PIED PIPER OF SOUTH
A composer who honed hits with a humane touch
Critic Recalls K V Mahadevan’s Ease With Lyrics And People In His Centenary Year
22.03.2018
Vamanan
Like his film songs which have a spontaneous appeal, natural flow and easy grace, K V Mahadevan was a music composer who made no extraneous effort to impress others. In the early 1960s, when the competition between Mahadevan and the Viswanathan-Ramamurthy duo was at its height, Viswanathan made a flamboyant appearance in a picturised songrecording in AVM’s ‘Server Sundaram’ (1964). In contrast, Mahadevan chose to keep off when a similar opportunity came his way in Kannadasan’s ‘Vaanambadi’ (1963).
The applause was, however, both decisive and deafening when Telugu film ‘Sankarabharanam’ (1980) caught the nation’s imagination, bringing Mahadevan his second national award for best music director. The award underscored the fact that Mahadevan who had enticed Tamils with his melodies, could also fire the imagination of Telugus with songs that echoed Telugu nativity.
The first glimmer of promise in Mahadevan’s musical journey came when he was a kid and visited the Travancore palace where his grandfather was a sangeetha vidwan. Hearing the boy sing beautifully, the Maharaja gave him a gold coin. In contrast, the circumstances of Mahadevan’s early years with his parents at Krishnankoil, where his father was as a temple singer, and of his life as a young stage actor were marked by poverty.
The privations of his early years made the soft-natured Mahadevan extremely sensitive to the sufferings of others — his teeming orchestra was a huge family of instrumental players who were with him whether they were needed for certain films or not. They would swear by his musical genius and his abounding kindness. Of course, Mahadevan’s musical alter ego, T K Pugazhendi, was there to put any straggler in place — his one look being enough to strike terror.
Mama (uncle), as Mahadevan was endearingly called, believed in keeping intact the melody in his songs and the harmony in his relationships. Playback singers from TMS to Jamuna Rani to SPB and Vani Jairam have acknowledged the respect and freedom he gave them.
Mahadevan’s first chapter as music director began at Modern Studios in the early 1940s but he soon ran out of luck. His subsequent employment at HMV as a music composer was a heaven-send, as the notations he made of HMV’s catalogue of songs from across the country gave him an insight into honing hits.
Mahadevan’s rising trajectory in the 1950s became invincible when it combined with his work for seminal writer-director A P Nagarajan for about 25 films, reaching a pinnacle in the devotional genre in Tiruvilaiyadal (1965), and in the classical genre in ‘Tillana Mohanambal’ (1968). Mahadevan’s great love for nagaswaram music helped him come up with a resplendent score for the latter film.
The mighty stars of Tamil cinema, MGR and Sivaji, had the greatest respect for Mahadevan’s work. From 1952 (Kumari), Mahadevan scored the music for more than 35 MGR films including his ambitious ‘Adimai Penn’ (1969), which introduced SPB with ‘Aayiram NIlave Vaa’. Sivaji acclaimed Mahadevan as a master of melody. Who can forget the new dimensions poet Bharati’s lines to Sivaji in the songs, ‘Engirun Vandhaan’ and ‘Un Kannil Ne Vazhindhaal’?
Mahadevan believed in the primacy of the lyric. One look at it was enough for him to home in on a winning melody. Whatever the musical category his touch was masterly and h judgment of popular taste un ing. When a light music wave over Tamil films in the early hadevan came up with his own sion whose magic can be expe films like ‘Idaya Kamalam’ ( speed and the fact that he was easy to work with made produc Chinnappa Thevar and great d tors such as Adurthi Subba Ra K Viswanath and Bapu opt fo him. This is KVM’s centenary year; but the man who spent 50 years of his life marrying melody to song seems to have churned out enough melodie left to last many lifetimes.
