Music And Movies

Yesterday was M S Amma's 98th Birth Anniversary. I had tweeted three krithis, one each of the trinity, yesterday in her remembrance. I thought I will now write a few words on each of these krithis and out it up on my blog. As with any other singer, MS is also identified by a set of songs: Sriman Narayana, Sarojadalanetri, Akilandeswari, Kamakoti Peetasthithe, Maitrim Bhajatha (and many more) and rightly so for she owned these songs. (OK 'kuraionrum illa' also. So don't kill me now). Yet there were masterpieces which she sang as well as any other master. Unfortunately these have not been heard often enough. I want to bring to your notice three such masterpieces. Hopefully these will find their place in your MS playlist soon. We start with a charming Dikshitar krithi in the rare ragam, Madhava Manohari. I heard this krithi first in the voice of D K Pattammal. Her version is a tad faster, surprising given that DKP is known for her slow speed renditions. There is a

Bapu, the famous director and artist, passed away last month. Bapu was one of those directors whose sensibilities when it came to music and lyrics was highly refined. Many of the songs from his movies are now part of the Telugu film music canon. The canonical nature of the songs owe a lot to Bapu. Like K.Vishwanath, he gave equal importance to language, tradition and music in his films. Like K.Vishwanth, he too used K V Mahadevan as the music director for most of his movies. Bapu and K Viswanath's aesthetic senses was very similar in that they had great respect for tradition and were to a large extent idealists and moralists. The only difference between them as film makers is that K.Vishwanth had a central theme which ran across almost all his movie, that of middle class and art. Bapu on the other hand made a variety of movies ranging from mythological, historical all the way to revolutionary films. Having said that, if we have to look for a central theme in Bapu's movie