Illayaraja - The Music Messiah

‘Music Messiah’ is a another experimental effort from Illayaraja. It is the album which was to be released as ‘Moods of IR’ with popular background score pieces from Illayaraja’s movies. When you expect a compilation of some of best themes of IR, ‘Music Messiah’ shockingly treads a different path to a different world, through and where no Indian composer has taken us before. The album follows a story of its own and IR has scored for that and he has predominantly used his background pieces from the Malayalam movie ‘Guru’.

In WCM, there is one form of music called ‘Programme Music’ which I think is one of the great grandfathers for background scores in movies. The term ‘Programme Music’ was coined by a composer called Listz to describe the kind of work that was informed by a literary or narrative idea, as opposed to ‘abstract’ or ‘absolute’ music, which relies on a formal system of repeated and contrasted themes to balance and unify its structure. This kind of music doesn’t have a fast-slow-fast movement structure of a symphony. It blindly follows a narrative. Audience would be given a description of the narrative of the music piece which they can read and interpret the music in a way the composer has programmed it to be. Illayaraja does exactly the same ‘Programme Music’ with his album ‘Music Messiah’. It is similar to scoring background scores for movies with an exception that the visuals are not captured with a camera. We don’t have the visuals to support the music but just a plain narrative in text. In background scores, the story dictates the music but in this case, the music dictates the story. He kindles our imagination through his highly mood based musical cues in this album.

This album is packaged with everything an IR fan has been longing for. The good sound quality, better CD inlay details, the high quality cover, name of Purushothaman in credits as conductor of music etc.,. It is yet another experiment by IR like the title track from ‘Nothing but Wind’. It is more of music for various moods with scattered themes. Ofcourse, in its entirety the album sounds like a soundtrack for a movie. The music creates an aura, builds a new world with its sounds (of course with some help from natural sounds in addition to the sound of musical notes). As I read the story given in the booklet before listening to the album, I couldn’t interpret the music beyond it. I thought the given story had lot of connection to the music. I don’t know whether IR had this story before-hand to write the score. It would definitely be great if the story and the visual inspirations of IR are revealed so that we can appreciate the music better. I understand why there are no reviews on this album yet? It definitely will take a lot of listening to understand the entire score which runs for almost an hour. It is pure orchestral bliss. Nothing new, we have heard every style that IR showcases here is his 100’s of movies, but I would say, it is a nice compilation of all that. IR’s orchestral pieces are never tiring.

What are you waiting for? If you are an ardent fan of Illayaraja, get it now.

More about the music later…