Music And Movies

Long back the Hindu critic, N M Narayanan, during a December season wrote, "With Balamurali not singing this year, it was left to M D Ramanathan to add some color to the music season". Very apt words, since Balamurali added a lot of color to Carnatic music. He showed a different facet of Carnatic music to the world. Carnatic music in his hands was innovative, vibrant and witty. His approach ruffled many feathers but to his talent was so phenomenal that even his life-long critics had to grudgingly concede that he was one of a kind. Balamurali was an artist with his own unique vision. An artist who did not want to walk the standard path. According to him, in each of his compositions he has incorporated something new. Many a times artists revolt against current trends and practices but only a few succeed. The ones who succeed are the ones who have immense faith in their vision and the ability to implement the vision. Balamurali was one such artist. He had his own aestheti...

The close association of Indian film music with classical music and musicians in its formative years meant that a lot of classical ragas came to be used in film music. Very traditional ragas like Kalyani morphed themselves admirably to film music requirement. Universal ragas like Mohanam became natural candidates for film songs. In midst of all the classical ragas there seems to be one raga which is born for film music. In Carnatic music, Sivaranjani is not featured very prominently even in the tail end tukkada section. Ragas like Sindhu Bhairavi, Mand, Revati and others dominate that portion of the concert. In film music, though, Sivaranjani has been used extensively and effectively by various music directors. It is easy to associate Sivaranjani with pathos but the music directors were talented enough to take it beyond that emotion and were able to infuse a sense of joy into the raga. The first Sivaranjani that I remember hearing was a song of pathos, from the movie, 'M...

Setting tales to music is something that happens naturally in our culture. Harikatha, Burra Katha, Villupaatu etc  are loved even today. (Though that tradition has probably given way to film based 'light music' in many places. ) Such musical stories were told in films as well. We will examine two such songs which at the first view seem to be at the opposite end of the spectrum but are actually close cousins if we look at it from a different angle. There are many musical tales present in old Telugu films. A couple of them which are very famous are the harikatha in the film 'Vagdanam' and 'Girija Kalyanam' from the film 'Rahasyam'. We will look at the second song here. 'Girija Kalyanam' is about Parvati's love for Siva, her desire to marry him, Manmada trying to entice Siva, Siva burning Manmada with his third  eye, Rati pleading with Siva, Siva bringing back Manmada to life and then marrying Parvati. Gantasala provides music for the...