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Random Thoughts on TFM

Topic started by Gowri (@ 161.142.100.86) on Tue Apr 9 03:06:08 EDT 2002.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Gangai Amaran writes:


Research findings have established clearly that folk music preceded traditional, classical music in TamilNadu. Cave men & tribal men made sounds that devloped into a language. These people gave simple tunes without any rules, but a sense of music was apparent even then.
In my childhood days, there was no cinema as there is now. Performers travelled from village to village telling stories . Songs were interwoven in the sories. The appreciative audience offered these performers whatever they could.This was the beginning of symphony.
During the era of silent movies as recounted by our present CM Dr.M.Karunanidhi, a great lover of arts, musicians used to sit in front of the screen & sing, render music & dialogues at appropriate places to keep the audience enthralled.
To the best of my knowledge Sri Shankaradas Swamigal, a magan was the individual, to the best of my knowledge who gave filip to integration of music, verse & dialogues in a drama. Great creations such as Meenakshi Kalyanam, Yesu can be attributed to this Mahan. He included songs in appropriate places. 'Kayatha Kanagathe' is a prime eg. He established the Bala Nataka Sabha, where only children were involved in enacting all the roles. Then came Sakthi & Vaira Nataka Sabhas.
Nawab RajaManickam was a note-worthy person of these days who enacted plays using grand props & settings. Sakthi Nataka Sabha has gifted to the world of Tamil Cinema such greats as Shivaji Ganesan, V.K.Ramaswamy etc.,The troup used to consist of about 60 members & it was important for each artiste to be thorough with the dialogues & songs of all characters for each actor was made to paly a different role each day. Vaira Nataka Sabha has contributed greats like M.G.R & Nambiar.In the early stages of talkies, people who sought to act in movies had to be endowed with good looks, good voice & capacity to sing.Kittappa, Bhagavathar, P.U.Chinnappa, all great singers & actors of yesteryears were persons endowed with such gifts. As these actors act & sing, the orchestra had to move along with the actor & this recording was done in single track. The records were created with the whole gorup doing a special recording of the same song all over again in the studios. Saraswati Stores of A.V.Meyappa Chettiar was a renowned company that released records of film songs. Gramaphones were owned only by the very rich, who preferred carnatic trend in film music also & hence the songs of those days were based entirely on carnatic music.
We owe a great deal to the Britishers for introducing technology into cinema. Ellis.R.Duncan is one person I can single out, whose assistants after learning the tricks of the trade from him branched out to make their own movies. Drama, thus developed intocinema & in its wake came studios, recording with mike etc. The concept of dubbing was not known in those days. For a song to be perfected the entire troupe would work for months, paid on a monthly basis.
If you look at the chronology of singers, Kittappa was followed be T.R.Mahalingam, who was followed by T.M.Soundarajan,Seergazhi Govindarajan, all persons who could sing in very high pitches.
G.Ramanathan brought a fresh air to cine music. But folk songs were not appreciated in those dyas.Along with Papanasam Sivan who was a great composer he gave a variety of songs. There was no need do to go to a Kutchery. The Tamil film songs were strongly based on Carnatic music tradition.
P.U.Chinnappa was followed by Chidambaram Jayaraman,Tiruchi Loganathan. Gantasala was followed by P.B.Srinivas, S.P.B ,Mano etc., K.J.Yesudoss is a singer who emerged with a diiferent voice. Sivaji Ganesan, the recipient of Dada Saheb Palke award, could sing eloquently, but did not do so in movies giving way to the playback singers. Though T.M.S. claims that he used to change his voice to suit Sivaji & M.G.R. , but his voice defintely suits Sivaji best & it is my personal view that he has not really changed his voice much.
The domination of actors & singers from the Telugu field existed for a time. In order to sing for Telugu actors such as Nageswara Rao, N.T.RamaRao, Adi NarayanaRao, P.G.Lingappa, Chalapathi Rao etc. several singers such as Gantasala, P.B. Srinivas were introduced in Tamil. Other singers from Telugu field are S.Janaki, P.Susheela. Music obviously has no language barriers.
All the veterans of the early days had paved & smoothed the road for us in the present days. The trials faced by Viswanathan Ramamurthy,G.Ramanathan,S.V.Venkatraman are not faced by the present day musicians. Illayaraja's way was smoothed by his peers & in his turn he has shown the way for the next generation.
M.S.Viswanathan started his career as a chorus singer in K.V.Mahadevan's troupe & then became a great music director. He changed the history of Tamil cine music by giving lighter, melodius songs appreciated by all.Sudarsanam & Devarajan Masters were also great music directors of the day. Hindi music was popular then, & several songs were based on hindi music tunes.M.S.Viswanathan- Ramamurthy were great, for, they took the essence from other music but managed to deliver their own creations & hence their music is able to withstand for long.Chandrababu with his interest in western music also got them to make songs for him mostly based on westwern style.
Shankar Ganesh have directed music in several films. V.Kumar was a music director who was brought into film music by K.Balachander from his drama days. Kunnakudi, Deva , A.R.Rehaman are people who entered the film music line from other related fields such as devotional music, jingles, etc.
A.R.Rehaman is an extrememly talented youngster & some of the music rendered by him, can only be done by someone who has a wonderful understanding of music & the medium.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Raghu (@ 212.2.14.241) on: Thu Apr 11 07:17:21 EDT 2002
  
