Director Bhimsingh had established a nice team around making simple, family themed melodramas usually starring Sivaji Ganesan in the lead with Savitri, Gemini Ganesan, Devika, Balayya, Ranga Rao, Thangavelu and Chandrababu making regular appearences as well. "Paava manippu" came after "Pathi bhakthi" which was the director's first big success. But this was the film which really established the Bhimsingh theme of "small family stories". And of course, it boasted of sensational music.
Viswanathan Ramamoorthy had delivered brilliantly for Bhimsing in "Pathi bhakthi" but even by their own exalted standards, "Paava manippu" was a stunner. Every song in the track is worth treasuring for centuries and milleniums.. TMS, P.Suseela and P.B.Srinivas all at the peak of their powers. My favorites from this track :
vandha naaL mudhal : TMS is awesome. Kannadasan pens a critical take on humans and even a Tamil illiterate like me is wondered by these words :
paravaiai kaNdaan vimaanam padaiththaan
paayum meengalil padaginaikkandaan
edhiroli kaettaan vaanoli padaiththaan
edhanaikkandaan panamdhanaip padaiththan
A poor translation :
<i>he saw the birds and invented planes
the leaping fishes gave him the idea of boats
echoes he heard and created the radio
what did he see to create money</i>
I have always felt that the last line in the stanza we hear is an edited or a resung version - a badly done one at that. If you hear the stanza, the sound of the last line stands out obviously. What did Kannadasan actually pen in there ? I recall having heard somewhere "madhangaLai padaiththaan" instead of "panamdhanaip padaiththan" (meaning religions or castes). I wonder...
paal irukkum [Youtube] : A superlative Suseela solo going on Devika. The prelude music to the melody is a representative of the composers duo's orchestral finesse and the reason why they were such a revolution in Tamil cinema. So breezy, yet it hits you where it should.
aththaan ennaththaan : Perhaps the most famous Tamil song ever. Lata Mangeshkar's statement at the time to this song being one of her favorites raised this song's popularity all over the country and it has acquired a cult status, a song synonmous with the romance of a shy girl. Wonderful lyrics . superlative composition and subdued orchestration and beautiful singing.. perfection.
Other superb songs in the track include TMS' "silar siripaar silar azuvaar" and P.B.Srinivas' "kaalangalil aval vasantham". It is interesting that though this film has Gemini Ganesan in just a supporting role, the PBS song has become the definitive Gemini Ganesan song. No retrospect of PBS or Gemini Ganesan can ever be complete without a mention of this hugely popular melody.
A stellar soundtrack.. one of my all-time favorites !!
Showing posts with label Viswanathan Ramamoorthy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Viswanathan Ramamoorthy. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Monday, October 23, 2006
Viswanathan Ramamoorthy classics : Paarthaa pasi theerum
I have generally been talking mostly about Hindi film music on this page. While Hindi film music does dominate my listening spectrum, I do spend a lot of time with music from films made in other languages of the country. I am particularly fond of Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada music. Starting today, I will be spending some time with a few magnificent soundtracks from one of the finest composing duos of Indian cinema history - Viswanathan Ramamoorthy. The duo came together in 1951 and started as assistants to Subbiah Naidu. They got their first breaks as independent composers with "Panam" and that as they was it. They revolutionized Tamil film music and attained peaks of excellence that compare favourably with anything created at Bombay. They catered to all sections of the society. Their music was based on melody and lightness of execution. The hallmark of their compositions was their orchestration which a sheer delight. They used the flute and violin in particular to great effect in their music. In fact, to me, they fall in same bracket as C.Ramchandra when it comes to orchestration. Fresh and dazzling always. The duo split in 1965 after a wealth of unforgettable creations and plenty of outstanding soundtracks. I shall spend some time looking at some of their wonderful tracks from today.
We start with Bhim Singh's Paarthaal pasi theerum, another film in the "pa" series of the director which usually had Sivaji Ganesan, Gemini Ganesan and Savitri as leading stars with a mix from Chandrababu, Thangavelu, Ranga Rao and Ballaya playing the supports. It was one success after another and almost all of these films were orchestrated by the composing duo. This film I choose because the songs have been haunting me all day today..
1) paartaal pasi tiirum : A typically soft, P.Suseela melody which just wafts through the air.
2) yaarukku maapiLLai yaarO : A delightful song. The "o..o.." fillers in the song sound ever so charming in Suseela's voice.
