THE FAMOUS FIVE
On the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, here’s how we in India remember the composer.
FEB 2, 2006 – 1. Itna na mujhse tu pyaar badha. The most famous instance of a western classical hit becoming a Talat-Lata megahit. The movie was Chhaya, and the music was composed, not surprisingly, by Salil Chowdhury. His western-classical bent resulted in some fiendishly complex creations – just try singing Woh Ik Nigaah from Half Ticket, or O Sajna from Parakh; there’s a reason Lata was asked to render them – but this one, everyone knows, everyone hums. Behind Salilda’s orchestral flourishes lies one of the most enduring melodies of Mozart, the Molto Allegro from Symphony No. 40 (in G minor).
2. A musical instrument plays a crucial role in uniting the hero and the heroine in a story filled with much magic, much singing and much love. You’re thinking, maybe, of the fifties’ Tamil hit Manalaney Mangayin Bhagyam? Earthbound Gemini Ganesan plays on the flute given to him by Anjali Devi, a dancer in Lord Indra’s court; she’s unable to resist the pull of his music, and she pleads, Azhaikaadhey… But a good century-and-a-half earlier, Mozart composed one of his most famous operas based on a prince, his faraway object of desire, and their eventual reunion through the means of a magic flute. It was called… The Magic Flute.
3. At a time the use of western classical music was becoming popular in Indian advertising – I’m unable to recall the brand, but there was an ad for a car tyre that used Blue Danube – came what is one of the most successful acts of pop-culture appropriation. Play the music for the Titan commercials to someone today, and they’ll instantly connect it with the watches that that Aamir Khan fellow endorses. The original is actually something that that Mozart fellow composed: Symphony No. 25.
4. And speaking of Symphony No. 25 should remind you of another actor, this one from Tamil cinema. Karthik, and his Kizhakku Vaasal. That genius named Ilayaraja composed and sang the symphony-inspired number that played over the opening credits, as Karthik breaks into a koothu – a piece of folk theatre. A raucous item song set in the heart of a Tamil Nadu village and inspired by classical music from Europe? Not for nothing were both composers hailed as a maestro in their own lifetime!
5. Can we mention Ilayaraja and leave out that other genius from Chennai, AR Rahman? He started out with music that was merely catchy – that’s hardly a criticism, though, when the music was so infectiously catchy – and has now grown into a bona fide composer, the go-to guy for prestige projects in the film industry. Just listen to his soundtrack for Rang De Basanti; listen to how magnificently he’s embellished the lyrics and how powerfully he’s underscored the mood of the movie. Is anyone really surprised that he’s come to be known as the Mozart of Madras?
Copyright ©2006 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
May 6, 2008
Just bringing over some more stuff…
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vimal
May 7, 2008
wow! now, this is somethng !
Gr8 article.
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Sagarika
May 7, 2008
Two East-loves-West music-related pieces moved here at once? Nice! Now I’m tempted to presume that this one in particular (appropriately titled “The Famous Five”?) was brought over to sort of immortalize the (“five”-minute?) inhaling and gargling and imagery-conjuring that you and Deepauk-“I am MJ, any Pauls out there?”-M just engaged in, on your also appropriately titled “Five minutes of fun..” post (thanks to that HJ number you’ve been trippin’ on lately). 🙂
But seriously, as someone who knows diddly squat about symphonies (for me, anything/everything Mozart, Bach, Beethoven…automatically cascades into this classical-compositions bucket inside my head; I couldn’t sift thru them to save my life), all I can do — aside from watching wide-eyed as you oh-so-effortlessly rattle off symphony-inspired movie numbers — is to intone “Oh, so brangan tells me #25 perhaps prompted IR to compose and sing Ada Veettukku Veettukku in Kizhakku vaasal…Ah, loved that movie. Karthik, Kushboo, Revathi…Oh boy, everyone, everything, about that movie shined. Watched it for the first time during my post-10th std summer vacation, all the time sucking on juicy mangoes from our backyard mango tree…what songs, what poignant performances, what picture-perfect pastoral locales…” You know how your posts (especially ones where half the subject matter is Greek to some of us) often double up as trajectories to long-forgotten memories, and before we know it, some of us wind up licking the drops of mango juice dribbling down our elbows…slurp! 🙂
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raj
May 7, 2008
somehow, the mozart of madras hangs precariously on rahman’s head. Would madonna of madras or michael jackson of madras be more appropriate for him?
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Vijay
May 7, 2008
Mozart of Madras might be an inappropriate epithet but so would Michael Jackson of Madras 🙂 It would actually be insulting to Rahman’s compositional capablities. Isaipuyal is good enough. Why this need for Mozart of Madras, Beethoven of Bombay and so on? Our media, hmm…
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brangan
May 7, 2008
raj/Vijay; That epithet was courtesy Time magazine, which stuck on. At least raj knows which MD I’d call Mozart of Madras, for obvious reasons 🙂 ARR is too experimental (in the best sense) to be seen as that serenely classical a composer (as Mozart). BTW, I’m no fan of Isapippuyal/Isaignani-type epithets either.
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Deepauk M
May 7, 2008
Well as long as Rahman doesnt end up being the Moby of Madras all will be well. I say this because he has reached the point where popular music is defined by the tone he sets.
Regarding “veettukku veettukku”: The lyrics sort of point to what he used to deconstruct the symphony -“theru koothukkum paattukkum thaalangadhi venum”. I love musical and lyrical synergies like those. “Rajathi Raaja un thanthirangal” from Mannan (quite appropriate isnt it 🙂 ) has another similar synergy which causes a percussion shift in the second BGM.
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