User:Yerevantsi/sandbox/Khachaturian

Aram Khachaturian

Sabre
Waltz
Violin

Bio

Davidjants, Brigitta (2017). "National Identity Construction in Music: A Case Study of Aram Khachaturian" (PDF). Res Musica (9). Estonian Musicological Society (EMS) and Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EAMT): 7–17.

Kushner, David Z. (October 2018). "Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978): A Retrospective" (PDF). Athens Journal of Humanities and Arts. 5 (4). Arts, Humanities and Education Division of the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER): 373–400.

Kotkova, Evgenia (6 June 2023). "Рубенс от музыки: европейская гармония и армянские мелодии в творчестве Арама Хачатуряна" (in Russian). TASS. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023.

Demchenko, Alexander Ivanovich (2019). "Корифей Искусства Востока. О Магистрали Творчества Арама Хачатуряна [The Coryphaeus of Eastern Art. About Aram Khachaturian's Main Line Of Creativity]" (PDF). Bulletin of the Saratov Conservatory (in Russian). 5 (3). Saratov Conservatory: 16–27. ISSN 2618-9461.

https://dais.sanu.ac.rs/handle/123456789/3812 Aram Khachaturian and Socialist Realism: A Reconsideration

COMPOSER OF THE MONTH: Khachaturian. Authors: Jaffé, Daniel Source: Limelight. Nov2017, p52-55. 4p. 8 Color Photographs, 4 Black and White Photographs. https://wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?auth=production&url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=125823660&site=eds-live&scope=site

Russian Music Beyond Tchaikovsky https://wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?auth=production&url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=12951409&site=eds-live&scope=site

https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/api/collection/p16062coll9/id/239899/download Aram Khachaturian's music is performed all over the world, on renowned theater and concert .

http://ru.hayazg.info/%D0%A5%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D1%8F%D0%BD_%D0%90%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC_%D0%98%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B8%D1%87/%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%D0%B8_%D0%B8_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_(1980) Хачатурян Арам Ильич/Статьи и воспоминания (1980)

https://arar.sci.am/dlibra/publication/335330/edition/307403 Арам Ильич Хачатурян Изд-во «Музыка», 1978

https://arar.sci.am/dlibra/publication/339980/edition/311634?language=en Арам Хачатурян Изд-во АН АрмССР, 1972

Random

Aram Khachaturian interests are many; he plays tennis, and is usually to be found among the spectators at football matches. He is an avid theater- goer and knows the theaters of Moscow, Leningrad and Transcaucasia well.

Khachaturian himself was conflicted about these labels, but a 1957 letter hints at the pragmatic composer’s own feelings on balancing music and heritage. “Bury me in Yerevan,” he wrote, “but bring the orchestra from Moscow.”

---

Ըստ հայրենակիցների՝ Խաչատրյանի ծնողները՝ Ներքին Ազայում ծնված Եղիան եւ Վերին Ազայում ծնված Ղումաշը, ընտանիքով Թիֆլիս են տեղափոխվել այն ժամանակ, երբ Արամը 2-3 տարեկան է եղել

The first Soviet composer in the country to write film scores, Khachaturian maintained a lifelong interest in cinema. https://www.google.am/books/edition/Encyclopedia_of_Contemporary_Russian_Cul/ZXz2okCSfq8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Masquerade+(1941).+The+first+Soviet+composer+in+the+country+to+write+film+scores,+Khachaturian+maintained%22&pg=PA293&printsec=frontcover

Donald Vroon https://wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?auth=production&url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=146593502&site=eds-live&scope=site [Prokofieff and Khachaturian] Both were influential composers far beyond the Soviet sphere.

The Tuscaloosa News 22 Mar 1987 [1]

Khachaturian never really be- came a heavyweight. His slick ballet music, with its icing of synthetic folk elements drawn from his native Armenia, is perilously close to pop. Only in his best works such as the Violin Concerto and, despite its bombast, the Piano Concerto, does Khachaturian rise above the level of commercial practitioner.

He was a great admirer of George Gershwin-and American jazz virtuoso Duke Ellington, who toured the Soviet Union in 1971.

Khachaturian and his late wife. Makarova, also a composer, lived for many years in a modest apartment block off Moscow's Gorky Street, where his neighbors included Shostakovich and another com- poser, Dimitri Kabalevsky. To ensure that the composers did not disturb each other at their work, Khachaturian lived on one side of the block and Kabalevsky on the other. Shostakovich was two floors above.

"At its best Khachaturian's music is fluently melodic, brilliantly colored in the Rimskian tradition, often reflective of Armenian folk materials, and rarely profound. [...] With the exception of many of the Soviet-era formulaic works, virtually all his major efforts have been recorded many times and continue to be listed in contemporary catalogs."