(The author is a histor Tamil cinema and a biog K V M
Mahadevan composed music for the only MGR-Sivaji starrer ‘Koondukkili’(L); receiving his first national award from then President
Zakir Husain
A composer who honed hits with a humane touch
Critic Recalls K V Mahadevan’s Ease With Lyrics And People In His Centenary Year
22.03.2018
Vamanan
Like his film songs which have a spontaneous appeal, natural flow and easy grace, K V Mahadevan was a music composer who made no extraneous effort to impress others. In the early 1960s, when the competition between Mahadevan and the Viswanathan-Ramamurthy duo was at its height, Viswanathan made a flamboyant appearance in a picturised songrecording in AVM’s ‘Server Sundaram’ (1964). In contrast, Mahadevan chose to keep off when a similar opportunity came his way in Kannadasan’s ‘Vaanambadi’ (1963).
The applause was, however, both decisive and deafening when Telugu film ‘Sankarabharanam’ (1980) caught the nation’s imagination, bringing Mahadevan his second national award for best music director. The award underscored the fact that Mahadevan who had enticed Tamils with his melodies, could also fire the imagination of Telugus with songs that echoed Telugu nativity.
The first glimmer of promise in Mahadevan’s musical journey came when he was a kid and visited the Travancore palace where his grandfather was a sangeetha vidwan. Hearing the boy sing beautifully, the Maharaja gave him a gold coin. In contrast, the circumstances of Mahadevan’s early years with his parents at Krishnankoil, where his father was as a temple singer, and of his life as a young stage actor were marked by poverty.
The privations of his early years made the soft-natured Mahadevan extremely sensitive to the sufferings of others — his teeming orchestra was a huge family of instrumental players who were with him whether they were needed for certain films or not. They would swear by his musical genius and his abounding kindness. Of course, Mahadevan’s musical alter ego, T K Pugazhendi, was there to put any straggler in place — his one look being enough to strike terror.
Mama (uncle), as Mahadevan was endearingly called, believed in keeping intact the melody in his songs and the harmony in his relationships. Playback singers from TMS to Jamuna Rani to SPB and Vani Jairam have acknowledged the respect and freedom he gave them.
Mahadevan’s first chapter as music director began at Modern Studios in the early 1940s but he soon ran out of luck. His subsequent employment at HMV as a music composer was a heaven-send, as the notations he made of HMV’s catalogue of songs from across the country gave him an insight into honing hits.
Mahadevan’s rising trajectory in the 1950s became invincible when it combined with his work for seminal writer-director A P Nagarajan for about 25 films, reaching a pinnacle in the devotional genre in Tiruvilaiyadal (1965), and in the classical genre in ‘Tillana Mohanambal’ (1968). Mahadevan’s great love for nagaswaram music helped him come up with a resplendent score for the latter film.
The mighty stars of Tamil cinema, MGR and Sivaji, had the greatest respect for Mahadevan’s work. From 1952 (Kumari), Mahadevan scored the music for more than 35 MGR films including his ambitious ‘Adimai Penn’ (1969), which introduced SPB with ‘Aayiram NIlave Vaa’. Sivaji acclaimed Mahadevan as a master of melody. Who can forget the new dimensions poet Bharati’s lines to Sivaji in the songs, ‘Engirun Vandhaan’ and ‘Un Kannil Ne Vazhindhaal’?
Mahadevan believed in the primacy of the lyric. One look at it was enough for him to home in on a winning melody. Whatever the musical category his touch was masterly and h judgment of popular taste un ing. When a light music wave over Tamil films in the early hadevan came up with his own sion whose magic can be expe films like ‘Idaya Kamalam’ ( speed and the fact that he was easy to work with made produc Chinnappa Thevar and great d tors such as Adurthi Subba Ra K Viswanath and Bapu opt fo him. This is KVM’s centenary year; but the man who spent 50 years of his life marrying melody to song seems to have churned out enough melodie left to last many lifetimes.
(The author is a histor Tamil cinema and a biog K V M
Mahadevan composed music for the only MGR-Sivaji starrer ‘Koondukkili’(L); receiving his first national award from then President
Zakir Husain
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