Ilaiyaraaja - A Phenomenal composer

On some rare occasions an award’s reputation is enhanced by virtue of its recipient.

In the year 1921, the Nobel prize committee was desperate to award the Prize to Einstein, nervous that it had already taken too much time in honoring a man whose fame had spread far and wide for his special-theory of relativity. The Nobel committee, while never in doubt about the longevity of Einstein’s phenomenal IQ and the legacy it was going to leave behind, was not so sure of the longevity of the validity of the special theory of relativity. So they looked at the man’s past accomplishments and awarded him a safe Nobel prize for his work on photo-electric effect, something that was done way back in 1905.

More recently, the Indian government enhanced the reputation of the Padma Bhushan award by granting it to one of the most phenomenally talented musical-maestros of our times, Dr Illayaraja. Music has been variously classified as classical and Pop (popular?). Music that stands the test of time and one that pushes the musical boundaries is considered classical. Music that has a much more immediate appeal, but a shorter shelf-life is classified as Pop-music. There is very little audience for the hits of the 1960s, while there is a growing audience for the 1700/1800s. Needless to add there is a big craze for the music of the now and here.

IR took it as a challenge to make his music instantly appealing at an intuitive level, while still allowing it to unravel slowly in repeated listenings over multiple layers for discerning ears. Raja’s phenomenal ability to transcend his folk/carnatic/western-classical musical upbringing and cinema-music medium to produce music that stands upto to the highest form of classical musical scrutiny, is unparalleled. IR, the sensitive artist that he is, has betrayed a strong sense of insecurity on whether his music will be acknowledged for its contribution to musical-evolution. There is no knowledgable musicologist who has endeavoured to do a technical analysis of IR's music. To Ilaiyaraja's credit, he never let the context of his work, namely Tamil Film Music (one that can be firmly classified as popular music), deter him from experimenting or pushing the boundaries of music.

He needn't worry. His musical legacy has been recorded for posterity. And when the brouhaha surrounding the here-and-now dies, unbiased minds will listen to music for its intrinsic worth and appreciate IR's efforts. I wouldn't be surprised if keen students of classical music study IR's style of taking an Indian-melodic-raga, backed by folk/classical rhythms and orchestrating it with baroque and contrapuntal style of music, to produce music that is the very best of the advanced musical civilizations. Very soon, we’ll have IR re-packaged and delivered to us (with a pronounced foreign twang).