CHENNAI: In the 1984 Mozart biopic Amadeus, the legendary composer asks his rival Antonio Salieri, “Do you believe in it?” As Salieri looks on, bewildered, Mozart continues, “A fire which never dies, burning you forever?” Perhaps it is more than a charming coincidence that Amadeus happens to be one of Ilaiyaraaja’s favourite films. But Mozart’s question sparks another: what does one do with undying fire?
Exploring infinity
From the small southern Tamil Nadu village of Pannaipuram, Ilaiyaraaja’s rise to prominence is nothing short of an odyssey. At a time when Tamil pop culture was dominated by Hindi film music, Ilaiyaraaja broke into the scene with a masterful confluence of Tamil folk, Carnatic, Western music, and several other genres. He then went on to break multiple barriers, in style, and without breaking a sweat.
Ilaiyaraaja reiterated his greatness at every turn of the zeitgeist with his music, even after etching his name among the greatest of all time. In order to show his heights, we still point to his humble beginnings; a man who transcended societal labels, still carries the pieces of the labels he tore, as a hopeful reminder for those who still bear them. And that is a paradox that simultaneously highlights his epochal accomplishments and the unfortunate distance our society still has to go.
With a career spanning close to half a century, Ilaiyaraaja has composed more than 7,000 songs in over 1,500 films across several languages in various Indian film industries. And this, on top of film scores and non-film music. From being the first Indian composer to record a soundtrack on a computer for Vikram (1986) to dabbling in an exhaustive list of musical genres from across the world, Ilaiyaraaja’s colossal body of work overwhelms you from seeking out any possible experimentation he might have missed.
However, one man was clearly unimpressed, and thought Ilaiyaraaja’s legacy was incomplete and there was more to be done. That was the maestro himself. Even though he had more than enough adulations and reverential praises to drown out the inner fire and settle in the cosy confines of a legacy well earned, Ilaiyaraaja has found his fire still raging, and at the age of 81, he declared to the world, “But wait, there’s more.”
On March 8, 2025, in London, Ilaiyaraaja created history by unveiling his first-ever Western classical symphony, Valiant, which was performed in collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Why now? Is he just checking off boxes of unexplored genres? “He doesn’t differentiate genres; be it Electronic, Carnatic, or symphony, it is all the same for him. Genre is a term for people who deal with labels and distribution.
People who love music, like Raja sir, do not look at it in terms of genres; he is just curious about how far he could explore,” says singer-composer Pradeep Kumar. “Since he has been preoccupied with film music for so long, he rarely gets time to work on non-film music,” he adds.
However, this is not the veteran musician’s first rodeo. He composed a symphony in 1993, which was performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. For unknown reasons, the symphony remains in the shadows. Ilaiyaraaja is joined by Pandit Ravi Shankar in the list of Indians who have written a symphony. However, scientist-musician Berty Ashley makes a compelling argument for why the ‘first-ever’ distinction still remains with Ilaiyaraaja. “Pandit Ravi Shankar wrote Concerto For Sitar & Orchestra for the London Symphony Orchestra and performed it in 1971, but it is not a western classical symphony as it has non-symphonic elements and is considered a fusion symphony. With Valiant, Ilaiyaraaja became the first Indian to write a proper western classical symphony,” he says.
All great works of art cloak themselves in the irony of deceptive simplicity. The more complex they are, the easier they appear. Pyramids are but giant triangles, and a Picasso is but a child’s scribble — until one unravels the intricate calculations and years of mastery behind them. “Not everybody can write a symphony,” states composer Sam CS. “In film music composition, you can go from one raga to another and have the freedom to change it all completely. But symphonies have strict rules; it is an extremely complex endeavour and takes a lot of time to conceive.” Berty extends the composer’s point into a vivid analogy. “Composing a film song is like assembling a car when you already have the parts. Composing a symphony is like building a Formula One car from scratch.”
In an average symphony, there are over hundred musicians playing about 20 different instruments. Apart from technical knowledge, a composer needs the mental acuity to weave all the instruments into a cohesive, rousing whole. Berty says, “Gustav Mahler took six years to write one of his symphonies, it requires such single-minded focus. Ilaiyaraaja is said to have completed his symphony in 30 days.”
Lighting the way
In hindsight, his flitting experiments seem to have been leading up to this achievement. “Raja sir has already explored symphony music in films. The background score for Veedu, for example, is entirely symphonic in nature and there are many such examples,” says Sam, who attributes his own success to Ilaiyaraaja's influence. “Nowadays, film scores are seen as fillers in between moments; they don’t look at them as the actualisation of a character’s emotion. Raja sir taught me this — and the importance of silence,” says Sam. Even Pradeep, who admits to not paying close attention to Ilaiyaraaja’s music early on, remembers being awed by the veteran composer’s work after formally learning music. “It was only when I started learning music that I could fully appreciate the breadth of complexity in his works. I was particularly inspired by Raja sir’s work in electronic music.”
Burning boxes
With overwhelming adulation for his work, Ilaiyaraaja also receives harsh criticisms, with people noting his acerbic tone in public/media appearances and what is perceived as an inflated sense of self. Some, like YouTuber Vijay Varadharaj, supposes that people misconstrue his confidence as arrogance. “He refuses to be boxed within societal conventions. We seem to have a specific set of rules for how to talk and behave as a celebrity and he refuses to play by those rules. Moreover, for years, nobody gave him the right kind of recognition; even his now-celebrated Nayakan soundtrack was heavily criticised in mainstream reviews at the time. Frustrated by years of such malformed responses, he has probably decided that if they were not going to recognise his greatness, he’s not going to pretend he doesn’t recognise it himself. There is a refreshing honesty to this. I don’t think he knows how to be fake,” says Vijay.
It is perhaps this stubborn refusal to stay within a box that led Ilaiyaraaja to pursue different forms of music even after achieving levels of stardom that might numb even the most fiercely ambitious person. A film, with all its artistic merits, might still be a limiting medium to a composer, who still has to rely on the creative vision of a director, with every song bound by the emotional topography of a scene.
Aware of this, Ilaiyaraaja set out to explore non-film music, with works like Thiruvasagam in Symphony, How To Name It? and Nothing But Wind, to name a few. Ilaiyaraaja’s proclivity for breaking boundaries also extended to his work in films. Dikshith, an independent rock musician from Chennai, elaborates how a lifelong rock music fan like him grew to appreciate Ilaiyaraaja’s experimentation with western music, especially the rock genre. He says, “I was impressed by the amount of thought he has put into writing a variety of songs, especially bringing out so much using guitar, during a time when the guitar wasn’t even used much in film music.
Raja defined his songs by using an interlude in most of them. Rock songs generally have a section for the guitar solo and his interludes stood in for the solo section, in showcasing what the instrument can do, essentially grounding the rock music format in a truly Indian context.”
A compelling radiance
Ilaiyaraaja, despite his immaculate body of work, has always been perceived as having a mercurial relationship with the public. Some criticisms might be unfounded, and some might have a point.
However, the tenacity to resist internalising decades’ worth of constant praises, identifying that almost 50 years of legacy might still be improved upon by undertaking an incredibly complex endeavour, and the refusal to rest on his laurels or dwell on past glory, are enough to dissolve any criticism.
Instead, what is clearly evident is Ilaiyaraaja’s unshakeable belief in his own undying fire, throwing its glorious radiance far and wide, inspiring and guiding the way for anyone starting to believe in their own fire, dying or otherwise.