M. S. Viswanathan

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M. S. Viswanathan bigraphy, stories - Indian actor-musician

M. S. Viswanathan : biography

24 June 1928 –

Manayangath Subramanian Viswanathan, also known as M.S.V.), is a Music Director from South India. He is considered to be one of the versatile and significant composers in Kollywood,he is popularly known as "Mellisai Mannar" (Tamil for "the King of Light Music"). He has composed for a total of 850 films composing songs in Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu languages. His major works over the past five decades have been in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films. He has also acted and sung in a few Tamil films. J Jayalalithaa conferred the "Thirai Isai Chakravarthy" title on him in August 2012 and presented with 60 gold coins and a new car to him.

Viswanathan Ramamoorthy duo composed music for 90 Tamil films from the film Panam in 1952 till Ayirathil Oruvan in 1965. Thereafter M.S.Viswanathan on his own composed music close to 750 films till 2013 including 29 Telugu films , 78 Malayalam films , Hindi, Kannada and 50 Malayasia films. He reigned supreme in Tamil films from 1965 to 1985. He sang under his own composition over 500 songs and in adddition sang 200 songs composed by other music directors. Ramamoorthy composed for only 19 films on his own after the break up in 1965 till 1986.

Career

Viswanathan Ramamoorthy As Partners (1952-1965)

T. K. Ramamoorthy was born into a famous musical family in Trichy and was a talented violinist since young.His father, Krishnaswamy Iyer and grandfather, Malaikottai Govindasamy Iyer were well known violinists in Trichy. Ramamoorthy gave several stage performances along with his father since his childhood days. C. R. Subburaman noted the young Ramamoorthy’s talent and hired him as a violinist for HMV when he was only fourteen years old. He later worked in Saraswathi Stores where AVM Studo’s boss, Avichi Meiyappa Chettiar,was a partner – which lead him to play violin for AVM’s music composer , R. Sudarsanam, in some films. During these days, he also became friendly with P.S.Diwakar ,the famous pianist cum music composer in the Malayala films and was staying with P.S.Diwakar while seeking opportunities. By this time, C. R. Subburaman, was a rising star in the South Indian film music world and Ramamoorthy rejoined him as one of his violinists in his musical troupe. There , he met T. G. Lingappa, another famed violinist. M.S Viswanathan joined this troupe later as a harmonium player in 1950.

M. S. Viswanathan had always wanted to be an actor and singer, but was not successful.He had done a few small roles in stage dramas in 1940’s. The famous music composer in the 50s, T. R. Papa, who was a violinist for the doyen of the Tamil film music, S. V. Venkatraman when he met the young struggling Viswanathan, took a liking to him and arranged a job for him as an errand boy for S. V. Venkatraman’s musical troupe. In that company of all musicians, Viswanathan realized that he had the inclination and the potential for composing music. He thereafter joined S. M. Subbaiah Naidu and at times assisted him. He then joined C. R. Subburaman as a Harmonium player where he met both T.K.Ramamoorthy and T. G. Lingappa , the two leading violinists at that time. T. G. Lingappa also became a renowned music composer on his own in the 1950s. MSV was known as a master of playing 3 instruments -harmonium, keyboard and paino by the age of 13 whereas Ramamoorthy was known as master in playing violin by his age of 14.

In 1952, C. R. Subburaman died unexpectedly in the midst of completing the background music for the films such as Devadas, Chandi Rani and Marumagal. Ramamoorthy and Viswanathan joined together and completed the background music for these films . During this time, M.S.Viswanathan also got an opportunity to be the third composer for the film Genova starring M.G.R with M.S.Gnanamani and T.K.Kalyanam, who were famous music composers then.

Both Ramamoorthy and Viswanathan always proudly name C.R.Subburaman as their Guru. M.S.Viswanathan has also mentioned that he was also inspired by the music of S.V.Venkatraman and T.R.Papa.