  gowri;
  
  Good website, thanks a lot
  
  
• From: ROTFL (@ 203.106.188.204) on: Thu Apr 11 07:35:25 EDT 2002
  
  Very interesting articles.
  Thanks for bringing them here Gowri.
  
  
• From: ROTFL (@ 203.106.188.204) on: Thu Apr 11 07:36:47 EDT 2002
  
  Oops! Sorry, to make the excellent articles go into "old responses."
  
  
• From: mahabs (@ 203.199.209.81) on: Thu Apr 11 10:51:15 EDT 2002
  
  very very impressive gowry. congrats.
  
  anbudan
  mahabs
  
  
• From: s0 (@ 128.119.85.50) on: Thu Apr 11 11:31:01 EDT 2002
  
  interesting thread. any more articles, gowri?
  
  
• From: Prabhu (@ 203.124.139.195) on: Fri Apr 12 00:47:40 EDT 2002
  
  Gowri:
  Tamil thirai varalaarai vaithu ramayaname eluthitengale!!
  Congrats, keep it up!
  
  
• From: Gowri (@ 61.6.38.132) on: Fri Apr 12 02:54:28 EDT 2002
  
  Thank you friends for your kind and encouraging words. Prabhu, I am not the author of any of the material here. I just hope to share some history and interesting tidbits with everyone here.
  
  
  The following article appeared in The Hindu. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2001/01/19/stories/0919070j.htm
  Although not so much about TFM, the article is very interesting.
  
  
  Vision turns real
  
  BANGALORE Nagaratnamma entered the scene in 1920. BNR, as she was popularly known, had already created for herself a niche in the musical world as a musician of merit. She was also well-versed in Sanskrit and adept at a few other languages. But it was as an ardent devotee of Tyagaraja that her name was to be firmly etched in the annals of South Indian musical history and in the minds of the music fraternity. Nagaratnamma's constant refrain was that she owed her `all' to the grace of Tyagaraja and one-day decided to dedicate those `all' to him. Her vision was to build a permanent structure over the samadhi and most importantly to construct a temple and install an idol of Tyagaraja. To this end, she obtained the permission of both the Katchi members and immersed herself in the accomplishment of her life's dream. She was aided in her mission by overwhelming public support. They contributed what they could. It is interesting that in her `will' dated January 3, 1949, Nagaratnamma discloses that she was guided in her task by Tyagaraja himself who had appeared in her dreams in 1921.
  
