RMIM Archive Article "126".

From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Created a vibrant musical language - Salil Chowdhury
# 
# Author: A. R. Chari
# Source: The Hindu, Sept 15 1995
# Copyright 1995  THE HINDU & PARALOGIC CORPORATION.
#
# This article belongs to online "The Hindu" newspaper.
#
# Please check the "The Hindu" html pages, at:
#	http://www.webpage.com/hindu
#
# and see under the "Arts" section in the September issues.



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       - Salil Chowdhury: Created a vibrant musical language -
				  by
			      A.R.Chari
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The  passing away of Salil Chowdhury marks the end of a  glorious
era in Hindi and Bengali music. A tribute to the maestro.

Salil Chowdhury who passed away a few days ago was  a  legend  in
the  World  of  Indian  music. He was lyricist, composer, singer,
storywriter, scriptwriter and director all rolled into one.

His music spanned Bengali  modern  songs  and  Hindi  film  music
essentially  though  he did score music for Malayalam films (like
``Chemeen''), a number of Tamil  films  and  composed  music  for
songs  in  important  Indian languages. According to Naushad Ali,
the music maestro, Salil's greatest quality was that  he  had  an
individuality  all  his own. He imparted an unmistakable stamp to
his music which any discerning listener could easily identify.

It was Salilda, as he was affectionately  called,  who  pioneered
the  synthesis of two distinct schools of music Western Classical
music, characterised by movement and harmony on the one hand  and
the  rich  and vast storehouse of Indian Classical and folk music
on the other. This synthesis of two streams of music evolved into
varied  strains  of fascinating and haunting melodies.  Enmeshing
the harmonic chords and  counter-melodies  of  Western  Classical
music with that of the pure note of Indian music, Salilda created
a new vibrant musical language.

Starting his career with such sensational and  memorable  Bengali
songs  like ``Kono ek gayer badhu'' and ``Palki chaley'' and then
on to ``Runner'', ``Pathey ebar namo shathi'' and ``Dhitang  Dhi-
tang  Bole'',  he  moved  over to Bombay to score music for Bimal
Roy's ``Do Bigha Zameen'' and  other  runaway  musical  successes
like  ``Madhumati'',  ``Jagte  Raho'', ``Chaya'' and ``Anand'' to
name a few. Songs like ``Suhana safar hai'', ``Dil dhadak  dhadak
se'' and ``Kahin door jab din dhal jaye'' still evoke nostalgia.

Two songs from the same film ``Madhumati'' having the same melod-
ic  pattern  (or  raag)  but conveying two different and opposite
moods-``Ghadi ghadi mera dil dhadke'' and ``Aajare  pardesi,  mai
to  kabse  khadi  ispar''  speak  volumes  about  the  composer's
creative genius.

Another example of the versatility of Salilda was his deep under-
standing of the roots of various forms of music in his adaptation
of the famous Russian folk  song  ``Cossack  Patrol''  to  create
``Mousam Beeta Jaye'' in ``Do Bigha Zameen''.

Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan was very impressed with  the  song  ``O
Sajana'' (from the film ``Parakh'' sung by Lata Mangeshkar) which
he considered one of the best songs he had ever heard.

Salil Chowdhury was an active member of Indian  People's  Theatre
Association  (IPTA) and was responsible for the setting up of the
Bombay Youth Choir in the late fifties alongwith Ruma Ganguly and
Shailendra,  the  then  famous  lyricist of Bombay.  Singers like
Lata, Rafi, Manna Dey and Mukesh used to sing chorus songs in the
choir.

With today's instant film music bodily  lifted  from  pop,  rock,
jazz  and  the  like,  the  passing  away of Salil Chowdhury, who
represented the last of the vanishing  tribe  of  dedicated  com-
posers,  marks  the  end  of  a glorious era in Hindi and Bengali
music.

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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian