This is the seventh in the series of articles
celebrating the music of Maestro Ilayaraja, from a technical
standpoint. The article treats the Maestro's music as a
textbook on music composition and presents certain technical
and non-technical nuances in his music that may be of interest
to students of music composition and orchestration as well as
to listeners with a technical background in carnatic and
western classical music.
The content presented in this article is just an
observation made by the author. Please feel free to indicate
any analytical errors that you may find.
This song is yet another perfect example that shows
Ilayaraja's technique of blending the east and the west. The
composer uses his unusual western orchestration skills to
harmonize melodies in Keeravani (21st melakartha) raga.
An interesting point to note about the orchestration of
the interludes is that they contain disconnected sets of
phrases. Though the dramatic changes in the orchestration may
seem to lack musical continuity on one hand, the same changes
maintain the attention of the listeners with their rich
melodic and harmonic content on the other.
The prelude presents a vocal harmony on a raga based
melody. The pallavi has an interesting structure. It
momentarily stabilizes on the tonic and then follows a few
progressions that lead to the repetition. The intelligence of
the composer is hidden in the fact that he uses this tonic
junction to conclude the song at the end.
In the two-part vocal counterpoint at the end of the
first interlude ,one voice sings the notes and the other hums
a melody (both in Keeravani raga) and both the voices
harmonize to form a beautiful two-part counterpoint.
Using unstable landing notes (ni), complicated phrases
like gm pp Snn n nnS np (in e gaganaalalo...), progressions
like RRR G SSS R NNN S DDD N... are found very natural in
Ilayaraja's compositions.
Bach's influence on Ilayaraja is clearly heard in the
instrumental counterpoint (keyboard and guitar with bass)
which begins the second interlude. Ilayaraja stamps his
trademark once again in this song, through his outstanding
bass patterns throughout the song.
Thanks to Maestro Ilayaraja for giving us yet another
song to celebrate.
