The CBSO's Bollywood adventure may be shrewd business, but it's the quality of the music itself that really justifies it.
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Rafi Resurrected - A Tribute to Mohammed Rafi. Sonu Niigaam/Gunjan/ City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/ Seal (2CDs, Saregama)
With its newly-released collaboration with renowned Indian singer Sonu Niigaam, the CBSO has made an international mark as the first major symphony orchestra to immerse itself in the music of Bollywood.
The double-CD Rafi Resurrected comes after sold-out Birmingham concerts with Indian film composer A.R.Rahman and a Mark 1 version of the Rafi Resurrected project, featuring a trio of singers including Shin of Birmingham bhangra band DCS, at Symphony Hall two years ago.
Mohammed Rafi was the most acclaimed "playback" singer to feature on the sound-tracks of Hindi films from the late 1940s until his death in 1980, which provoked scenes of national mourning. It was Birmingham cultural activist Taz Bashir who first conceived the idea of the CBSO performing a selection of his greatest hits, and who suggested it to his friend Tim Pottier, then the orchestra's librarian. After collaborating with Shin to identify a shortlist of suitable songs from the reported 26,000 recorded by Rafi, Pottier then embarked on a seemingly tedious yet fascinating mission to transcribe the orchestrations from the original recordings. Trombonist Alwyn Green also contributed two arrangements.
For the new 18-track album, the CBSO recorded the orchestral parts at its home base, the CBSO Centre, with Niigaam adding the vocals in a studio in Mumbai.
Some Indian percussion was also added at a different Mumbai studio, and the project then completed the square by being mixed in London. Despite this fragmented procedure the result, to my ears at least, is a seamless fusion of vocals and orchestra.
Sonu Niigaam, who will finally link up with the CBSO for three live concerts in the UK this week, is a huge star in India, and widely regarded as something of a Rafi heir. Whether this indicates that the record is likely to be a massive seller I have no idea, though clearly the CBSO is entering a market which dwarfs that for typical classical CD releases.
It makes sound sense in terms of broadening its appeal in its home city, whose Asian residents, after all, help to pay for its upkeep. And with the audience for Western classical music said to be growing, along with everything else, in upwardly-mobile India, it will also do no harm to raise the orchestra's profile there.
But, important though such considerations are, as it turns out they are marginalised by the musical qualities of the project itself.
Let's face it, there is a condescending attitude in this country towards Bollywood, which is seen as naive and garish, simultaneously prudish and over-the-top. True, we get somewhere near that stereotype with the full 1970s flared-trouser effect of the neon-lit An Evening in Paris, whipped up by Mark O'Brien's louche saxophone, but that's an exception to the rule.
What is far more typical of the disc is subtle melody, rich and interesting arrangements with enormous variety of sound, and the rigorous craftsmanship of Pottier, Niigaam (and supporting female singer Gunjan), the CBSO and its conductor Michael Seal.
One of Rafi's earliest songs, Suhani Raat Dhal Chuki (1949) has one of the most memorable melodies, and it's one of a handful of songs duplicated in instrumental versions at the end of the collection.
Dil Ke Jharoke Mein is one of Niigaam's best vocal performances, in a piece with a plaintive calling quality which I can't hear without thinking of the "crabman" who provides one of my favourite moments in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Pathar Ke Sanam launches itself with an exhilarating orchestral introduction like the one to Janacek's Destiny, and its obsessive repeated-note patterns whip up real excitement, while Gulabi Aankhen mixes India and Spain with its flamenco-flavoured trumpets.
The duet on Mujhe Teri Mohabbat Ka Sahara, in which Gunjan possibly just steals the show, must be up there with the most beautiful things the CBSO has ever put on disc.
The close relationship between this music and Western traditions is intriguing. Obviously the original composers took a lot of baggage on board along with the orchestra, and Pottier seems to have deepened this, rather than making literal transcriptions. Often the original recordings were of poor quality, or engineers faded out key parts, and at times the arrangements were too thin to support a vocalist in concert. As Pottier notes in the CD booklet: "There is much music, harmony and counter-melody that is unique to this album."
It's a hybrid effort, then, but an inspiring one nevertheless. My only two reservations are, firstly, that while it's nice to have the instrumental versions the album could possibly have been edited to make one generously filled disc, and secondly the absence of translations means that non-Hindi speakers can only get the gist of what is being sung.
* Sonu Niigaam and the CBSO perform Rafi Resurrected live at Symphony Hall tomorrow night at 7.45pm. Box office: 0121 780 3333.
