Que Sera Sera

This video of the famous song [from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956)] by Doris Day presents a stylized version, but we get some more details in this 8-minute clip from the movie, and it is far more moving. Here it is:

A blog post by my colleague, Prof. Arunan, took me on a joy ride of sorts into the world of this song which has some seriously great cover versions. Here's Pink Martini:

And, here's another, from Marcus Miller:

There's an interesting Indian angle here: the tune of this song was used in a Tamil movie in a song whose lyrics start with a similar storyline ("I asked my mother, "what will I be? will I be pretty? will I be rich""). However, (and as Arunan points out), the song proceeds to present an unambiguously optimistic view ("yes, dear, everything will be great"), which runs so completely against the iffy message ("que sera sera, the future is not ours to see...") packaged in a nice, rousing tune.

The last stop (for now) is the Telugu version [hat tip to Madras Musings] which features the legendary Bhanumathy singing the original lyrics in a strange fusion of ... well, I'll let you figure it out:

In Memory of Ramesh Mahadevan

I am grateful for this break -- just because it allows me to say a silent "thank you" to my dear friend who is no more. I have lost count of the things he opened my mind to, my eyes to, my ears to. Here's one of them, in a different avatar. He would have enjoyed it too.

Links

1. Anjali Vaidya at India BioScience: Unaddressed demands remain after research fellowship hike. Uses several quotes from IISc students and faculty!

2. Prashant Nanda in Mint: Govt climbs down, to drop IIM council plan. "The HRD ministry’s change of heart came after the business schools raised concerns, say two government officials".

3. Adam Connor-Simons in MIT News: How three MIT students fooled the world of scientific journals. SCIGen is 10 years old, and this is a timely (and short) profile of the MIT grad students who created it.

4. For the Ilayaraja fans: Rare Photos Of Music Composer Ilaiyaraaja. Look at those bell-bottoms!

2013 Dec Music Season Reviews

The 2013 Margazhi Music Season in Chennai is going on. My reviews for the Tamil news daily Dinamalar can be read on page 7 in the Chennai city edition, Sunday through Thursday. The first four are already up between 9 and 12/12/13.

Their e-paper update is also prompt (Click and choose, Chennai in the top View Sub-Editions bar and choose page 7; click on the article and it opens into a separate readable page).

Of course, you can also read the reviews from the music section in my Tamil blog.

(For English-only readers: Sorry; shall post a consolidated write-up towards the end of the month, when I could make time for this.)

Ananthalakshmi Sadagopan

Ananthalakshmi Sadagopan is one of the renowned Carnatic music singers considered on par with the female legends who made their concert entry in the 1940s like M. S. Subbulakshmi, D. K. Pattammal and N. C. Vasanthakokilam. Ananthalakshmi was the first to cut a full length Tamil LP for HMV company. She passed away on May 15, 2013.

TTN and I could share our thoughts in the August 2013 issue of Sruti, the magazine for performing arts. Here is the pdf version of the article for download.

Check also the more detailed Tamil language tribute I wrote for Solvanam, a web magazine. 

Tin Pest, etc.

Let's start with a video of tin pest:

From the Wikipedia entry on tin pest:

At 13.2 degrees Celsius (about 56 degrees Fahrenheit) and below, pure tin transforms from the silvery, ductile metallic allotrope of β-form white tin to brittle, nonmetallic, α-form grey tin with a diamond structure. The transformation is slow to initiate due to a high activation energy but the presence of germanium (or crystal structures of similar form and size) or very low temperatures ~-30 degrees Celsius aids the initiation. There is also a large volume increase of about 27% associated with the phase change. Eventually the α-form decomposes into powder, hence the name tin pest.

Tin pest plays a central role in the urban legend that Napoleon's disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia was a disaster because his soldiers' buttons, which were made of tin, turned to grey powder under the harsh, cold temperatures of Russian winter. Yale's Ainissa Ramirez calls it "the world's greatest wardrobe malfunction" in this video. [Update: See also Joe Knight's article in Slate: Napoleon Wasn’t Defeated by the Russians. According to Knight, the real reason is an infectious disease spread by lice.]