Like most pieces by Khachaturian, this concerto is suffused with the exotic influence of Armenian folk-tunes and is full of the same rhythmic propulsion, startling dissonances, and eerie orchestral color (the flutter-tongued flutes at the beginning and end of the second movement, for instance) that mark his better-known works. https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-7859/

Khachaturian Gayaneh Suite, brilliantly recorded in first-class 1957 stereo. It’s drawn from a ballet about a peasant girl on a collective farm, the heroic defender of frontier settlements, and “foreign agitators”. Khachaturian, conforming to the dictates of Socialist realism, touched the right musical buttons too, grounding the music in Caucasian folk music and dances from Armenia and once-obscure places whose names end in “-stan”. The result is six movements bursting with orchestral color, rhythmic vivacity, and gorgeous melodies. https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-7892/

http://www.alefmagazine.com/pub1413.html Арам Хачатурян лежал на обследовании. Большая светлая палата и он, мощный, грузный, лохмато кудрявый, седой творец музыки.

https://iz.ru/news/276572

https://ctda.library.miami.edu/creator/7912 After studying in the Soviet Union at the Moscow Conservatory with Aram Khachaturian in 1960

https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA405989971&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=10867732&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ee9951091&aty=open+web+entry

Marginality Beyond Return: US Cuban Performances in the 1980s ... Lillian Manzor · 2022 / Cuban “vanguardista” composers considered Aram Khachaturian, Ubieta's mentor, conservative both aesthetically and

Motown Encyclopedia / Graham Betts · 2014 · ‎Preview · ‎More editions Inspired by Keith Emerson's classical arrangements for E.L.P., Love Sculpture recorded an updated version of Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian, which became a surprise UK pop hit in 1968, peaking at #5 following radio support from John

The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Western Art - Page 25 Yael Kaduri · 2016 · ‎Preview · ‎More editions His widow reported that Aram Khachaturian may have composed a score inspired by one of Macdonald- Wright's Synchrome Kineidoscope performances

Vladigerov

https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/pancho-vladigerov-i-aram-hachaturyan-blizost-resheniya-voprosov-sootnosheniya-natsionalnyh-i-akademicheskih-evropeyskih-traditsiy-v Отмечая вклад Хачатуряна и Владигерова в развитие современного искусства, напомним тот факт, что почти каждый молодой композитор Советского Востока прошел «хачатуряновский» этап. Ученики Хачатуряна и Владигерова, сегодня занявшие ведущее положение, тоже в разной степени испытали влияние музыки своих учителей.

Noting the contribution of Khachaturian and Vladigerov to the development of contemporary art, let us recall the fact that almost every young composer of the Soviet East passed through the "Khachaturian" stage. The students of Khachaturian and Vladigerov, who today have taken a leading position, were also influenced to varying degrees by the music of their teachers.

Aram Khachaturyan Viktor I︠U︡zefovich · 1985 · ‎Snippet view · ‎More editions PANCHO VLADIGEROV For the young and ambitious musicians of Asia who strive to write music with European means of expression , the work and achievements of Aram Khachaturyan are like a beacon

https://tass.ru/encyclopedia/person/hachaturyan-aram-ilich Арам Хачатурян был дважды женат, имел дочь и сына. Первая супруга - Рамель, дочь - Нунэ, пианистка. Вторая жена - Нина Макарова (1908-1976), композитор, заслуженный деятель искусств РСФСР, сын - Карен, искусствовед.

Historical Dictionary of Russian Music - Page 216 Daniel Jaffé · 2022 https://books.google.am/books?id=fmBVEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA216&dq=Khachaturian%27s+musical+style+ostensibly+shows+the+influence+of+his+native+folk+music:+he+himself+explained+that+his+love+of+%E2%80%9Cdiscordant&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjnrIeNkq32AhXDRfEDHYjiB1oQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=Khachaturian's%20musical%20style%20ostensibly%20shows%20the%20influence%20of%20his%20native%20folk%20music%3A%20he%20himself%20explained%20that%20his%20love%20of%20%E2%80%9Cdiscordant&f=false

Composers union https://books.google.am/books?id=tdxVDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34&dq=aram+khachaturian+communist&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiL9dny85_2AhXoSPEDHUk3ALI4ChDoAXoECAIQAw#v=onepage&q=aram%20khachaturian%20communist&f=false

https://www.scribd.com/document/548503804/%D0%AE%D0%B7%D0%B5%D1%84%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87-%D0%92-%D0%90%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC-%D0%A5%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D1%8F%D0%BD-1990

http://www.khachaturian.am/rus/biography.htm Личная жизнь композитора была также насыщена событиями. От первого брака у Хачатуряна есть дочь Нунэ – пианистка. В 1933 году Хачатурян женился во второй раз на студентке из класса Мясковского Нине Макаровой, ставшей впоследствии верным спутником жизни композитора. От брака с Н.Макаровой у Хачатуряна родился сын Карен (ныне – известный искусствовед).

https://soundtimes.ru/muzykalnaya-shkatulka/velikie-kompozitory/aram-khachaturyan В конце 20-х годов Арам женится, у него рождается дочь Нунэ.

https://kratkoebio.ru/aram-khachaturian/ С первой своей женой, армянкой Рамэль, Арам познакомился, будучи студентом МГУ. К концу 20-х годов они поженились и у них родилась дочь Нунэ, которая посвятила свою жизнь игре на фортепиано.

Spartacus

stentorian, "rich and juicy ... a monumental score in every way", "cinematic ... it often sounds like movie music. At its best, it's Shostakovich without the genius. But Lord knows it's vigorous."

The three excerpts from Spartacus show a talented composer's response to the requirements of hard-line political esthetics. Socialist-Realism schlock this music most certainly is, but Khachaturian writes inventive schlock - comfortably entertaining yet not without surprises.

Tim Page described the scores of Gayane and Spartacus as "bombastic socialist realism."

Influence

uk:Ковач Ігор Костянтинович http://erpub.chnpu.edu.ua:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/1411/1/Ethnic%2520Culture%2520Synthesis%2520in%2520Ihor%2520Kovach%25E2%2580%2599s%2520Music%2520Art.pdf Khachaturian's influence on I. Kovach's style

It’s a fun, occasionally bold piece ‘in the folk style’, obviously influenced by Khachaturian’s Concerto https://www.thestrad.com/reviews/emmanuel-tjeknavorian-sibelius-tjeknavorian/10732.article

YUMPU https://www.yumpu.com › view › t... THE ART SONG OF SOUTH AMERICA: AN EXPLORATION ... Apr 16, 2013 — Khachaturian's influence is most apparent

The White-Haired Girl https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/23/archives/music-view-the-sound-of-the-pipa-and-the-erhu.html

Arkady Luxemburg

https://scholarworks.uni.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1624&context=hpt Influences of Armenian Folk Music on Clarinet Chamber Works by Aram Khachaturian and Alexander Arutiunian

https://books.google.am/books?id=olAJAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP170&dq=%22Khachaturian

Little has been heard from the Russian-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian since the phenomenal success of his "Gayne" ballet. Khachaturian's style is the most immediately appealing of the Soviet modernists, as he is rich in melodic ideas, uses rather conventional harmony with an Eastern flavor reminiscent of Rimsky-Korsakov, and vigorous Russian march and dance rhythms. 

East Asia

Senator Hugh Scott:

Male and female voices sang in the traditional Chinese nasal style and in the full voiced Italian operatic tradition. The accompanying orchestra used strong rhythms, syncopation and harmonies all un- known to the classical Chinese musical tradition. Songs sung were about: "our brothers in Taiwan," "spring shoots", "Chairman Mao's brilliant thoughts shine on a blast furnace", "the Tibetan people praise Chairman Mao", "Long Live Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party", "Sinkiang Folk Song", and "Store Grain Every- where". Several of these songs clearly sprang from Chinese roots. In others the influences of Tchaikowsky and Khachaturian seemed to be mingled with the haunting style of Russian Red Army songs.

https://books.google.am/books?id=ujTYcAQzZYgC&pg=PA28&dq=chinese+khachaturian

Biancolli

https://archive.org/details/concertcompanion0000baga/page/368/mode/1up?view=theater

Aram Khatchatourian born: tiflis, georgia, june 6, 1903.

The country which produced Michael Arlen and William Saroyan has now also a composer who is attracting the attention of the musical world.--John N. Burk.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

I. Allegro ma non troppo e maestoso. II. Andante con anima. III. Allegro brillante.

Composed in 1935 and premiered in Moscow the same year, Khatchatourian's Piano Concerto speedily became a concert favorite throughout the Soviet Union. Writers hailed it as an "event in Soviet music," and many greeted it as marking the rehabilitation of the piano concerto in Soviet composition. Something of a stigma had fastened to the form since the A.C.M. (Association of Contemporary Music) had branded music for the piano as a form of "bour- geois drawing room music making." In any case, only four Soviet piano concertos had succeeded in gaining wide currency--those of Shekhter, Kaba- levsky, Khrennikoff, and Makarov-Rakitin. As one writer expressed it: "Khatchatourian brought out his Concerto when Soviet music was in danger of ignoring completely the pianistic traditions of Franz Liszt. Khatchatourian reinstated them at one stroke." Along with the frank, untrammeled bravura reverting to an older style, there was noted the presence of fresh, exotic material in the Concerto, deriving from Armenian folk sources. This was woven into a throbbing symphonic scheme hurtling to recurring dramatic climaxes. One writer described the work as a piece of "virtuoso rivalry between piano and orchestra." As for the "national" element in the music, Khatchatourian disavowed any intent to quote literally from Armenian folk material. Rather has he devised themes and color in the spirit of these folk tunes. Echoes of native Armenian instruments filter through the score, but never in slavish imitation. Khatchatourian has said that he "is not and does not wish to be considered a 'national composer' in the narrow sense of the term." He goes on to say: 
Of course, any music worth the name will inevitably have its national character- istics. That applies to the music of Beethoven, Schumann, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Tschaikowsky. The "Big Five" of Russian music of the last century were first and foremost Russian composers. But through sincere expression of national feeling, by means of sound technic and purity of style, they have become representatives of universal art. Looked at from this point of view, folk music for me is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.

