Ragas and symphonies: Indian maestro Ilaiyaraaja is still reshaping music 50 years on
Ananda Vikatan
His ardent fans call him “the Maestro”. Five decades after his debut, Ilaiyaraaja’s music still echoes through homes, concert halls and cinema screens across India.
The 83-year-old composer from Tamil Nadu has scored more than 1,000 films in nine languages, a record unmatched in Indian cinema.
He transformed the sound of Tamil film music with Annakili in 1976 and has gone on to become one of India’s most influential composers.
“Ilaiyaraaja’s arrival was a watershed moment. It was an intervention by a person from an entirely different social and aesthetic background who had imbued a distinct aural soundscape,” says TM Krishna, a celebrated Carnatic musician.
In India, playback singing is central to popular cinema: singers record songs that actors lip-sync on screen, while the composers usually also create the film’s background score.
Before Ilaiyaraaja, a lot of film music was rooted in Indian classical music. Western symphonic influences were rarely woven into the mainstream soundtrack.
But Ilaiyaraaja, Krishna says, drew on a wide range of musical traditions from around the world.
“What’s unique is that he creates a cohesiveness to all the different forms he’s taken from different genres of music. That is the genius of Ilaiyaraja,” he said.
Following the success of Annakili, Ilaiyaraaja produced hits across languages, including Pathinaaru Vayathinile, Olangal, Sadma, Geetanjali, Chinna Gounder and Nayakan. He has composed more than 8,000 film songs, drawing heavily on Tamil Nadu’s folk and rural ballad traditions.
Last year, he became the first Indian to compose and perform a Western classical symphony in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which described it as a “milestone in global music history”.
Stills Ravi
Born in June 1943 in Pannaipuram, Tamil Nadu, as R Gnanathesikan, Ilaiyaraaja was raised on the folk songs and ballads sung by his father, a cardamom estate supervisor. He was seven when his father died suddenly.
“My mother Chinnathayammal bore the entire burden of the household after that. We went through a difficult period,” Gangai Amaran, Ilaiyaraaja’s younger brother and a celebrated music director himself, told the BBC.
Born into a poor, socially marginalised family, Ilaiyaraaja had few opportunities to get ahead. But music was all around him. His eldest brother, singer-playwright Paavalar Varadharajan, performed at Communist Party events in the 1950s, when the party wielded significant influence in the region.
“We travelled from village to village with our elder brother. That’s how we learnt folk and rural musical traditions,” Amaran said.
When Varadharajan fell ill before a performance, their mother persuaded Ilaiyaraaja to take his place. It was his first public appearance.
Forced to leave school at 14, he moved to Madras (now Chennai) with his brothers in 1968 in search of a film career. He later recalled walking miles to save bus fares and often going to bed hungry.
Under Dhanraj Master, he studied Western music, mastering the guitar and piano while immersing himself in Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.
“It’s God’s gift. Learning and mastering musical instruments came to him naturally,” Amaran said.
Stills Ravi
In 1969, he began assisting popular film composer GK Venkatesh.
“GK Venkatesh was my teacher, guru and encouraged me to write orchestra scores,” Ilaiyaraaja recalled in an interview later.
He became a guitarist and started writing his own film music compositions.
His early years in Madras followed a gruelling routine: music lessons at dawn, recording sessions through the day and home close to midnight.
He worked on more than 200 films with Venkatesh and others, honing his craft and building industry connections.
His breakthrough came when Panchu Arunachalam, the writer-lyricist of Annakili, invited him to demonstrate his talent to the film’s team.
“There was no instrument in the room. He used a wooden table as a percussion instrument and sang. But the producer was impressed,” says Amaran.
Arunachalam also renamed the young musician, who was now called Raaja, “Ilaiyaraaja” (young king).
Annakili’s success brought fame and more movies to Ilaiyaraaja.
Ananda Vikatan
The late 1970s and 1980s reshaped music listening in India. Until then, songs were heard mainly on state-run radio or vinyl records in shops and community halls.
“The advent of cassettes and affordable music systems enabled people to listen to music whenever they wanted. Ilaiyaraaja entered the music scene at the right time as the technology was changing,” says Shaji Chen, a music critic.
He soon became the most sought-after composer in south Indian cinema. Audiences showered confetti, clapped and whistled when his name appeared in the opening credits. Many watched films repeatedly for his songs, and at his peak he composed music for more than 50 films in a single year.
For many films, the music was the draw – helping them stay in cinemas for more than 100 days.
“He understands the emotional textures and themes of a film. He brings out those emotions. That’s why his scores stand out,” says Suanshu Khurana, a music critic.
Among his most celebrated compositions is Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu from Thalapathi (1991), a gangster drama inspired by the Mahabharata.
The song fuses Tamil folk music, Carnatic traditions, Western classical fugue and polka, with shifting tempos and finger snaps linking its contrasting sections.
It was voted the fourth most popular song in the world in a 2002 poll conducted by the BBC World Service.
Ananda Vikatan
A relentless experimenter, Ilaiyaraaja could blend Carnatic ragas, Indian folk melodies and the music of Schubert or Mozart into a single composition.
At a recent performance of his Valiant symphony in Chennai, he explained how he wove Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony into Idhayam Pogudhey, a song from the 1979 Tamil film Puthiya Vaarpukkal.
“They [styles] were from two different cultures. But I wanted to prove that they were not different; it’s the same thing”, he said.
Ilaiyaraaja dominated Tamil film music until the rise of AR Rahman in the early 1990s. Before becoming a composer, Rahman spent several years as a keyboard player in Ilaiyaraaja’s orchestra.
In 2019, Rahman said at an event working with him Ilaiyaraaja was like studying in a school.
“His life itself has been an inspiration to me,” he said.
Ilaiyaraaja remained a major force, scoring hits for films such as Nizhalkuthu, Virumaandi and Cheeni Kum. He also composed albums based on ancient Tamil literature and devotional works, including Thiruvasagam. In 2018, he received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honour.
At 83, Ilaiyaraaja still scores music for a handful of films each year. He recently performed his Valiant Symphony in Chennai and Bengaluru and continues to tour internationally with concert performances.
A new generation is discovering Ilaiyaraaja through streaming platforms and viral remixes. One example is Kiliye Kiliye, a 1983 Malayalam song that recently found new life in the film Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra.
In recent years, he has also made headlines for legal battles over royalties and the unauthorised use of his music.
His rise challenged long-standing social barriers in Carnatic music, a field historically dominated by upper-caste musicians and largely closed to performers from marginalised communities.
Ilaiyaraaja’s mastery of the form helped disrupt those hierarchies.
“He transcended social and caste hierarchies through his music,” says Krishna.