The utter calamity of the French invasion of Russia, and the subsequent retreat, is captured so well in Charles Joseph Minard's graphic map, that Edward Tufte calls "the best statistical graphic ever drawn". [see this map for a broader perspective that presents Minard's map with present-day national borders.]

For the Russians, Napoleon's retreat has been a source of intense national pride -- celebrated in major works of art including the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky:

* * *

What's the point of all this? Nothing, really; we just happened to be discussing all this in a recent class on the lead-tin phase diagram in my course on materials thermodynamics. Also, I've always wanted to link to Minard's map, the 1812 overture, and the lead-tin phase diagram ;-)

Music time: "How English sounds to non-English speaker"

The NPR story on this song describes it this way:

The song, called "Prisencolinensinainciusol," was written to mimic the way English sounds to non-English speakers.

YouTube link.

Brothers in Harmony

Brothers in Harmony -- is my 400 words review in today's (22/12/2012) The Hindu, of the music concert by Trichur Brothers.

Here is the version I had sent to the editor.

Enjoy.

When you read the two versions, you can observe the editor had done a good job this time, without mangling what the writer wanted to convey.

My thanks to the editor of 'Margazhi Reviews' -- in which section these appear -- for taking my 're-review' of the previous instance in stride and showing, at The Hindu, they care for the writers and importantly, the readers.

Enthusiasm with the stamp of classicism

Enthusiasm with the stamp of classicism -- That is the version of a concert review (400 words limit) by me, which has appeared on The Hindu today (Dec 19, 2012)
Aswath Narayanan Music Concert Review -- is the version that I had sent.
If you are a Carnatic music buff, I am sure you could read more than those 400 + 400 words. Enjoy :-)

Academy, the house of bards

Another Chennai December music season is going on. Here is a feature article written by me in today's Hindu (page 7 in Dec 14, 2012 print version)

Academy, the house of bards

Credit: The Hindu

The original version (which was a revised version from an earlier version) is here :-)

Music Time

Imagine by John Lennon (whose death anniversary was yesterday):

Music Time: The King's Speech

The movie had the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony running in the background when King George VI makes his all important speech. You can watch the movie version of the speech; BBC has the original.

Here's the entire symphony; the second movement starts at 15:21.

Direct link

Music Time

An Ilayaraaja classic from Keladi Kanmani. Singers: K.J. Yesudas and Uma Ramanan.

Direct link.

Music Time

A hit from this Tamil movie [which had several other hits by Ilayaraaja]:

Direct link

Links

1. G.B.S.N.P. Varma in Caravan: For Song’s Sake. "A man’s crusade to prevent Telugu film songs from fading into obscurity"

2. Fëanor at Just a Mon: Rice -- a delightful tour of rice varieties from many parts of the world.

   In another post, he describes his participation in a BBC show on the novelist-poet C. K. Stead.

Music Time

White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane:

Music Time

From the movie Azhiyadha Kolangal, a personal favourite [Music: Salil Chowdhury; Singers: P. Jayachandran and P. Susheela]. A video is available, but its audio is sad. You can listen to a much better version (click on AB3).

That last link takes you to The World of Salil Chowdhury, a true labour of love by a devoted fan, Gautam Chowdhury. The site has extensive cross-references to other versions of Salil's compositions; among the four variants -- Malayalam (1977), Tamil (1979), Bengali (1980)and Hindi (1989) -- the best is the Hindi version (click on AB3).

Music Time

A song based on the theme music of Seven Samurai [Direct link]:

A part of that movie's soundtrack is here.

Music Time

Gustav Mahler's 7th Symphony (3rd Movement: Scherzo; full symphony is here) by Vienna Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein: