Main imagige via Behindwoods

Isaignani Ilayaraja is reputed to be the world's most prolific composer; with more than 7,000 songs, film scores for more than 1,000 movies and more than 20,000 concert performances. Anyone familiar with Indian cinema will have surely heard the maestro’s music. The versatile composer has played a huge part in taking elevating Kollywood movies to the next level with his music.

One of his most-loved works was that of Kamal Haasan’s classic hit, Hey Ram. Initially, Kamal Haasan roped in violinist L. Subramaniam to compose music for the film. Kamal Haasan completed shooting the whole film along with the song sequences composed by L. Subramaniam. However due to issues between Kamal Haasan and the composer, Ilaiyaraaja was roped in to take over the role.

With Kamal already completing the shoot to the songs composed by L. Subramaniam, he intended to remove them and re-shoot to Ilaiyaraaja's score. On hearing that, Ilaiyaraaja suggested Kamal Haasan to let the film remain as is, and he would fix it without needing to re-shoot any footage including songs. Puzzled, Kamal Haasan initially was not enthusiastic about the idea. Then Ilaiyaraaja asked Kamal,

 "you don't trust me to do this?"

Kamal immediately agreed and said he would go with Ilaiyaraaja's idea. The lyrics for the songs were not changed but Ilaiyaraaja composed new tunes for the songs that would be in sync with the already shot footage. The background music and the songs were recorded in Hungary's Budapest Symphony Orchestra and thus Hey Ram becoming the first Tamil film to be re-recorded with a foreign orchestra.

After 20 years since the release, fans, old and new, are still hyped about this piece of Tamil film history. Recently, to everyone’s surprise, the Maestro himself has promised to reveal interesting footages. The extreme step that the team had taken for the film was to go to Hungary to record the amazing BGM for the movie. While more than 90 musicians were involved during the whole process.

A short clip of the footage was released on the composer’s YouTube channel.

Have you watched the video yet? Tell us what you think in the comments!

Info Via Behindwoods