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Monday, August 1, 2011

Big Bang Symphony - A.R.Rahman


After writing this post (about A.R.Rahman’s Orchestral Concert at Hollywood Bowl), I kept thinking about the pieces that I would like to see performed when such a concert happens in India. Now here is something I put together which I would like to see performed as the opening act of the concert. I named it “Big Bang Symphony”. The transitions from one piece to another may sound rough and abrupt but I guess that is because of the difference in the audio quality of the source material. Also, there shouldn’t be any difficulty in making the transitions seamless with conjunctive phrases of music when adapting this piece for a live orchestra. The Synth layers and vocal parts could be easily transported to an equivalent instrument in the orchestra.

Big Bang Symphony


Some grand orchestral pieces from Shankar's films are strung togather in this suite, which I would like to call "A Gentleman, An Indian and a Mudhalvan - A.R.Rahman"

A Gentleman, An Indian and a Mudhalvan - A.R.Rahman


In Lagaan Suite, always only the "Once Upon a Time in India" theme is performed. This Lagaan Suite includes also the song "My heart it speaks" and its various instrumental versions, the "Waltz for Romance" and the flute piece from the opening credits of the film.

Lagaan Suite


I like the themes to appear in this order (Jwala Theme, Captain Gordon Theme, Mangal Pandey Theme, Biting the Cartridge, Rising, End Credits) in Mangal Pandey Suite.

Mangal Pandey Suite




29 comments:

Unknown said...

nice compilation. the following pieces also came to my mind:

spirit of rangeela
indian end credits music
mudhalvan end credits music

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Ramesh - There is more in coming days..

Mudhalvan and Indian End Credits will feature in a Suite titled "A Gentleman, An Indian and a Mudhalvan".

Bollywood movie reviews said...

Nice write up. Thanks for the info.

Anonymous said...

rahman loves vangelis...mudhalvan bgm,jeans love theme..

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Anonymous - I have heard 'Chariots of Fire'. One of my all time favourite pieces. And Rahman indeed loves Vangelis. Nothing more.

Let me put it this way, if you go to Vangelis and play Jeans and Mudhalvan BGM and tell him that some composer (without revealing that it is Rahman) has copied your composition, he wouldn't sue 'that' composer.

Anonymous said...

how would he sue without knowing the composer name...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQUFQ_N0JI8

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuFA3DmglwI&feature=related


just for your listening

Anonymous said...

you tell me suresh can we call rahman mozart of madras,mozart of mylapore or whatever..
we all know rahman's lies strength lies in syntheziers.then why this comparison..it hurts man.since im a big fan of mozart.
i have heard mozart's requiem nearly 1000 times

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

I mentioned 'without revealing that it is Rahman', because Rahman has personally met Vangelis and they know each other well. If you tell him that it is by A.R.Rahman, he wouldn't be able to make a neutral judgement. I meant, whoever the composer may be, he wouldn't sue.

I don't really care about who calls whom and with what name. I just listen to the music.

Anonymous said...

If you go to Rahman's website (http://www.arrahman.com/v2/journey-discography.html) and click on the instrumental adaptations you will see that the film Gentleman is fully credited as having some instrumental adaptations. What is the big problem? A.R Rahman always give due credits.

varadharajan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

i dont have any problem..if what rahman does okay with all of you then what GVp did with that robin hood song is also okay and also what he did with va quarter cutting song is also okay.then what harris jeyaraj does is also okay with all of you.inspired is different from heavily inspired.take raja he took very few notes of antonin dvorak 9th symphony and structured to tamil audiences in chinna veedu song chittu kuruvi.what im saying is rahman didnt change much..take another example of inspiration.in mozart's requiem the lacrimosa beginning part is used by raja in one song kathum kadal in the movie kattumarakaran in one of the interlude.by the way which john williams work closely resembles vangelis work.john williams does music with live orchestra not with synthezirs.beethoven got so much into mozart's paino concerto no 20 and 24 that he actually wrote cadenza's to it...talking about inspiration look what raja did to saint tyagaraja's tune..why raja is a genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TuK3evLlR0&feature=related

Anonymous said...

watch out for the 2nd interlude.if you dont listen to that atleast 25 times.i bet you will.suresh i think you should review this song alone
for three pages.did you read the youtube comments below.its not by us indians

Anonymous said...

do you know how many times raja used moonlight sonata in his songs.but his compositios will be better than the moonlight sonata in whichever songs he had ued...e.g en vaanile from johny,nilave from en aruhil nee irunthal.raja used beethoven 's 5th in atho antha nadhiyiram from ezhai jaathi..have any one one of you noticed this is called inpiration.same beethoiven's 5th deva used in the prelude of anna mala anna mala song.

