Sunday, September 17, 2006

Ilaiyaraja inspired a Paavani RTP

Bombay Jayashri, in an interview, has said that Ilaiyaraja's composition paartha vizhi, from the movie Guna, was the inspiration for her Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi in the raga Paavani. The full article is available here.
In her words:
... And so I (the author) remind her (Bombay Jayashri) of an instance during a December season concert where she did stress her listeners out a bit, performing a ragam-thanam-pallavi in the unusual raga Paavani — the only reference point for which appears to be a film song, Ilayaraja’s Paartha vizhi from Guna. I wonder why she didn’t pick a Todi or a Sankarabharanam for the exercise — instead of making her audience work hard with her in trying to appreciate (leave alone enjoy) a familiar form with such unfamiliar content — and she says, “I’m a huge Ilayaraja fan. Paartha vizhi has been running in the back of my mind since I saw Guna. At the December concert, I am bored of constantly singing Todi or Sankarabharanam. I imagined the audience would be bored too. So I tried to do a pallavi with the word Paavani.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, who can better the arrogance and intransigence of our Carnatic intelligentsia, who claim to know everything that there is to know about music :)

It must take some talent to not praise an artiste who has tried to do something different. Then again, the intelligentsia believe in drowning out innovation, no matter what colour, shape or size it comes in!