To the list of Maestro's Masterpiece. Review on Hey Ram Songs

There are group of people who complains that Illayaraja’s recent albums are not as classy as his early 80’s albums and it lacks the soul and depth it had before. I need to tell them that Illayaraja music maintains the same class and melody as it was before and it is even higher in terms of experimentation these days, but it is we who have denied listening to his albums seriously and we all have fallen in the trap of enjoying and encouraging cheap fast numbers and dappanguthu songs these days. Every other album of Illayaraja is turning out to be a pleasant experience these days as it was before.

As like A.R.Rahman and Maniratnam combination, Illayaraja and Kamal Haasancombination has something fresh to deliver in their each and every album. When you look back, some of the all time best songs of Illayaraja would be for Kamal Haasan. The pair does it again with “Hey Ram” album which is said to be a magnum opus of Kamal Haasan as a director and it deserves a place in Indian film history as the first Indian movie to have full length symphony written by Maestro Illayaraja for background score of the movie performed by Budapest Orchestra of Hungary. Of course it is not a big task for him who is the First Asian to compose Symphony (Symphony No. 1) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London.

This album explored the versatility of Illayaraja and we have a completely different stuff in each and every song. The album has Tamil and Hindi version but know I am going to write about the Tamil version of it.

Ram Heyram

This is the vibrant title track of the album which doesn’t feature in the movie. It is a very unusual number to expect from Illayaraja. He doesn’t use much of synthesized rhythms and electronic beats in the background for his songs. This song has got excellent usage of synthesizers and electronic beats in the background. It has a brilliant fugue of western music, Arabic music (in the interludes) with typical IR kind of orchestration with banging percussions and banjos. The tune is something very different and grabs our attention immediately especially the way he has tuned the starting lines “Raghupathi raghava Rajaram Pathitha Pavana seetharam” is something we have never heard of and very innovative and unique. Kamal Haasan himself rendered these lines quite appealingly with a different diction.

Nee partha Paivaikku

In my opinion, the world’s best romantic number is Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on” and the next best is this song performed by Asha Bhonsle and Hariharan. It is an out and out western classical composition with best usage of Piano. The Piano tune in the song is an ever haunting piece. Actually there are two piano pieces played in parallel that couples and gels together to squeeze a romantic juice out of it. This piano piece is in the league of piano concertos of great western classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven. A Bengali poem orated by Rani Mukherjee which starts the track has got an out of the world backing score by a collective sound got by piano, western flute, female humming and violin orchestrations. The romantic rendition with a seductive edge to it by Ashaji and soft soothing vocals of Hariharan amplifies the impact of the song further. Truly a masterpiece in every terms.

Isaiyil Piranthathamma

If the previous song was a pure western classical stuff, this song is rich in Indian classical elements along with Bengali nativity in all aspects. The tune is so simple and classy and the way it is rendered manifolds the impact. The deft usage of Indian percussions, Shehnai, Sarangi and Choir adds nativity to the song and gives a celebrating mood out of it. One thing that stunned me most in this song is Ajay Chakraborthy’s fast twisting swara renditions and apt usage of gamukkas to the words which overshadows his unclear Tamil pronunciation. I can’t imagine how IR composed it and how it got transferred to the singer that made him to sing such complex twists in the notes.

Raman aanalum

It is a fast, peppy and joyous situational dance number casually sung by Kamal Haasan, Hariharan and Ajay Chakraborthy. The western beats and the instruments used gives an authentic pre independence period feel to the song. A solo violin piece playing Arabic notes in the second interlude is a good one. At the end the background beats are replaced by tabla beats which pulls out leg to tap it on the floors. An enjoyable number with high philosophical concepts handled pretty simply in the https://lyrics.

Pollatha Mathana

This song is typical fusion of Hindustani classical and Bengali folk music with prominent usage of tabla beats and chal chal sounds in the background. The tune catches up with ease set with a foot tapping rhythm. The song suddenly takes a stunning shift to pure western classical symphony aptly written for the visuals and ends leaving us dumbstruck by the class of Illayaraja’s orchestration and I think this piece is also performed by Budapest Orchestra of Hungary.

And the rest “Kalyanam Ayiram”, “Vaishnava janatho” are highly situational numbers which also has got some great authentic music in it.

I would say this album as yet another master piece of the maestro in recent times. Those who don’t know Tamil, the album is very much available in Hindi too as the movie is a bilingual. Go for it.