Virahini Radha | Tribute to Devarajan | Kavalam Narayana Panicker | Swathu

G DEVARAJAN FEST: Mid 50s was critical period in the Malayalam movie songs which saw a transition from the classical heavy tunes and singing style to a lighter version of music which became more popular due to the simplicity of the tunes. The harbinger of that paradigm shift, we believe, was undoubtedly G Devarajan, lovingly called Devarajan Mash. Devarajan made his debut in the movie field in 1955 with 5 songs out of 7 in the film, Kalam Marunnu. His proficiency in classical music, unmatched skill in handling the ragas, both Carnatic and Hindustani and more important his penchant for getting to the roots of the film situation and lyrics gave an out of the world feel to the songs. Devarajan was adept in artfully adding a foreign note or using a different semi-tone variant note to bring a different flavour to the song set to a raga. Spanning around 350 movies mostly in Malayalam, he tuned a mind boggling 1700 plus songs, most of which are lovely ones and make you believe that there can never be a better tune for the song. The composer has successfully given musical frame to almost all poets and lyricists of Malayalam. He departed in 2006 leaving behind a lot of untuned melodies, the proverbial unheard sweeter ones. SRG, on his death anniversary in March, pay homage to the all time wonder of Malayalam movie field and comes out with four beautiful songs from him tuned for different lyricists. G DEVARAJAN FEST SONG No.1 Credits: Singer: Suja A N Audio mixing and mastering: Deepak Varma Video editing: Adarsh Vijayan Description: Deepak Varma & Sajith Bhaskaran Original credits: Movie: Swathu (1980) Lyrics: Kavalam Narayana Panicker Music: G.Devarajan Singer: P Madhuri Here we present a song of the early 80s from the movie Swathu directed by Sankaran Nair. A beautiful one written by Kavalam showcasing the composing skills of Devarajan Master, Krishna, virahini Radha…..in the mellifluous voice of Madhuri. She was undoubtedly at her best in her rendition of the song and brought out all facets of the tune as envisaged by the composer. Regarding the musical composition of this song, the first raga that comes to the listener’s mind is MisraSivaranjini (G3 added to the Sivaranjini Scale) . However Devarajan master has cleverly appended 3 other notes to this Sivaranjini scale elevating the `bhavam' to a different level altogether. The Krishna humming at the beginning has distinct references to N3 and M2. The M2 is more pronounced in “കോമളാംഗുലികളാലെ....” of Anupallavi and “രാസകേളീയിലലി….” of Charanam. Icing on the cake is the deft addition of D1 at the ending “Krishna” humming of Anupallavi and Charanam. Though adding M2 and N3 may seem natural to the Sivarajani scale, adding D1 is not. But that is what makes this song stand out and should definitely be regarded as a brilliant innovation. We thus hear the notes S, R2,G2, G3, M2, P, D1, D2, N3 S with a raga bhavam very close to Misrasivaranjini. SwaraRaagaGanga wishes to call this new combination of notes as “Devarajapriya”, a new raga that can be considered as an evolution of Misra Sivaranjini. This, perhaps, may be the apt way to kick off this fest, by dedicating this raga to the maestro, one of the finest music composers that we have ever seen.