In a recent article on Khatchatourian, Nicolas Slonimsky discussed this point. After noting how Russian composers had always been attracted by the folk music of the Russian Orient, he added, "It was only after the Revolution that the minority nations brought forth native composers who made use of melodic and rhythmic resources of their countries not in the form of exotic stylization, but as creative reconstruction." 
In reviewing the Concerto, Soviet critics were especially enthusiastic about the slow movement, a poetic reverie in romanza style. Georgi Khubov, writing in Sovietskaya Musika in September, 1939, regarded it as an epitome of modern lyricism, with its "perfect inner harmony, its vitality, and its folk character." Throughout, the Orientalism is easily recognized in the structure of melodies used, with the stress on small intervals in eight-note and nine-note scales. Another feature evocative of the Orient is the contrast and novelty of color applied in the scoring for wood winds.
Suggestive of Borodin--and Liszt for that matter--are not only the sweep and surge of theme, but the thematic unity of structure. Material first ex- pounded in the opening movement returns with redoubled force in the finale. In fact, the rather festive, animated theme, with the typically Armenian cadence, introduced in the opening allegro, dominates the concerto like a cyclic motif. The exotic, romanzalike effect of the andante is achieved through a combina- tion of fresh harmonies, folk mood, and laconic expression, the whole giving an impression of severe simplicity. The andante contrasts sharply with the often theatrical brilliance of the end movements. 
Of Khatchatourian as orchestrator, Mr. Slonimsky writes that he follows the traditions of Borodin and Glazounoff in contrasting instrumental solos with full orchestral passages. "The effect is secured by means of sonorous accumula- tion," he writes, "reaching a maximum brilliance, and then subsiding to another period of calm. Khatchatourian's First Symphony he called a "succession of sonorous waves, mounting and receding, in conformity with the larger lines of the formal design."
The son of an Armenian bookbinder, Khatchatourian was nineteen before he began to study music. Then he rapidly made up for lost time. Enrolling in a school in Moscow, he studied cello, but soon turned to composition, his first instructor being Michael Gnessin. Later Miaskowsky and Vassilenko became his teachers at the Moscow Conservatory. Early in his studies he was attracted to Armenian, Georgian, Azerbaijan, and Uzbeck folk music. At the same time Gnessin and Miakowsky opened up the wide field of Russian and classical music to him. In 1926 he began to compose, and his music soon drew attention because of its strange Oriental flavor and gusto. Although the folk note has remained a fixed trait of his music, Khatchatourian for a while toyed with modernistic experiment in dissonance. However, he was soon back at his true métier, "the recreation of his native Caucasian folk music within the bounds of new harmony," to quote Mr. Slonimsky. Success came fast with audiences and critics alike. His First Symphony, written in 1934, and commemorating the Sovietization of Armenia, gave him added prestige. 
Khatchatourian already has some '20 compositions to his credit, among them two symphonies, several ballet suites, piano and violin concertos, chamber music (including a trio), songs, marches, overtures, film music, and incidental music for a production of Macbeth staged by the Armenia State Theater. In 1938 he wrote a Poem about Stalin for the annual October Festival, using a text by the Azerbaijan poet Ashug Mirza. Later he received the highest award of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin, for "outstanding services in the development of the music of his native Armenia." Early in 1943 it was decided to have Khatchatourian's name inscribed on a marble tablet in the hall of the Moscow Conservatory, beside the names of other celebrated alumni like Rachmaninoff and Taneieff. Khatchatourian turned down the offer of a pro- fessorial post at the Conservatory, preferring to give all his time to composition. His wife and daughter still remain pupils of his, however. Under the name of Nina Makarova, Mrs. Khatchatourian is known to the Soviet public through a cycle of songs based on the verses of the Great Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli and a cantata dedicated to Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister.

According to one writer, Khatchatourian "lives enmeshed in the harmonies and rhythms of his native Armenia. He is adding more songs to a lore already rich in material. And when he does become attracted to a four-bar melody of original music, he turns it inside out, making it a richer and more colorful song." (It is interesting to note that when his music to a film was being recorded the directors were at variance as to which was original folk music and which was the Armenian composer's own creation.) The American premiere of Khatchatourian's Piano Concerto occurred in the concert hall of the Juilliard School of Music on Mar. 14, 1942. The late Albert Stoessel led the Juilliard Graduate School Orchestra, and the talented soloist was, appropriately, a young Armenian girl Maro Ajemian, member of the student personnel. A second performance, by the same forces, took place at a Russian Relief Concert in the Cosmopolitan Opera House on May 17, 1942, when a huge audience drawn largely from New York's Armenian colony greeted the work with cheers. The work was introduced at the Lewisohn Stadium at a Philharmonic-Symphony concert led by Efrem Kurtz. William Kapell, who was the soloist, reappeared in the work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall on Nov. 20, 1943. Artur Rubinstein was the soloist when the New York Philharmonic-Symphony introduced it to its subscribers on Dec. 12, 1943. Artur Rodzinski conducted. Besides solo piano, the concerto is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, small drum, bass drum, cymbals, and strings.

"Dance with the Sabers" from the Ballet "Gayaneh"