  In an article titled `Sri Tyagaraja swami sannidhi puja' written by Nagarathnamma herself and published in the Tyagaraja Centenary Souvenir dated January 11, 1947 she reveals the following details. ``One day Sangita vidwan Umayalpuram Panchapakesa Bhagavatar gave me a picture of Tyagaraja for seven rupees and asked me to worship it. From that day, I worshipped the saint with unstinted faith and devotion.'' On the night of the 13th day she had a vision of Tyagaraja who blessed her. Surprisingly, the following day she received a letter from her guru Bidaram Krishnappa advising her to start the construction of Tyagaraja's samadhi at Tiruvaiyaru.
  
  Nagarathnamma, who till then was not aware of the samadhi, proceeded to Tiruvaiyuru with the help of certain people. There, with the help of Ramudh Bhagavatar (the great-grandson of Tyagaraja's brother Jappesan) the samadhi was located. The pitiable state of the samadhi shocked her and she says, ``...At that moment I decided to start the construction and proceeded to order for the building materials. The work started on 27 October 27, 1921.'' The Kumbhabhishekam took place with great fan-fare in 1925.
  
  The construction of the temple apart, there was another historical offshoot of this whole episode and that was the emergence of a third Katchi called Nagaratnamma Katchi. Thus there were now three groups performing pujas and other celebrations independently. However the Nagaratnamma Katchi, distinguished itself by a noteworthy epoch making decision that it enforced.
  
  Women begin to perform
  
  
  In all those eventful years, which followed the saint's demise, women musicians of the highest calibre, of the likes of Veena Dhanammal, were denied opportunities to perform at the Tiruvaiyuru festivities. The predominantly `ladies group' of Nagaratnamma redressed this anomaly and women musicians started performing there in full measure. But the negative result was that functinal differences assumed new proportions and caused concern among stalwarts such as Musiri Subramania Iyer, Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavatar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and a few others. They felt a deep need to have a united approach towards conducting the festival of the composer. After several diplomatic parleys the three groups acquiesced in to unite. Eminent lawyers took care of the legalities and a settlement was reached to the satisfaction of the vidwans of all the three groups.
  
  Following a request from Nagarathnamma women were accorded the right to participate. Thus was born in 1940 the `Sri Tyagabrahma Mahotsava Sabha' which was an amalgamation of the three groups. It is noteworthy that the `Chinna Katchi' faction while agreeing to have a single celebration of the music festival retained the exclusive right of performing the first puja at the Samadhi on Bahula Panchami. Next in line came the representatives of the Nagarathnamma Katchi followed by members of the Mahotsava Sabha. These practices continue to this day.
  
  Initially the practice amongst the vidwans was to render a few songs individually as an offering to the bard. Over a period of time a decision was taken to render a few songs as a group. A consensus was then reached to render the pancharatna krithis as they were found ideal for group rendering.
  
  In 1956 Srirangam Sundaram Iyerdecided to have the krithis of the saint engraved on Carerra marble slabs, specially imported from Italy for this purpose. He was assisted in this monumental task by musicologist T.S. Parthasarathy, who prepared the authentic texts of the songs in the three different scripts of Telugu, Tamil and Devanagiri.
  
  In the subsequent years, Palghat Mani Iyer and Alathur Subbaier headed the Mahotsava Sabha. They were succeeded by Balamurali Krishna and Sirgazhi Govindarajan. Now it is Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan and Haridwaramangalam Palanivel who are secretaries of the committee.
  
  The Aradhana festivities are being conducted more like a gala `fete', missing out entirely on the significance of the occasion. A good portion of the musical programmes offered in the saint's honour at various locations stand out singularly by the absence of music in them. At this juncture let us all remember that the legacy of Tyagaraja lies in that he was the architect of the grandest music ever composed. A true offering would be to render his songs with utmost devotion both to the music and the lyrics of the piece taking care not to mutilate either. By all means let us deify the composer but let us primarily honour his compositions!
  
  LAKSHMI DEVNATH
  
  
• From: WhyNot (@ 203.24.100.132) on: Fri Apr 12 03:48:55 EDT 2002
  
  Great articles Gowri. Helps to bring back TFM's evolution into perspective. Great help for people who may think TFM's growth hinges upon individual personalities.
  
  

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