Anonymous said...

raja sir works resembles tchaikovsky which ones..name any few. i got almost entire tchaikovsky which one can you name it.it would be more helpful

varadharajan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
varadharajan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
varadharajan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
varadharajan said...

let the things be tat i m wrong... Thanks for ur observations on musicians...v r not here to fight for me both rahman and raja sir are musical gods... i dont need offence on both so i m removing comments the topic turned as if i showed agitation on raja sir... infact i love raja sir more than rahman... i dont wanna get mislead so i ve removed my comments thank u...

Anonymous said...

its not about me or you varadha..its not about raja or rahaman .its just about music.whats wrong in calling a spade a spade.when we are praising rahman for all the excellent numbers why can i just mention..remember i just mentioned.didnt get into argument with anybody.everybody gets inspired..credits should be given according to the level of inspiration.for example raja just used two notes of toccato and fuge by j.s bach in the opening of the song oru kiliyin thanmiyalae from poovizhi vasalilae,does not mean he should give credit to bach..im so disappointed that you deleted the comments.love to hear your comments.i may be against the content but im sure in favour of the right to express

varadharajan said...

Na bro i never get into the arguments dragging raja sir and arr in a scale..its because its they both tat bought me into music listening..harsh words about both get hurt in my heart..i just mentioned don't draw a scale equalling harris,gvp and rahman..rahman is a scale above them even though he may not be in scale wit raja sir..his contribution to music and india is more than those people..i never said rahman never copied..but still he is a legend and ll be for me..you're right he cannot be called mozart..but he is still special in his own way..at the end of the day v r listeners they are composers..and rahman is not about synthesisers alone

Anonymous said...

Even if Rahman uses music from another composer, he credit it. I bought the copy of the soundtrack of Gentlemen and a credit to the original composer was noted. All great film music compposers adapt from another composer (esp. if the music fit the story line of a film). But what set a composer apart is the ability to give credit where credit is due. Trust me, a lot of composers who are not true composers just use other work and never give credit. A genuine copy right was also obtained by Rahman. I love AR Rahman to death. He's just plain simply great.

Anonymous said...

For all of you who professed to know the film scoring business, please know that the great John Williams was nominated 4 times for best "adapted" scores: I have listed an exert from Wikipedia at the end of this writing.

Please know that in the film scoring business you are allow to adapt a score from another composer if you think the composer's score best describe the scene in the movie. The only rule is get genuine copy right and credit the original composer. AR Rahman has done that for all of his adapted scores.

Below excerpts from Wikipedia:

John Williams has won five Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. He has been nominated for 21 Golden Globes and 59 Grammys. With 45 Oscar nominations, Williams currently holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for a living person,[31][32] and is the second most nominated person in the history of the Academy Awards, tied with late fellow film composer Alfred Newman and behind only Walt Disney's 59. Forty of Williams' Oscar nominations are for Best Original Music Score and five are for Best Original Song. He won four Oscars for Best Original Score and one for Best Adapted Score (Fiddler on the Roof).

Anonymous said...

In reference to my previous posting:

"Note that john Williams won 1 Adapted Score for Fiddler on the Roof". The key word here is "adapted". He adapted it from someone's else original composition. Trust me All great composers adapt a score because they are thinking more about the story and directions vision more than anything else. So if someone else composition help tell the story better, than it is used. The true great ones not only adapt, but also give credit.

Anonymous said...

I agree with my sister... AR Rahman is great because he's not afraid to give credit where credit is due. All you have to do is go to his discography on his website. You will see that credit is given to all the artist that help make the composition possible. from the drummer, the trumpet player, the flutist, etc. They all get credit for the part they play in an AR Rahman composition. How many other Indian composers are like that? I will urge people to research and see the nature of AR Rahman adaptations before claiming that it is a lift.

Anonymous said...

Great writing as always Suresh. Have a request though - I've been seeing ARR and IR getting almost all of the blogspace here. Now I'm an ardent fan of both these giants, but there's other great stuff happening in the Indian film scene (I recommend checking out Ajay-Atul's songs and score for the Marathi film Natarang, which compelled me to post this comment).

My two cents.

Cheers!

ICe

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

ICe - I have seen Natrang and heard the music too. Immensely liked the songs and the score in the film.

Anonymous said...

Plz upload these music in youtube , coz its a nice compilation...

P.S. Suresh Kumar said...

Anonymous - Thanks for reminding. I wanted to do it, but somehow forgot. Will upload soon..