{"id":306,"date":"2010-01-21T09:53:51","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T14:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melodiouslife.wordpress.com\/?p=306"},"modified":"2010-01-21T09:53:51","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T14:53:51","slug":"ilaiyarajaraja-of-raagas-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/?p=306","title":{"rendered":"Ilaiyaraja:Raja of Raagas-I"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of many reasons why Ilaiyaraja is considered a genius is because his songs are a perfect example for showcasing the beauty of a raaga. Take any song in a raaga, we can see that the song explores all the dimensions within a raaga within the 5 minutes of the song. Also, multiple songs in the same raaga do not sound same at all! It takes God-gifted genius to do this repeatedly for 3 decades! Many other great composers have also done this but the sheer number of raagas used by Raja (more than 120) places him in a higher pedestal. One of the seeds for this post was that I had a raaga-obsession every week when I felt like listening to specific raagas and invariably Raja’s song’s satiated my thirst the most.<\/p>\n

Let’s see some raagas where the song composed by Raja is THE perfect demonstration of the essence of that raaga. I have also included a few raagas where other composers’ songs stand out as they too have done a wonderful job. Read it as Raaga-Song-Movie.<\/p>\n

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  1. HAMSADHWANI-Poo Mudithu-En Purushandhaan Enakku Mattumdhaan<\/strong>-Not a simple song (a relatively common raaga) as the notes touched by Raja are as usual complex but P.Jayachandran has sung it with alarming ease!<\/li>\n
  2. KEERAVANI-Malaiyoram Veesum-Paadu Nilave<\/strong>-A very tough choice as Raja has composed a zillion Keeravani’s but according to me this one beats all. The maestro uses minimal orchestration in the charanams to show the genius of SPB. What a rendition!<\/li>\n
  3. DHARMAVATHY-Meendum Meendum Vaa-Vikram<\/strong>-When I first heard this song a few years ago, I dismissed it as another love song but recently I went back to this and started loving it. This song is a sheer beauty oozing Dharmavathy.<\/li>\n
  4. PANTHUVARALI-Enna Varam Vendum-Nandavana Theru<\/strong>-Panthuvarali is a very intense raaga and this song with a great tune and greater backing vocals presents Panthuvarali in all its splendour.<\/li>\n
  5. CHARUKESI-Thaiyatha Thaiyatha-Thiruttu Payale<\/strong>-Composed beautifully by Bharadwaj<\/strong> and sung very well by Sadhna Sargam. Another equally good Charukesi is Aahista Aahista by A.R.Rahman from Swades.<\/li>\n
  6. MADHYAMAVATHY-Kuyile Kuyile-Aan Paavam<\/strong>-A nectarine song that makes you imagine the countryside!<\/li>\n
  7. SHANMUGAPRIYA-Thakita Thakita-Saagara Sangamam<\/strong>-A legendary song showing why SPB is one of the greatest singers ever.<\/li>\n
  8. AMRUTHAVARSHINI-Thoongaadha Vizhigal-Agni Nakshathram<\/strong>-This song has become synonymous with the Amruthavarshini raaga. Raja has composed a few more in this raaga, KaathirundhaMalli and Vaanin Devi both of which are also very good. Not many composers have not touched this raaga as its quite complex.<\/li>\n
  9. VASANTHA-Minsaara Kanna-Padayappa<\/strong>-The one song that shows that Rahman CAN compose classical tunes and do it very well too. This song is unique also because the 2 tunes in the charanams are different. If you don’t get goosebumps after hearing this song then there should be something wrong with you!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I will take up more songs in the next part of this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    One of many reasons why Ilaiyaraja is considered a genius is because his songs are a perfect example for showcasing the beauty of a raaga. Take any song in a raaga, we can see that the song explores all the dimensions within a raaga within the 5 minutes of the song. Also, multiple songs in…More <\/svg><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[111,170],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-raagas","tag-ilaiyaraja","tag-music-composers","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianmusics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}