The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Golden era of film music remembered

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 01, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Golden era of film music remembered

Staff Reporter

"Though GNB had sung in films, that bit of music was lost as the technology to convert it into gramophone [records] did not arrive till 1952"

CHENNAI: The K.A. Chakkaravarthi Endowment Lecture for 2005-`06 of the Department of Music, University of Madras, was presented by N. Krishnaswami, (Vamanan), on Tuesday.

Speaking on the `Singing Stars of the 1930s and 1940s in Tamil films', he said T.M. Soundararajan and M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar ruled during the period. P.U. Chinnappa, during the same period, came from Boys Company, from where the stars of yesteryears Sivaji Ganesan and MGR came.

"Chinnappa established a style for himself," he said, pointing out that Bhakti, which was the essence of music, was present in the songs of those days.

He played the songs of Kothamangalam Seenu and V.A. Chellappa.

"Though GNB had sung in films, that bit of music was lost as the technology to convert it into gramophone [records] did not arrive till 1952," he said.

Interaction with students

He also spoke to students on the lyrics in Tamil film songs. There was also an interactive session on the golden era of film music.

Prameela Gurumurthi said the lecture focussed on film music as Mr. Chakkaravarthi was a well known music director from Andhra Pradesh.

"The documentation of film music is very less and it is important to study the history of film music," said Dr. Prameela Gurumurthi.

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