For "outstanding merit in promoting the development of Armenian art," Aram Khatchatourian was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1939. Four years later came a further token of recognition for creative effort on behalf of his native Soviet republic-the First Degree Stalin Prize. This Khatchatourian won with his music to Gayaneh, a patriotic folk ballet, steeped in native folk- lore and idiom, about cotton pickers on a collective farm (Kolkhoz) in Soviet Armenia. The libretto was by K. N. Derzhavin. The premiere of Gayaneh occurred in the city of Molotov on Dec. 9, 1942, during a visit of the Kirov Theater for Opera and Ballet of the Leningrad State Academy. N. A. Anisi- mova, a noted Soviet ballerina, directed the production and danced the title role. The story of Gayaneh centers in a conflict between a patriotic Armenian girl Gayaneh and her brutal husband Giko. Tragedy arises when Giko turns traitor to the Soviet regime, joins a band of smugglers, and sets fire to the Kolkhoz. In a mounting frenzy of hate, Giko almost kills his wife and daughter. They are saved by Kazakov, commander of a Red Army border patrol, who is in love with Gayaneh and marries her when Giko is disposed of. The tale unfolds against a background of workaday life and play on a Soviet plantation. Russian and Armenian elements dominate the dance. Occasional curtsies are made to other Soviet areas. In mood the music ranges from the soft hushed impressionism of Gayaneh's "Lullaby" to the slashing, explosive drive of the Kurdish "Saber Dance." There are simple peasant dances, folkish and colorful; shepherd dances; fiery dramatic dances, exotic in rhythm and verve; even a "Fire Dance." In the final whirlwind of dancing at Gayaneh's engagement party, there follow in brisk sequence an Armenian "Shelakho," the Kurdish "Saber Dance," a Gruzian (Georgian) "Lezghinka," and a Ukrainian "Hopak." The orchestral suite from Gayaneh contains thirteen separate dances. Three of them--"Dance of the Rose Maidens," "Lullaby," and "Dance with the Sabers" (Nos. 2, 6, and 11 of the Suite)--were given their American premiere by Efrem Kurtz and the Kansas City Philharmonic during the season of 1944- 1945. The New York concert premiere occurred at the Lewisohn Stadium on an all-Soviet program of the Philharmonic-Symphony orchestra conducted by Alexander Smallens. In response to prolonged applause, Mr. Smallens repeated "The Dance of the Sabers." Marked Presto, this dance is in bold and spirited vein, with syncopated rhythms and reminiscent flashes of the last movement of Khatchatourian's Piano Concerto. Abrupt changes of tempo add to the wild, excited upsurge of rhythms.

Toccata

https://www.alfred.com/toccata-for-piano/p/98-EP4734/

a good substitute for the overworked Khachaturian Toccata

https://books.google.am/books?id=1DgMEFNVQV0C&pg=PA59&dq=khachaturian+toccata&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSu6XzhNeAAxXMQ_EDHZG5B78Q6AF6BAgHEAM#v=onepage&q=khachaturian%20toccata&f=false

https://iyadsughayer.com/khachaturian-piano-music-bis-records/

Spartacus Adagio

Spartacus Suite No.2 Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia

Classic 100 Twentieth Century
Classic 100 Original (ABC)
Classic 100 Ten Years On

Classic 100 Swoon

21	Khachaturan, Aram	Spartacus (Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia)	Ballet score	1954

Hooked on Classics 2: Can't Stop the Classics

Can't Take My Eyes Off You

Maybe I’ve been to too many concerts this week, but the celebrated Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia—the ballet’s single “hit”—bears an uncanny similarity to Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You by Franki Valli and The Four Seasons. [2]

Tatyana Volozhanina
The Hudsucker Proxy
Ice Age: The Meltdown
2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack)
Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya
Mayerling (1968 film)

Roger Covell: the widely played (but, in my opinion, rather loathsome) adagio from Spartacus. /flute adaptation/

James Galway

https://bachtrack.com/review-boriso-glebsky-markovic-bournemouth-symphony-poole-april-2015 For many of a certain age, Khachaturian’s Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia will always remain synonymous with the 70s TV production of The Onedin Line – the sheer sweep and majesty of the music suited the splendour of a tall ship crashing through the waves to perfection. And, as an opener to this evening’s concert at Poole’s Lighthouse, perhaps seemed a fitting link with this nautical theme, even though the composition itself actually accompanies a nocturnal love scene in the ballet from which this extract is taken!

Ivan March: Subsequently the BBC used the spectacularly beautiful “Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia” (truly worthy of Tchaikovsky) as theme music for their TV production of The Onedin Line. the justly famous “Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia”.

Its most famous number is the ‘Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia’, passionate and tuneful enough to have been written by Tchaikovsky (and recalled at the lovers’ parting), https://archive.ph/2e81p

The ballet's most famous number, the Adagio of Phrygia and Spartacus, with its sweeping string tune, is justly popular and the theme returns nostalgically at the end in Phrygia's parting scene. https://archive.ph/AdLwj

https://twitter.com/BRB/status/1144328692761583616 Birmingham Royal Ballet

Elizaveta Tuktamysheva https://twitter.com/goldenskate/status/1302360962104733696

Alec Baldwin When I need a moment of reset I turn to Khachaturian’s Spartacus Adagio. It never fails to revive me. https://archive.ph/Jmqtj https://twitter.com/AlecBaldwin/status/1171437852636282880

70’s Sunday evening TV. THE ONEDIN LINE (1971-80) Music: Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia Composer: Aram Khachaturian https://twitter.com/MichaelWarbur17/status/1685580715348402176

Waking up to Radio 3 playing Spartacus: Adagio. One of the most famous bits of music no one knows the name of. https://twitter.com/garius/status/1561953255277711360

Just heard "Spartacus: Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" by Aram Khachaturian on KUSC & it reminded me of "My Way" by Frank Sinatra (also set to the music of "Comme d'habitude"). Looked it up & "My Way" was released after, but doesn't reference "Spartacus" at all... https://twitter.com/jentothechen/status/1139559890299437057

Levon Hakobian

Levon Hakobian, an Armenian-Russian music critic,

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the music of both Prokofiev and Shostakovich, as well as Khachaturian (his piano and violin concertos, excerpts from Gayane with the irresistible ‘Sabre Dance’, later also Spartacus), Kabalevsky (especially his piano preludes and sonatas, promoted in particular by Vladimir Horowitz) and Rheingold Gliére (first of all his wordless Concerto for voice and orchestra) "proved to be exportable and remained in the international repertoire."

