the Harikatha or sacred recital from Maharashtra with the help of Meruswami. He invited Meruswami to his court especially for this purpose. The ruler himself wrote three extended compositions for such recitals. He has used Abhangas, Dinders and Chhands which are Marathi song moulds.

The language medium is a very important factor in this type of endeavour to spread musical culture through religion. People in all the four language areas of the south, sing 'Tyagarajas' compositions. They are in Telugu and the majority of musicians and music students rendering often violates the spirit and mood of the lyric and it becomes merely technical gymnastics. By composing songs in Malayalam and fairly simple Sanskrit, Swati tried to eliminate this danger.

In every one of his kirtans, Tyagaraja has worked his name into the lyrical text as a sort of signature. Swati preferred to use the name of the family deity, Sri Padmanabha. In the case of Swati, the human soul becomes the maiden consumed by passionate longing for union with God's love. One of the kirtans expresses the emotions of a love lorn maid as the night deepens and each of its eight divisions goes by without her lover arriving. It is a ragamala of eight ragas. The first raga is Sankarabharanam, the mode usually sung at nightfall and the last is Bhupala, the raga sung at the hour before dawn. The poetic tissue is rich in the familiar conceits of the Sanskrit tradition. Swati brought in many Bharata Natya exponents from the neighbouring state, Tamil Nadu. Swati contributed to the dance tradition in Kerala by composing fifty padams in Malayalam.

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Govinda Marar, one of the luminaries of Swati's court was an exceptionally brilliant singer. Best concert singers can handle only three tempi- fast, medium and slow. Marar was the only one who could sing in six. This explains the honorific title 'Shatkala' usually prefixed to his name.

Parameswara Bhagavathar was another gifted singer of Swati's court. He was a composer too. His most famous work being the Varnam. Irayimman Thampy, a relative of Swati and a close associate in musical activities is the only musician who has composed all the three major forms of the Karnatic tradition, varnam, kirtanam and padam in Malayalam. His total output includes twenty eight kirtanams in Sanskrit and five in Malayalam, five varnams and twenty two padams, besides several Kathakali librettos and narrative poems. Some of the compositions are in very rare ragas like jangla, manchi and kakuba.

Kuttikunja Thankachi, daughter of 'Tampu', is a prolific litterateur and composer. She wrote three Kathakali and one Thullal librettos, one drama, three narrative poems for the traditional Tiruvathira dance, two poems on the kirata-arjuna and the Nala-Damayanti stories in the gypsy song mould and two others on the religious legends associated with Thiruvananthapuram and Vaikom. She wrote six kirtanams, two of them in Sanskrit. One of the kirtanams, a homage to goddess Kartyayani in Raga Kamboji, is a composition of great classical weight.

K.C.Kesava Pillai is another great composer of Kerala whose output has astonishing variety, three Kathakali librettos, a musical play and over seventy kirtanams for classical singers. The kirtanams are all devotional. The next one is Kandathil Varghese Mapilla. He composed several devotional songs which could be used by all who were truly religious. He also wrote a premier on music where he gave definitions of ragas and talas and prescriptions for the practice of singing in simple verses which could be easily memorized.

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