Vignesh
How many of our fellow music fans would have heard or heard of "Guru Ramana Geetham" - an Ilaiyaraja's devotional album dedicated to Lord Shiva and Ramana Maharishi?"Guru Ramana Geetham" released in 2004 , is definitely in league with Raja's previous devotional album on Ramanar - "Ramana Maalai". Raja has written lyrics for all the songs and it is amazing to know that he has even written two keerthani in Sanskrit.
The album starts with "Chinna payyan oruvan", biography of Saint Ramanar condensed and packaged in a 5 minutes song. Raja goes on describing various interesting incidents in Ramanar's life and the song takes off to a soaring pace while singing the last stage of the holy Saint and is sure to bring tears in eyes of listeners.
Remember Raja singing a few lines of "En ooru Sivapuram" during the release function of Thiruvasagam? Wonderfully crafted philosophical lines in magical voice of Raja is a treat to the ears and is thought evoking.
Other songs like "Ippirappil enna seidhen", "Ennai kavarndhizhutha","Enge sendraalum", "Arunaachalaa" have been tuned to perfection and in contrast to other devotional songs genre.
"Annamalaiyaar mel" is a variety song which can only be conceived and performed by the musical genius. Here he lists all the disciples of Lord Shiva who had visited Thiruvannamalai. The tune is not at all in a standardised format of pallavi and charanam and is more of a narratory tone and yet stands alone by Raja's varna mettu unleashed.
Some interesting facts about the album:
- Raja has strictly instructed the producers not to advertise or market the album. Only the people who are really interested and destined will get it and enjoy
- The songs have been Mastered at Rahman's Panchathan Recording Inn, Chennai
- Though all the songs are written, composed and sung by Raja, two Sanskrit keerthanai, also written by Ilaiyaraja are rendered by Unnikrishnan and Bombay Jeyashree.
Posted in: Music
2 comments:
Dear Vignesh,
It is nice of you to have written about this lesser known album. Thanks for doing it!
Just wanted to correct an error: In this album, out of the two songs that were not sung by Ilaiyaraaja only one is in Sanskrit (Sri Mathrubhutheshwari - sung by Bombay Jayashree). The other one (Arul Thavazhum - sung by Unnikrishnan and others) is in Tamil only. The confusion could have occurred because both fall in the Carnatic Keerthanai pattern.
But, it is true that the lyrics for the whole album (both Tamil & Sanskrit) were written by Ilaiyaraaja, as you had rightly mentioned.
Source: http://www.agimusic.com/gururamana/cdbooklet.pdf
Yours Always Musically,
Vijay.
Please share the lyrics of this album
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