M. S. Viswanathan, the renowned South Indian music composer passed away yesterday morning at 4:15 in Chennai while taking treatment in a private hospital. His last honours will be finished today.

He was popular as MSV and Mellisai Malar meaning The King of Light Music.

The hospital he was admitted in is Fortis malar hospital in Chennai where he was given treatment for breathing difficulties and illness due to old age.

The 87-year old legend has composed music for more than 1200 movies in all South Indian languages in addition to Hindi. He sang various songs in some Tamil movies as well. He even acted in some movies. He composed his first song in 1952 for a Tamil movie “Panam” starred by Sivaji Ganeshan. The partnership of M. S. Viswanathan and TK Ramamoorthy is very famous. They jointly composed music for approximately 86 films.

The songs of M. S. Viswanathan are well-known for their humming and whistling. Moreover, they created new trends as the songs are a blend of Indian classical tunes with western music and disco. He was given the title Thirai Isai Chakravarthy which means “The Emperor of Cine Music” in Tamil in 2012 by the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalithaa.

Image Credit: Sunil Elias / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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