As the Journey of Micro-Viewing the songs of a given year has progressed, backwards in terms of the chronology of the years, the task of selecting TOP music director has become an exercise that is getting severely affected by limited exposure to the pre-1950 songs. Music directors with whose work I am more acquainted were making initial tentative strides in the years before 1949. Some of the otherwise familiar music directors, like Naushad or Anil Biswas, had not yet fully graduated to post-1950 styles. The Hindi Film Music field of post-150 years was to so dramatically change that criteria like number of films in year, or number popular songs in year seem carrying no purpose.
As such, therefore this exercise essentially remains MY micro-summary View of the songs from only one of the four dimensions, that of songs of the music director(s) that I liked most. In other words, it is not a review of overall impact a music director has made in that year.
So, here we go into MY micro-view of the Top Music Director(s) for the year 1947:
For the sake of lending some sort of structure to my thought process, I have selected two criteria:
- Music directors of the films appearing in the heading image of the overview post Best songs of 1947: And the winners are?, and
- The quantitative summary of Music directors whose songs appear in MY TOP micro-view of other three dimensions, viz. of Solo songs of Male Playnack Singers, Solo songs of Female Playback Singers and the Duets.
SoY over-view post banner
The banner of SoY over view posts fairly faithfully reflect the most noted films of the given year from the view of the songs and music of the films in that year.
For 1947, we have Parwana (Music Director: Kursheed Anwar), Dard (Music Director: Naushad Ali), Jugnu (Music Director: Firoze Nizami), Meera (Music Directors: S V Venkatraman, G Ramanathan, Naresh Bhattacharya), Shehnai (Music Director: C Ramchandra) and Mirza Sahiban (Music Directors: Pt. Amarnath, Husnalal-Bhagatram).
Of these music directors, Meera remains beyond any comparison because of presence M S Subbulaxmi as the singer of all songs. Of course, that would not take way the credit from the music directors for creating songs that did full justice to the voice of the singer as well as to the spirit of the subject.
Parawana’s Suariya songs did make noticeable impact even when the male songs had overshadowing dominance of K L Saigal and established Suraiy as a capable singer too.
In comparison, songs of Jugnu, possibly either because of the story or because of the presence of Noor Jehan, appear more Noor_jehan-cemntric.
Naushad indeed continues to remain a havey-wieght player in the year with three films – Dard, Elaan and Naatak.
Pt. Amarnath, Husnlal Bhagatram’s core in Mirza Sahiban remains quite varied in terms of choice of singers or song format. Husnlal Bhagatram, separately too, have a few noticeable scores in the year.
C Ramchandra (Saajan and Leela, over and above Shehnai) emerges as an iconoclast who is ready to tread a dirrent path for creating his own space in the field already dominated by stalwarts of the vintage-era-style-compositions. He has succeeded in the pursuit of his strategy.
Quantitative add-on view of other three dimensions, viz. My Top Solo songs of Male Playback Singers, Solo songs of Female Playback Singers and the Duets
Since I have bent towards a wide range of singers while selecting the songs in these three categories, the numbers in the present analysis, in all probabilities, as expected, should emerge the music director(s) that I liked for 1947. It is likely that casting the net wider over all the songs that have appeared in the micro-review of the respective category may have yielded a different pattern. But in a year where most of the songs are heard first time, such an exercise would not have helped to identify the music director who has bearing on the songs that I liked.
I have listed here music directors whose two or more songs have cumulatively appeared in the three, aforementioned, individual lists.
From amongst the music diectors whose only one song has appeared in the any of there aforementioned dimensions, I would take specific note of Hansraj Behl for the duet Moti Chugane Gayi Re Hansi, Man Sarovar Teer and Naushad for the duet Betab Hai Dil Dard E Muhabbat Ke Asar Se
The quanitative analysis of male, female solos and duets @ Best songs of 1947: Final Wrap Up 4, places Naushad, Khursheed Anwar and C Ramchandra in the top three list. Based on the qualitative evaluation The Songs of Yore Award for the Best Music Director of 1947 has been jointly conferred on Naushad and C Ramchandra.
How would have you analysed the Songs of 1947?
I look forward to join me to take up a similar detailed Micro View when SoY takes up further more challenging year of 1946 next in this Best songs of year series.
P.S. All the episodes of The Micro View of Best Songs of 1947 can be read / downloaded from one file, by clicking on the hyper link.
The world is too small? or Is it? 