Down Melody Lane..::..Article on Films, Personalities, Music Reviews and More..

In the early years of cinema, its techniques were understandably theatre-oriented. When silent films moved into the era of talkies, this trend continued in important branches - acting, camerawork and music.

In Maharashtra, the base of all stage singing had been classical. In Prabhat Studio's first talkie, Ayodhyaecha Raja, Goindrao Tembe not only played the role of King Harishchandra but also provided the music. Tembe was steeped in classical music and had grown up in Kolhapur when some of the countries leading vocalists live there under the Maharaja's patronage. He was the master of the harmonium.

Amritmanthan, Dharmatma & Baiju Bawra

In those days, and for some years afterwards, songs were recorded simultaneously during the shooting. There was no question of playback or dubbing. The director of Ayodhyaecha Raja, V. Shantaram, tell us in his autobiography, Shantarama, how the short sighted Tembe could not see the signs being made by the director from near the camera and, true to his stage tradition, went on extending his singing beyond the stipulated time-frame.

Prabhat stuck to the classical tradition in music in all subsequent films. In 1934, Shantaram directed the path breaking film Amrit Manthan (in both Hindi and Marathi). For this a new man, Keshavrao Bhole, was inducted into the Pune-based company for composing the music. Bhole, a highly literate musician, has written extensively about all the Prabhat films for which he composed music. The late Shanta Apte who made her debut in Prabhat with this film had been rigorously trained in music. This served her well for many years later when she left films and started appearing in classical music plays.

Sureshbabu also appeared in Amrit Manthan and, then in Shantaram's Chandrasena under bhole's baton. Brother of legendary vocalist, Hirabai Barodekar, he was one of the leading exponents of Abdul Karim Khan's Kirana gharana.

As early as 1937, I had seen a Marathi film called Suvarnamandir directed by the veteran Marathi playwright M. G. Ragnekar. It featured not only Hirabai Barodekar but also Padma Shaligram, one of the most brilliant living exponents of Alladiya Khan's Jaipur gayaki. This is just one example of the fact that classical musicians were then happily ensconced in Marathi films. Moreover, a key role was played by classical music on the Marathi stage. Several classical vocalists were seen in the Marathi plays in the early decades of the century.

While every Prabhat film of the 1930s and '40s was musically distinctive, and had a firm classical base, one of the most significant was Dharmatma. In this film also directed by Shantaram, the legendary Bal Gandharva plays the title role of the saint poet Eknath. Bal Gandharva was then nearing 50, and it was just as well that he switched from his female roles in the theatre to a male role. In turn Bal Gandharva brought in Master Krishnarao, his colleague from the theatre who also used to play female roles.

The tunes provided by Master Krishnarao as a vehicle for Bal Gandharva cast the abhangas of the medieval saint poet into a classical mould. Difficult as it is to believe today, the tabla accompanist for the music was Thirkawa, another legend in classical music, who used to accompany Bal Gandharva in the stage productions of the Gandharva Natak Mandali. The music of the second saint-poet epic of Prabhat, Sant Tukaram, was composed by Bhole. Vishnupant Pagnis was cast in the title role. Pagnis had appeared in comely female roles previously. It was he who - as Mallikarjun Mansur once told me - guided the now eminent classical maestro to a gramophone company and helped launch him in the music market. Bhole's tunes for Pagnis are as simple as Master Krishnarao's for Bal Gandharva. No high-flautin' classical taanbaazi here of course; but the base is still chastely classical.

Between them Bhole and Master Krishnarao scored all the Prabhat films directed by Shantaram and soon by Damle and Fatehlal. Shanta Hublikar who follows in the footsteps of Shanta Apte (in Mera Ladka and Aadmi) had also been trained in classical music and fine singing voice. In Aadmi, Shantaram cast Bai Sunderabai, the well known classical vocalist in the role of the policeman's mother. Her bhajan, Man paapi man bhoola, in a key sequence of the film is unforgettable.

After the exit of Shantaram from Prabhat, Master Krishnarao scored music for Vishram Bedekar's ill fated Lakharani. His bhairavi in this film, Shyam bajaye teri murali, has a lilting tune typical of that familiar raga. Krishnarao later worked for Shantaram in the latter's newly established Rajkamal Kalamandir, playing yet another saint-poet role in Bhakticha Mala. This film featured the inimitable Amirbai Karnataki, who had provided the playback for Mumtaz Shanti in Bombay Talkies' Kismet.

In the late '40s, Khazanchi was released in Bombay. It introduced a tradition of light-fantastic Punjabi music which still has the Hindi film industry in its grip. Who can ever forget Ramola and her college girl friends gaily bicycling and singing a song with the la-la-la cadence built into it? The Pancholis and Narrangs of Lahore - long before partition - completely deflected the music makers of Prabhat and New Theatres from their classical music mission.

Despite the invasion of Khazanchi and Khandan, there grew up in the Bombay film industry a school of film composing which had admirable roots in classical music. Naushad stands at the centre of this enviable tradition. But before him were the men like Khemchand Prakash and Ghulam Haider. Anil Biswas, whose career somehow went downhill after his Bombay Talkies years, provided bhairvi-oriented tunes to Kismet. In his times, even the accompanying orchestra mainly used the instruments like the sitar, dispensing with the hi-fi instruments that are commonly used today. In those years, one of the playbacks who could manage classical tunes was Rajkumari, meaningfully employed by the music directors of the time.

This period also saw the re-emergence of Lata Mangeshkar, the busiest playback singer of our times. Her father, the late Master Dinanath, had mastered a number of classical styles, especially some of the more aggressive ones originating in the Punjab. As a child, Lata held the tanpura and imbibed her father's teaching. Anyone who listens to her realizes immediately her astounding command of the classical discipline. She has worked under a number of noted music directors including Anil Biswas, C. Ramchandra, Burmans, Madan Mohan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Naushad.

S. N. Tripathi also used classical patterns in the mythological film for which he composed the music. It is impossible to record here every film of Naushad's that uses the classical music. In one form or another, he goes back to the classical stream in every film. But we shall only focus on some which have made news. Vijay Bhatt's Baiju Bawra very naturally scoops up the treasures of classical music. The songs of Tansen and Baiju - are sung respectively by Ustaad Amir Khan and D. V. Paluskar. Amir Khan was yet another stalwart of the Kirana gharana endowed with a warm, romantic voice. Paluskar is more associated with devotional music.

For this film Naushad had approached no less a master than Bade Ghulam Ali Khan; but the latter contemptuously refuse to join hands with him saying that cinema was not the medium for him. Some years later, Naushad approached him again, this time backed by the persuasive K. Asif, who had just started shooting his Mughal-e-Azam. The story Naushad tells in Daastan-e-Naushad is of how the maestro was still unwilling to record a playback and how finally he did record at the price of Rs.25, 000 per song. (In those days, the payment for playback singers was between Rs.1, 000 and Rs.3, 000).

Naushad used classical tunes in a number of films. The difference is that these have not been sung by classical musicians but by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohd. Rafi. Indeed, they seem to be the only playback singers who have been capable of rendering such tunes. The Bade Ghulam cheezas in Mughal-e-Azam, Prem Jogan Ban Ja and Shubh Din Aayo still remain some of the finest in the musical panorama of Hindi films.

The situation today is not very hopeful, what with the hybridization of film music. But, who knows, the surfeit of this so-called light music may began to bore the audiences and there could be a return to purer, more regal, classical tunes.