Years back (back in the early 90's, was it?), there was a Tamil movie called Kaeladi Kanmani. Ilayarja did the music for this movie. The super celebrity, S.P Balasubrahmaniam sang one of the songs, Mannil Inda Kaadal that became a huge hit.
Let me be honest- I have never been a fan of SPB. He's a good singer and all that. But there's just this quality in his voice that doesn't appeal to me. However, I randomly remembered this song and looked it up and found it on Youtube and I must say, I was totally impressed with him! It's a very difficult song, not only in the musical aspects like the speed coupled with the complexity of the tune, but also from the lyrical aspect. It's hard! And Tamil does not "flow" easily. It *is* a harder language. I looked up the lyrics (of course, transliterated in English), and boy! I could never sing it!
Anyways, the highlight of the song is that SPB sings the last two stanzas 'breathless' - don't know how true it is but this was his claim to fame. I mean, even if it wasn't truly a breathless performance, I am impressed!
Now this video has the famous Carnatic violin maestro, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan playing the same song 'breathless'. He stops in the middle of the performance to explain what he means by playing 'breathless' on the violin and shows the contrast, by first playing that same stanza 'normally'; i.e., lifting his bow and putting it back on the strings, and then 'breathless'; i.e., without lifting the bow at all. I have always found Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan hilarious. He bears a resemblance to one of our cute cousins in the ape family - no! No offense, I mean this with the most genuine of affections! But his playing Carnatic never appealed to me because of his gimmicks. I do recognize that he was very very talented and a lot of fun, though! But this piece- the stretch that he plays 'breathless' is just amazing! One hell of a talent! Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYfSHElYR2M&feature=related
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3 comments:
Ah yes, I have seen both songs, and found Kunnakudi's version brilliant, as great as the original song was. Kunnakudi and U Srinivas are probably the two best things to have happened to Carnatic music in recent years, after Lalgudi and L Subramanian made it international.
That was amazing indeed... Remember the name "kunguma kudi"? :) btw, SPB did not actually sing those stanzas breathless and he reiterates that every time the topic comes up. But yes- it was still a fantastic job. And I can't imagine the song in any other singer's voice.
Good post.SPB did not sing Mannil Entha breathless.It was punched in manually to create that effect.That was back then when lack of technology brought out the best out of composers.
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