About Raaja again ?

Well. I could not help it as my interests mostly centre around this person. Last evening me and Jaya sat through a unique concert - ILAYARAAJA SALUTES THYAGARAJA. Presented by a leading TV personality with the aid of a group of young exponents of vocal and instrumental classical music, the concert was good though not excellent. My interest was however in the contents. Saint Thyagaraja needs no marketing or introduction. So is the other Raaja today. But the concert aimed at explaining the richness of carnatic music ragas through familiar film tunes, so that more people are drawn to carnatic concerts in future. The presenter found IR as the only composer to accomplish this task. The sync of one carnatic song to a film song in the same raga formed the format for the concert. We were fed some interesting facts about the great efforts of IR, unmindful of the success or failure of the films he composed for. His achievements are no more secrets to the listeners as all channels of TV and FM sing his praise everyday. The presenter here shared with us some rare facts about IR. It seems he has scored 166 songs in the raga Keeravani, with no similarity between any two songs. He is the only composer to have used over a dozen rare ragas, some of them having no carnatic krithi at all. He is the only film composer who has used "sruthi bedham" and such nuances of classical music without any dilution in basics and dharma. There are films like Kovil Pura which crashed at the box office but had songs blended in rare ragas and treated with rare musical experiments. The presenter concluded saying most of the film songs are over 30 years old but sound fresh, because IR has worked 30 years ahead. You will agree with this if you listen to his latest non-filmi album SWAPPNAM.