Ilaiyaraaja, a name which doesn’t require any
sort of introduction. He is the maestro of Indian music.He has been a prominent
composer of film music
in South Indian
cinema
since the late 1970s. His works are mainly in Tamil,
but has also scored music for numerous films in Telugu,
Malayalam, Kannada,
Hindi
and one in Marathi. He is the first Asian to compose a
full symphony
performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London's Walthamstow Town Hall.
He was also nominated in the Best Indian album Music Awards category at US
based Just Plain Folks Music Organization,
which is the largest grassroots music organization in the world, and stood
third for his "Music Journey: Live in Italy. In 2003, according to a BBC international poll,
people from 155 countries voted his composition "Rakkamma Kaiya
Thattu" from the 1991 film Thalapathi
fourth in the world's top 10 most popular songs of all time.
Ilaiyaraaja was born as
Gnanadesikan in Pannaipuram, Theni
district, Tamil Nadu,
India, but when he joined the school his father changed his name as
"Rajaiya" but his village people used to call him as
"Raasayya". Ilaiyaraaja joined Dhanraj Master as a student to learn
musical instruments and the master renamed and called him as just
"Raaja". In his first movie Annakili,
Tamil
film producer Panchu Arunachalam added "Ilaiya" (Ilaiya means younger
in Tamil
language) as prefix in his name Raaja and he named as "Ilaiyaraaja"
because in 1970's there was one more music director A. M. Rajah
who was a popular one.
A very famous book LIFE
OF MUSIC about his life story is written by one of his 2 sisters padmavati. Although
Ilaiyaraaja uses a range of complex compositional techniques, he often sketches
out the basic melodic ideas for films in a very spontaneous fashion. The Indian
filmmaker Mani Ratnam
illustrates:
Ilayaraja
would look at the scene once, and immediately start giving notes to his
assistants, as a bunch of musicians, hovering around him, would collect the
notes for their instrument and go to their places. When the orchestra played
out the notes, they would be perfect, not just in harmony but also in
timing — the background score would commence exactly where it should and
end at the exact place required. Ilayaraja is a genius, who could compose music
with just one look at the scene.
Ilaiyaraaja's
music is characterised by the use of an orchestration technique that is a
synthesis of Western and Indian instruments and musical modes. He uses
electronic music technology that integrates synthesizers,
electric guitars and keyboards, drum machines, rhythm boxes and MIDI with large orchestras
that feature traditional instruments such as the veena, venu, nadaswaram,
dholak,
mridangam
and tabla
as well as Western lead instruments such as saxophones and flutes.
Ilaiyaraaja's first two
non-film albums were explorations in the fusion of Indian and Western classical
music. The first, How to Name It? (1986), is dedicated to the
Carnatic master Tyāgarāja and to J. S. Bach. It features a fusion of the
Carnatic form and ragas with Bach partitas,
fugues
and Baroque
musical textures. The second, Nothing But Wind (1988), was performed by
flutist Hariprasad Chaurasia and a 50-piece orchestra
and takes the conceptual approach suggested in the title — that music is a
natural phenomenon akin to various forms of air currents
He has composed a set of
Carnatic kritis
that was recorded by electric mandolinist
U. Srinivas
for the album Ilayaraaja's Classicals on the Mandolin (1994).
Ilaiyaraaja has also composed albums of religious/devotional
songs. His Guru Ramana Geetam (2004) is a cycle of prayer songs
inspired by the Hindu mystic Ramana Maharshi,
and his Thiruvasakam: A crossover (2005) is an oratorio
of ancient Tamil poems transcribed partially in English by American lyricist Stephen Schwartz and performed by the
Budapest Symphony Orchestra. Ilaiyaraaja's most recent release is a world
music-oriented album called The Music Messiah (2006). Its musical
concept is based against a mythological narrative. His recent release in
November 2008, is Manikantan Geet Mala released by India Tales with 9 songs
praising Lord Ayyappa in almost all south Indian languages.
--BHARAT SIGIREDDY's
--BHARAT SIGIREDDY's