3) koDi asaindadum kaaTru vandadaa : This song is a delight to hear. A romantic song around the "chicken-or-egg" question. The lyrics are superbly imaginaive, typically Kannadasan. A sample :
It never ceases to enchant. TMS and P.Suseela are also in top form here. The orchestration is magnificent. The interlude music is beautifully done. One of the all-time great duets..
4) uLLam enbadu aamai : This song has grown on me over the years to become one of those songs which I can keep hearing again and again all the time. What a magnificent creation this is ! TMS is brilliant, the composition wonderful, lyrics soulful and the orchestration outstanding. And to top it all is Sivaji on the screen. Confessedly rather bloated in the film, what remains etched in memory is the way Sivaji lives the song. Every movement, every look he gives in the song captures the meaning of the song superbly. Its Sivaji the actor you see in your mind as this song plays. The sardonic smile he gives as he sings, "adu naaTpaDa naaTpaDa puriyum" is somethign I always remember. One of my all-time favourite songs and one that can be held out as a representative philopsophical song of pathos.
5) piLLaikku tandai oruvan : Again, a song beyond adjectives. A lullaby that stands out as one of the finest of all times. There arent too many male-sung lullabies and this rannks as perhaps the greatest of em all. The violin interludes are out of this world. This I think where Ramamoorthy came into the picture. The primary difference between the music of Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy and MSV on his own are the orchestral touches. MSV's brilliant compositions found a perfect match in TKR's orchestration. Once they seperated, MSV's music lost tier orchestral brilliance while TKR wasnt a great music creator. In any case, This song is definitely amongst TMS' very bests. A song forever...
All in all, this track is a veritable feast for TMS-P.Suseela lovers. Both are in top form and the compositions exploit their abundant talents to the hilt. A superlative soundtrack worth treasuring forever...
We start with Bhim Singh's Paarthaal pasi theerum, another film in the "pa" series of the director which usually had Sivaji Ganesan, Gemini Ganesan and Savitri as leading stars with a mix from Chandrababu, Thangavelu, Ranga Rao and Ballaya playing the supports. It was one success after another and almost all of these films were orchestrated by the composing duo. This film I choose because the songs have been haunting me all day today..
1) paartaal pasi tiirum : A typically soft, P.Suseela melody which just wafts through the air.
2) yaarukku maapiLLai yaarO : A delightful song. The "o..o.." fillers in the song sound ever so charming in Suseela's voice.
3) koDi asaindadum kaaTru vandadaa : This song is a delight to hear. A romantic song around the "chicken-or-egg" question. The lyrics are superbly imaginaive, typically Kannadasan. A sample :
paaDal vandadum taaLam vandadaa
taaLam vandadum paaDal vandadaa
baavam vandadum raagam vandadaa
raagam vandadum baavam vandadaa
kaN tirandadum kaaTchi vandadaa
kaaTchi tirandadum kaN vandadaa
paruvam vandadum aasai vandadaa
aasai vandadum paruvam vandadaa
It never ceases to enchant. TMS and P.Suseela are also in top form here. The orchestration is magnificent. The interlude music is beautifully done. One of the all-time great duets..
4) uLLam enbadu aamai : This song has grown on me over the years to become one of those songs which I can keep hearing again and again all the time. What a magnificent creation this is ! TMS is brilliant, the composition wonderful, lyrics soulful and the orchestration outstanding. And to top it all is Sivaji on the screen. Confessedly rather bloated in the film, what remains etched in memory is the way Sivaji lives the song. Every movement, every look he gives in the song captures the meaning of the song superbly. Its Sivaji the actor you see in your mind as this song plays. The sardonic smile he gives as he sings, "adu naaTpaDa naaTpaDa puriyum" is somethign I always remember. One of my all-time favourite songs and one that can be held out as a representative philopsophical song of pathos.
5) piLLaikku tandai oruvan : Again, a song beyond adjectives. A lullaby that stands out as one of the finest of all times. There arent too many male-sung lullabies and this rannks as perhaps the greatest of em all. The violin interludes are out of this world. This I think where Ramamoorthy came into the picture. The primary difference between the music of Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy and MSV on his own are the orchestral touches. MSV's brilliant compositions found a perfect match in TKR's orchestration. Once they seperated, MSV's music lost tier orchestral brilliance while TKR wasnt a great music creator. In any case, This song is definitely amongst TMS' very bests. A song forever...
All in all, this track is a veritable feast for TMS-P.Suseela lovers. Both are in top form and the compositions exploit their abundant talents to the hilt. A superlative soundtrack worth treasuring forever...
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