MSV : His Music and his times - Part 6 Some aspects of style

A question which lot of people ask about Vishwanathan Ramamurthy is, "What was Ramamurthy's contribution to Vishwanathan-Ramamurthy pair?". We all know that Ramamurthy faded away after composing for a few films post their split and Vishwanathan became MSV and for the next decade and more he would be the most sought after music director in the Tamil film industry.

Now, I personally have no inside information about who did what in the Vishwanathan Ramamurthy duo and I have read some conflicting reports. No one has really spoken about this in public: not the music directors themselves, nor the lyricists, the producers, directors or actors. What we can do is to analyze how things were post the split and come to some conclusion on what could have been Ramamurthy's contribution and how MSV's style changed after Ramamurthy left.

We have to undertake this exercise with a bit of humility and also with the disclaimer that it is only an exercise in understanding something and what the duo did should rightfully be credited to both of them. With this understanding, let us try and figure out what MSV gained and what he gave up when it came to his new style.

To do this let us listen to a few Ramamurthy numbers. Here is a song from 'Neelagiri Express' , 'naan kavignan alla'. This was a 1968 film.



Here is 'sandana kudaththula' from 'Thangasurangam'



These are both nice melodies and probably amongst the best Ramamurthy created. Yet you can observe that these don't have the natural flow or the very natural melody which was the hallmark of the duo. You can see that Ramamurthy has put in effort in terms of trying to get a bit more complex structure to the song and also to the rhythm pattern. I have heard some more songs of Ramamurthy and you can hear them in youtube. Based on these songs and the other ones I heard, it is clear to me that the natural sounding tune with the amazing melody was probably MSV's doing. I mean I don't hear something to match 'indha manrathil odi varum' or 'naalaam naalaam thirunaalam' in Ramamurthy's music whereas we can always come up with 'muthukalo kangal' or 'poo maalaiyil' melodies which will stand up to anything they had done together.

If melody was probably the area which MSV excelled in, what was Ramamurthy's contribution? I think Ramamurthy's contribution was that he gave structure to the overall song with his control over the orchestra. The Vishwanathan Ramamurthy songs were well structured and the interludes sounded very taut and organic. The very smoothly fitted into the overall frame work logically. Ramamurthy seems to have kept a tight leash over the orchestra and even when they were exuberant he held them back to ensure their energy didn't dominate the song. This structural consistency of the overall song was of an higher order when it came to Vishwanathan Ramamurthy songs compared to the latter day MSV songs. Let me try and illustrate this with a few examples. (Again, let me state this is just my theory. Please don't take as if it actually happened.). We must also remember that Ramamurthy was a formally trained musician and that probably had an impact on how the orchestra was controlled.

Here is a song we have heard earlier and I am sure you will not mind hearing it again. 'naalaam naalam thirunaalaam'. This is an exuberant love song but observe how it is controlled from an orchestral point of view. The tabla player's exuberance is muted and he doesn't dominate the proceedings.



Now watch this song, 'chandrodayam oru penn aanoado'. The tune is typical MSV but you hear the changing orchestral style with the tabla dominating from the pallavi itself. And it asserts itself in the charanam also. In the sense that in 'naalam naalam' you would not have heard the tabla consciously whereas here you cannot avoid hearing it.

Or let me take another typical MSV number, 'ninaithen vandhai' from 'Kavalkaran' (1968).



Not only the orchestra, the singers also have more freedom. The interludes too are a bit 'loose'. In the sense they don't come together tightly as one single idea but rather as a joining of two or three different ideas. This freedom from instrumentalists and singers would be a major feature of MSV's music.

Here I will put up two very similar numbers, both songs on Lord Muruga, one a Susheela solo and one Susheela singing with Soolamangalam Rajalakshmi. (As an exercise can you try and listen to the songs without seeing the video and guess which is by Vishwanathan Ramamurthy and which is by MSV? No cheating please. Will give you the answer at the end. Just listen to the characteristics I have mentioned till now)

Here is the first song:



Here is the second one:



So what changed in MSV's music after the split? As I said, the 1965 and early 1966 probably had some Vishwanathan Ramamurthy influence but the later day MSV was an exuberant man. It was as if someone has removed his shackles and his songs became brighter and more energetic. He got more of western orchestration into his songs and slowly MSV's exuberant songs became his signature songs. Let us check out a couple of songs to try and get the contrast.

This song has high Vishwanath Ramamurthy influence and till now I was very sure that this was a Vishwanathan Ramamurthy number. 'mouname paarvaiyal' ('Kodimalar')



Very controlled orchestration and the happiness doesn't really flow out in the song even though the song is a happy one. (I sometimes feel that this song as well as 'kunguma pottin sangamam' are both inspired by Shankar Jaikishen's 'yeh jo mera prem patra padkar')

Contrast that to this duet. Here it is a no holds bar duet with the song brimming with energy and happiness. 'poo malayil' from 'Ooty Varai Uravu'.



Finally here are two songs. The first one is by Vishwanathan Ramamurthy where even a joyful duet sounds a bit sad.



And here is a MSV song where even a sad song sounds so joyful !!



What MSV lost in terms of tautness of structure and control he balanced in terms of exuberance and brightness of melody. In the next part we will see what is Vishwanathan Ramamurthy's legacy and what was their impact on other film industries. We will also look at the state of Hindi and Telugu film music of those times.

Answer to the Murugan songs: 'azhagan muruganidam' by Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. 'thiruppugazhai paada paada' by MSV