Or is it conceivable that the best pages of the ballets by Aram Khachaturian - a composer, who can be easily described as the most consistent exponent of ‘big Soviet style’, a paragon of ‘Sovietness’ in music, - would lose their lush, somewhat kitsch-like attractiveness because of the utterly anti-human, ‘politically incorrect’ nature of their subject matters?

40 Khachaturian himself confessed that at a certain moment he was under the strong influence of Kreyn’s Piano Sonata: Kreyn and Rogozhina, 1964: 37.

The nightmarish repressions of the Great Terror touched the musical world only slightly. Finally, the period in question was marked by the rise of very valuable ‘cadres’: the long-awaited ingenuous and at the same time welltaught ‘singer of socialist internationalism’ in the person of Khachaturian; the ‘prodigal son returned’, Prokofiev; and the seemingly ‘exorcised’ Shostakovich, as well as several other promising representatives of the generation already trained under Soviet power.

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Khachaturian

he was born in the environs of Tiflis; yet, in former times Tiflis was a real crossroads of cultures, one of the most cosmopolitan places in the whole Russian Empire.

The background of the son of an Armenian bookbinder was determined by the jovial and colourful atmosphere of that city, where the Italian opera and the Russian conservatoire peacefully coexisted with the flourishing art of ashughs (professional or semiprofessional performers of oriental love and epic songs with instrumental accompaniment) and sazandars (small ensembles of traditional oriental instruments specialized chiefly in dance music). In the last decades of the 19th century, on the cultural ground of Tiflis rose the first essays to couple the genuinely oriental - Armenian, Georgian, Turkish, Iranian - melodic vocabulary with formal patterns borrowed from the European tradition. European musical instruments, especially piano and winds, became part of everyday life even among the modest classes of the population.

The young Khachaturian could manifest his elemental artistic gift improvising and playing the piano by ear during various familial feasts, weddings and so on; perhaps, on those occasions he succeeded in finding out some fresh devices of arrangement and harmonization of popular tunes, as well as inventing pieces of his own. The experience acquired in his youth proved to be very steady; even in the most accomplished works by Khachaturian, despite all of his academic discipline, one can discern hints of a semi-amateurish eclectic improviser.

In 1922, Khachaturian moved to Moscow and entered the department of biology at the University and, simultaneously, the Gnesin College of Music. Soon afterwards, he abandoned science and devoted himself to art. Khachaturian started his musical studies practically from zero, for at the age of 19 he ignored even the ‘abc’ principles of music theory. Thanks to the pedagogical gifts of Mikhail Gnesin, in a very short time he succeeded in complementing his elemental artistry with considerable professional skill. Moreover, the lessons of Gnesin - who possessed an immense experience in the field of ‘acculturation’ of authentic oriental tunes - had a decisive influence on Khachaturian’s attitude to similar matters; as he confessed much later, ‘it is no mere chance that the composers who have occupied significant positions in the musical life of national (ie. non-Russian - L. H.) republics, came precisely from Gnesin’s classroom’.! Besides, while studying at the Gnesin College, Khachaturian was in contact with another great specialist in oriental music - Gliére. In his college years, Khachaturian composed several works that, despite all of their weak points, are not forgotten up to the present day: Dance (1926) and Song-Poem (in Honour of Ashughs) (1929) for violin and piano (in the late 1930s, both pieces entered the repertoire of David Oistrakh), Poem (1927) and seven fugues (1928)2 for piano.

From 1929 on, Khachaturian continued his studies at the Moscow Conservatoire, first with Gnesin, then with Myaskovsky. The bulk of his Conservatoire compositions consists of the very popular Toccata in E flat minor for piano (1932), the three-movement Trio for clarinet, violin and piano in G minor (1932), the five-movement Dance Suite for orchestra (1933) and the First Symphony in E minor (1934); the latter work’s first public performance in April of the next year in Moscow made Khachaturian one of the most conspicuous figures of his generation.’

The early scores of Khachaturian already give a strong indication of what is idiosyncratic to his language, as well as to his artistic mettle in general. In the early Khachaturian, there was something of an untamed and eager provincial feeling; yet, perhaps already then the consciousness of ‘an Armenian and at the same time European” - that is, of an artist charged with the task of acquainting the rest of the world with the art of his civilization - was ripening within him. His principal concern was to achieve an organic synthesis of the native heritage with the established European principles of moulding large instrumental forms. Even in the early, fairly naive scores he managed this, although rather intuitively and spontaneously, without falling into over-simplification; he often succeeded in finding such devices that even now do not seem commonplace.

Although Khachaturian did not usually make direct quotations from folk music, he often based his themes on specific oriental scales. It must be said that the scales of traditional Armenian monody are often enriched with tensesounding heightened and lowered degrees and do not follow the principle of the functional identity of tones separated from each other by the interval of an octave. Further, the climax of the tune in most cases is located close to its beginning, while the basic tone (the finalis of the scale) reveals itself the result of a prevalently descending movement; the way from the beginning to the finalis is rich in melodic ornaments making the movement more sinuous. The most conspicuous features of Khachaturian’s melodic and harmonic language are conditioned precisely by these constructive principles of the traditional Armenian music. Many of his finest themes have borrowed the peculiar expressiveness of diminished and augmented intervals as well as the effect of a strongly accented beginning from folk archetypes:

The force of Khachaturian’s music consists in the vividness of his initial musical ideas. His imagination is concentrated especially on inventing the main musical impulse, which usually plays the role of thesis that pierces the whole form. His initial ideas, as a rule, are contained in fairly simple structures; their development runs quite traditionally (he prefers to make use of the technique of variations). But the expressiveness of his initial material is powerful enough to fill up vast expanses.5

In the field of harmony, too, Khachaturian proceeded from the inner structure of scales: as the principles of triadic tonality seem rather irrelevant in the ambience of traditional scales, he preferred to use specific chords with diminished and augmented eighths (this sometimes allowed him to employ elements of a rather ‘mild’ polytonality) and especially chords with juxtaposed seconds representing the vertical projections of particular scales.6 Explaining his passion for vertical combinations of minor and major seconds, Khachaturian recalled the play of the trio of sazandars consisting of tar (plucked string instrument), kemancha (bow string instrument) and tambourine; as a child, he had ‘enjoyed these sounds, apprehending the sharp combinations of seconds as perfect consonances’.’ Yet, in the sazandar music seconds are, so to speak, essentially uniform, for they appear almost invariably in the context of rhythmic ostinato and organ point (dam), which underlie melody. Khachaturian employed chords with juxtaposed seconds in a more variegated manner, especially as a device of making melody as colourful as possible. Besides, some of his seconds can be explained as, so to speak, ‘frozen’ apoggiaturas, grace-notes, gruppettolike figures that are almost omnipresent in every oriental monody.’ One of many instances - the beginning of the Trio for clarinet, violin and piano (1932) - is shown in Example 4.1. The use of such exotic chords instead of the standard minor and major fabric imparts to many pages of Khachaturian’s music a peculiar ‘impressionistic’ spirit that is, perhaps, more akin to the very nature of oriental music than the dynamism artificially thrust upon it by adaptations made in accordance with the concept of triadic tonality.

In connection with his piquant harmonies, Khachaturian has frequently been compared with Ravel,’ though he is more unreserved in manifesting the wealth of his emotions. The peculiar ‘intemperance’ of his artistic nature is responsible for another frequent comparison:

There is something of Rubens in the sumptuousness of these life-enjoying melodies, in the resplendence of orchestral soundings. And, apart from sumptuousness, there is abundance and generosity in these bunches of melodies and adornments. [...] He is the Rubens of our music, the Rubens of oriental tales; for the musician Khachaturian originates from the land of superb colourful poems and admirable embellished melodies.’10

It must be added here that the land of Khachaturian’s ancestors is also that of a rich, deep, earnest spiritual culture and of a peasant folk-lore often striking in its austerity. However, Khachaturian - who, by the way, never lived in Armenia for more than several months in succession - remained almost completely insensitive to that aspect of Armenian cultural heritage.

The features of Khachaturian’s melodic and harmonic style specified above, having conditioned the freshness and originality of his art, are at the same time responsible for some of its weak points. The concentration of the most important melodic contents close to the beginning of the musical whole often results in a rather plain course of further development, in a misuse of repeating structures and rather wearisome instrumental flourishes. The tendency to conceive harmony as a projection of the scale that underlies the melodic line leads to a lack of mobility in the accompanying layer. The very temperament of Khachaturian incited him chiefly to large symphonic forms that, however, are often rather loose and badly connected. The quality of virtually every large-scale work of Khachaturian is fatally dependent on the quality of its initial thematic impulse; this became especially evident in his late years, when melodic inspiration began to fail him.

However, in the second half of the 1930s, Khachaturian was at the height of his powers. His First Symphony was followed by several works of prime importance: the Piano Concerto in D flat (1936, composed for Lev Oborin), the Poem about Stalin (1938), the ballet Happiness (1939) and the Violin Concerto in D minor (1940, composed for David Oistrakh).

In this list of Khachaturian’s most remarkable accomplishments, the symphonic Poem about Stalin is by no means superfluous. Not counting Prokofiev’s celebratory cantata A Toast (‘Zdravitza’), discussed later in this chapter, the work of Khachaturian is the best piece of music ever composed in honour of the Leader and Teacher. The first two of its three movements - Prologue, with alternating songful and dance-like sections, and a rather concise dramatic Allegro - are purely instrumental. The third movement, Epilogue, is a sumptuous hymn to Stalin scored for mixed choir and orchestra’’; the poetry was provided by the Azerbaijani ashugh Mirza Bayramov.” The best and the worst elements of Khachaturian’s style - the moments of genuine uplift and delicate lyricism and those of sheer tastelessness - are united in the Poem about Stalin in an idiosyncratic manner, which is itself not devoid of a certain charm (the same can be said about virtually every piece of music composed by Khachaturian, the tastelessness gradually gaining the upper hand over inspiration as the composer grew older).

The whole of Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto is centred around the famous Andante, whose principal theme, quoted in Example 4.2 (note the seconds as ‘frozen’ grace notes and dam in the bass), grew from a melody once heard by the composer in a Tiflis street. Against the background of this ‘nocturne’, both rapid movements are like a massive brilliant casing in the grand virtuoso style having its origins in Liszt and Tchaikovsky.

