Comments
Legendary composer MS Viswanathan, who scored music for over 1,000 films in of multiple languages, passed away at a private hospital here on Tuesday after prolonged age related illness.
He was 88 and is survived by four sons and three daughters. “The cremation will be held tomorrow, he passed away after about a month’s medical treatment for old age related illness,” Viswanathan’s son Gopi told PTI.
Affectionately called by the acronym “MSV,” Viswanathan was a household name in Tamil Nadu, his death was condoled by the Tamil film fraternity and political leaders.
Expressing grief, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said he remained a legend in Tamil cinema. Born in Palakkad in Kerala on June 24, 1928, he scored music for about 1,200 films in languages, including Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada, many of them in a brilliant partnership spanning over a decade with his associate TK Ramamurthy.
Together they shared the famous creditline of “Viswanathan-Ramamurthy.” His association with iconic lyricist of yesteryear “Kaviyarasu” Kannadasan is legendary and it resulted in evergreen songs and he came to be called as Mellisai Mannar or King of Melody.
Anecdotes of how MSV used to compose music with his humble harmonium to Kannadasan’s lyrics are popular in Tamil Nadu. MSV also acted in character roles in over 10 films, including Tamil comic hit Kadala Kadala.
He scored music for a wide range of films, including of Tamil super stars of yesteryears like Sivaji Ganesan and M G Ramachandran (later AIADMK founder and Chief Minister).
Pasamalar, Paavamannippu, Paalum Pazhamum, Par Magaley Par and Thamarai Nenjam were among the super hit Tamil films, the songs of which still reverberate in every nook and cranny of Tamil Nadu.
His Telugu hits include Maro Charithra (made into Hindi as Ek Duje Ke Liye), 47 Rojulu, Tenali Ramakrishna, Maa Gopi, Ramu, Kokilamma, Laila and Samrat Asoka.
“He brought about several changes in music composition and successfully integrated elements and traditions of folk, rock, jazz, carnatic, western and western classical in film music,” film music researcher D Thiagarajan said.
“There is no genre of music untouched by him,” he added.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.