Classical Musicians (Instrumentalists) in Film Music

I had long ago posted on this topic on the newsgroup rec.music.indian.misc (rmim) but I don't find it there now. So I thought I will write on this again.

I have chosen to highlight a few classical instrumentalists who had played for Tamil film songs. The association of classical musicians with movies is an old one. Randor Guy had written some excellent articles about Musicians in Movies for sangeetham.com. (Hope there is some way to access their archive. Those articles were very informative). He writes mostly about the vocalists and composers including Papanasam Sivan, Maharajapuraman Vishwanatha Iyer, GNB etc.

Let us start with the best of them first. Karukuruchi Arunachalam, the master musician, playing the nadaswaram for 'Sringara Velane Deva'. What an Abheri this is !!! Karukurichi's control over the instrument, the superb tonal quality and his effortless playing leave an indelible mark in your consciousness. Full credit to Janaki as well for matching up to the master. No wonder lot of people still rate it as one of her top songs. Janaki had come a long way since then, singing some unforgettable classics under the baton of Illayaraja, but this song shall always be remembered as her best. The song is from the film 'Konjum Salangai' and the film is worth seeing just to listen to the playing of Karukurichi. Gemini Ganesan is a nadaswara vidwan and I briefly saw a scene wherein he plays before the king. Aah. The way the nadaswaram oozes melody !! It was a ragamalika and I dont remember all the ragas now but the playing is something to die for.

The other film which had lot of nadaswaram music and is more popular than 'Konjum Salangai' was 'Thillana Mohanambal'. Given that the story of Kothamangalam Subbu was about a nadaswara vidwan, it comes as no surprise that you hear a lot of nadaswaram in the movie. An excellent movie with unforgettable music by K V Mahadevan. The nadaswaram was played by M P N Sethuraman and M P N Ponnusamy. The nadaswaram added a lot of life to that movie. Sethuraman and Ponnusamy were to play nadaswaram again under Illayaraja's music direction for the movie 'Kovil Pura'. That movie had some top class songs (Vedam Nee and Tamizhe Amudhe) but the nadaswaram vidwans were not happy as far as their involvement was concerned. I remember reading an article in a Tamil magazine where they said they didn't wish to speak about their contribution to the music of this movie !!!

Tamil music directors have also imported great artists from the North to play in their movies. In an interview at http://www.dhool.com, MSV says that he got Bismillah Khan, the greatest of the shenai players and the Sarangi maestro, Ram Narayan, to play for 'Karnan'. In recent time Illayarja had collaborated with Hari Prasad Chaurasia, the popular flautist, for the private music album, 'Nothing But the Wind'. The flautist in Illayaraja's troupe, Napolean, (aka Arunmozhi) relates a funny incident. It seems that Hari Prasad Chaurasia had come down to play for the Telugu movie, 'Jagadeka Veerudu Atiloka Sundari'. Both Napolean and Chaurasia were playing and Illayaraja was in another room, where he could hear them but not see them. As they started playing, Illayaraja ordered them to stop and told Napolean that he hasn't played the tune the way it should be. Napolen replied saying that it was Chaurasia who was playing. After some time Illayaraja asked Chaurasia to make a slight change only to be told that it was Napolean who had played now !!! Illayaraja then told them playfully that they need to mention their names first before playing in order to avoid confusion.

As far as violin players go, Kunnakudi has dabbled in films. He has composed music for many films, most popular among them being 'Deivam' and the most popular song being 'Maruda Malai' sung by Somu. I am sure Kunnakudi would have played violin for some of the songs. (Aside: Kunnakudi made T N Seshagopal act and sing in a film called Todi ragam. I have just watched a few scenes and it was hilarious !!! The only problem is that the director didn't mean it to be hilarious). M S G is supposed to have played for films in his early days. I have read a post by a Telugu Film music expert which mentioned a film (was it Malleswari?) in which MSG has played violin. V.V.Subramanian is another well known carnatic violinist who has played for Tamil films, mostly under the music direction of Illayaraja. He came as the judge for the 'Saptaswarangal' on Sun TV long back and mentioned that he played violin in the movie called 'Poonthotam'. It must have been for the song 'Meetada Oru Veenai'. Superb violin playing for a lovely Reethigowla. L.Subramaniam was supposed to have composed for Kamal's 'Hey Ram' but he backed out. Inability of Kamal to agree on the remuneration was the apparent cause of this decision.

In recent times a wind instrument which got a sudden spurt of popularity was Saxophone and the man who wielded this instrument was Kadri Gopalnath. This was for the movie 'Duet' under the music direction of A R Rahman. The songs of this movie were a hit and the song which uses the Sax the most, 'Anjali Anjali' was the key song of the movie and its biggest hit as well. While the music was good and Kadri played the Sax well, I don't think the music of this movie needed a classical instrumentalist to play the Sax.

Veena and Sitar were probably being used since the time Cinema had sound. Emani Shankara Sastry, the famous vainika, had composed music for movies. S.Balachander had also composed music for movies and had directed a couple of movies himself. 'Bommai' was a famous movie that he directed and gave music to. (I still remember a controversy in a Tamil magazine wherein Balachander gave comments about the music of the movie 'Shankarabaranam' saying that it wasn't classical enough. The next issue had a rejoinder from Y.G.Mahendran wherein he had questioned the virtue of S.Balachander's film music adding that none of the songs that S.Balachander composed had any classical touch to them !!!). Chittibabu, according to a website, has played veena for the movie, Kalai Koil. Veena Gayathri is another vainika who has played for films. Her father, Aswathama, was a famous music director in Telugu films. Her website says that she has played for all the leading South Indian music directors for over two decades. It would be great if we knew which songs she contributed to.

Now coming to the percussionist, there has probably been only one movie which was based on a percussion artist. The movie was 'Mridanga Chakravarthy'. It must be your 'poorva janama phalam' if you haven't watched this movie. It was one of those typical Sivaji movies of the 1980s wherein every director tried to ensure that Sivaji laughed and cried at the same time. The way his face goes 'konal' in 100 different ways will ensure laughter, again unintentional !!! What a great difference between the Sivaji Ganesan of 'Tillana Mohanambal' and 'Mridanga Chakravarthy'!!!. Anyway we are more concerned with the actual mridangam player than with Sivaji's histrionics. The mridagam player here was Umayalpuram Sivaraman. I don't know who played for Prabhu. There was an article in which Sivaraman had said that the film director wanted to get T.K.Murthy to play for Prabhu but Sivaraman didn't want it since Prabhu loses to Sivaji in the film and it wouldn't be nice to show a senior vidwan like T.K.Murthy losing to Sivaraman !!! Another mridangam vidwan who has been associated with films is T.V.Gopalakrishnan. It is said that Illayaraja learnt classical music from him. I don't know if TVG has played mridangam in films but you can definitely hear his voice in the interlude of that amazing song which showcases the genius of Illayaraja, 'Andhi Mazhai Pozhigiradhu'.