While the expansive Piano Concerto can be appraised as a specimen of Khachaturian’s ‘baroque’, the more even-tempered Violin Concerto is the acme of his ‘classicism’:'? its sound, too, is unmistakably Armenian, but the thematic elements are more tightly embedded in the classical European formal scheme. In his evolution from the Piano Concerto to that for violin, Khachaturian recapitulated the path of Tchaikovsky who, likewise, had written the First Piano and Violin Concertos in his thirties, the former being separated from the latter by the same span of four years. Regarding the character of music and the degree of formal perfection, both Concertos by Khachaturian stand in the same relation to each other as do the Concertos by Tchaikovsky. In his ballet Happiness (‘Schast’ye’), in 1942, remade in Gayane with the ‘Sabre Dance’ as its most irresistible hit, the ‘timely’ plot about collectivization, friendship of the peoples and victorious struggle against enemies was used merely as a pretext for the famous dance divertissement, in which the natural charm of thematic material is sometimes spoiled by its grandiloquent presentation.

In his memoirs Arthur Rubinstein, himself a great extrovert, described his initial fascination with Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto and his subsequent disappointment at the work’s ‘inherent banality’.* Such is the fate of Khachaturian’s music: at first hearing it may sound fascinating, but it is prone to pall very quickly. Nowadays, Khachaturian’s compositions - perhaps with the exception of both Concertos of the 1930s, the Toccata for piano, the Waltz from the incidental music to a production of Lermontov’s drama Masquerade (1941), the love scene from the ballet Spartacus (early 1950s) and, of course, the ‘Sabre Dance’ - are seldom played outside Armenia. Nevertheless, Khachaturian’s historical significance cannot be underestimated. Among the musicians of his cultural circle, he was the first to appear on the international scene as not a supplier of exotic bagatelles or a clumsy imitator of European manners, but as a competent artist; in this respect, he is a real parallel if not to Ravel, at least to such figures as de Falla or Villa-Lobos. Moreover, regarding the specifically Soviet context of his work, his example prompted younger colleagues to advance towards more organic forms of merging the cultural stock of particular ethnic groups and the achievements of the ‘big’ international culture - and, thus, to rise above the ‘base line’ of writing, to create some values of broader importance. The achievements of Khachaturian determined the course of development of the Armenian and of Caucasian music for several decades”.

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Another emblematic work of the epoch was Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto (1940). [...] Khachaturian’s masterpiece

15 The influence of Khachaturian upon the musicians of the Eastern regions of the USSR is discussed in detail in Arutyunov, 1983.

To complete the list of major wartime contributions to Soviet symphonic music, one ought to mention the Second Symphonies by Khrennikov (in C minor, completed 1942, revised 1944), Khachaturian (in E minor, 1943) and Muradeli (in D, 1944), all built according to the predictable scheme with extended dramatic first movement in sonata form (in Muradeli it is preceded by a peaceful slow introduction), gloomy slow movement, energetic scherzo (in Khachaturian the order is reversed) and triumphant finale (curiously, in Khrennikov it ends in minor mode). Khachaturian’s work, often referred to as ‘symphony with bells’,*> is the least neglected among the three - evidently due to the specific oriental flavour of much of its thematic material, whose ‘catchy’, sensual quality occasionally pushes into the background the score’s formal shortcomings. One of the symphony’s most ‘catchy’ (and ‘kitschy’) moments is, perhaps, the climax of the dirge-like third movement (Andante), where the Armenian folk tune ‘Vorskan akhper’ (‘Brother Hunter’) combines with the Dies irae motif.

The Second Symphony by Khachaturian - a perfect example of ‘big Soviet style’ in the latter’s mildly ‘exotic’, slightly ‘orientalizing’ version - could not give rise to complaints.

Khachaturian embarked on his magnum opus - the four-act ballet Spartacus to libretto by Nikolay Volkov after the popular historical novel by Raffaello Giovagnoli - in 1950 and completed it in 1954. The work’s scenario reproduces that of Aleksandr Kreyn’s opera Zagmuk (see p. 82), although this time the action takes place in the Roman Empire instead of Babylon. The ballet was first performed in December 1956 at the Kirov Theatre, and in the 1960-70s Spartacus (especially in its three-act version of 1968), side by side with the Swan Lake and the Romeo and Juliet, was one of the most acclaimed sell-outs of the glorious Soviet ballet. The most attractive features of Khachaturian’s personal style - the overpowering rhythmic drive, the ‘Rubensian’ thickness in harmony and orchestration, the specifically garish quality of melodies - are swelled in this score to a somewhat excessive degree. It is characteristic of Khachaturian that the fragments intended to express the dramatic and tragic aspects of the plot occupy a secondary place, while the principal attention is paid to largely developed love scenes and to juicy pictures of Rome triumphing, having a merry time and indulging in orgies and bacchanalias. Spartacus, not unlike The Decembrists by Shaporin, turned out to be the last significant work of its author. The rest of the music composed by Khachaturian during the last two and a half decades of his life evidences the abrupt decline of his creative capacities and, perhaps, his hopeless efforts to reach some new horizons.

ru:Екимовский, Виктор Алексеевич Viktor Yekimovsky (b. 1947) formally studied composition with Khachaturian,

Against the background of Khachaturian’s lush, extroverted manner serving as the principal model for Armenian composers, Mansurian’s restrained, prevalently quiet music appeared as a stimulating new word.

Khachaturian - Violin Concerto in D minor // 16.11.1940, Moscow, David Oistrakh / Aleksandr Gauk.

Khachaturian - suite from the music to Masquerade (1941) // 6.8.1944, Moscow Radio, Sergey Gorchakov.