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ARMENIA CELEBRATES GREAT COMPOSER ARAM KHACHATURIAN'S 110TH BIRTH ANNIV.
June 6, 2013 - 14:02 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia is celebrating great composerAram
Khachaturian's 110th birth anniversary on June 6.
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was born on 6 June 1903 in Tbilisi,
Georgia, into a poor Armenian family. In 1921 he moved to Moscow,
soon entering the Gnessin Institute as a cellist and, in 1925,
beginning composition studies, transferring in 1929 to the Moscow
Conservatory and Myaskovsky's class.
>From earliest years he was fascinated by Armenian folk-music, and
'oriental' sounds and melodies, graduating with a work in this style,
the First Symphony (1934). Around the same time he married the composer
Nina Makarova, a fellow student from Myaskovsky's class. In 1936,
his substantial and popular Piano Concerto included Georgian as well
as Armenian elements within a lushly romantic framework. This was
followed by a first ballet, Happiness (1939), set on a Soviet-Armenian
collective farm. These three large-scale works established him as a
leading Soviet composer and he was showered with honours.
1940 saw two key works: incidental music for a production of
Lermontov's Masquerade, from which he produced a charming suite evoking
the aristocratic world of early 19th century St.Petersburg; and the
brilliant and easily accessible Violin Concerto for David Oistrakh.
During World War II Happiness was reworked as the patriotic ballet
Gayaneh, with its famous 'Sabre dance'. In 1943 came the epic
Second Symphony, a vivid chronicle of the struggles of war ending
in a rousingly optimistic finale. The colourful Third Symphony that
followed (Symphony-Poem, 1947, for orchestra, organ and 16 trumpets)
did not save him from brutal criticism at the 1948 Composers' Congress
for crimes of 'formalism'. He responded with patriotic works including
Ode in Memory of Lenin (1949)..
After Stalin's death in 1953, Khachaturian was active as a public
figure, being among the first to press for a relaxation of the
harsh musical and artistic conditions in the Soviet Union. He was
also writing, teaching and travelling a great deal (in 1955 he met
Sibelius), and working on his massive 4-act ballet, Spartacus (1956),
set in ancient Rome but with plenty of exotic elements and lashings
of orchestral colour in the music.
In his last years he wrote several more concertos, as well as chamber
music, much of it still hardly known, even in Russia and Armenia. He
died in Moscow on 1 May 1978.
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/161165/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
June 6, 2013 - 14:02 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia is celebrating great composerAram
Khachaturian's 110th birth anniversary on June 6.
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was born on 6 June 1903 in Tbilisi,
Georgia, into a poor Armenian family. In 1921 he moved to Moscow,
soon entering the Gnessin Institute as a cellist and, in 1925,
beginning composition studies, transferring in 1929 to the Moscow
Conservatory and Myaskovsky's class.
>From earliest years he was fascinated by Armenian folk-music, and
'oriental' sounds and melodies, graduating with a work in this style,
the First Symphony (1934). Around the same time he married the composer
Nina Makarova, a fellow student from Myaskovsky's class. In 1936,
his substantial and popular Piano Concerto included Georgian as well
as Armenian elements within a lushly romantic framework. This was
followed by a first ballet, Happiness (1939), set on a Soviet-Armenian
collective farm. These three large-scale works established him as a
leading Soviet composer and he was showered with honours.
1940 saw two key works: incidental music for a production of
Lermontov's Masquerade, from which he produced a charming suite evoking
the aristocratic world of early 19th century St.Petersburg; and the
brilliant and easily accessible Violin Concerto for David Oistrakh.
During World War II Happiness was reworked as the patriotic ballet
Gayaneh, with its famous 'Sabre dance'. In 1943 came the epic
Second Symphony, a vivid chronicle of the struggles of war ending
in a rousingly optimistic finale. The colourful Third Symphony that
followed (Symphony-Poem, 1947, for orchestra, organ and 16 trumpets)
did not save him from brutal criticism at the 1948 Composers' Congress
for crimes of 'formalism'. He responded with patriotic works including
Ode in Memory of Lenin (1949)..
After Stalin's death in 1953, Khachaturian was active as a public
figure, being among the first to press for a relaxation of the
harsh musical and artistic conditions in the Soviet Union. He was
also writing, teaching and travelling a great deal (in 1955 he met
Sibelius), and working on his massive 4-act ballet, Spartacus (1956),
set in ancient Rome but with plenty of exotic elements and lashings
of orchestral colour in the music.
In his last years he wrote several more concertos, as well as chamber
music, much of it still hardly known, even in Russia and Armenia. He
died in Moscow on 1 May 1978.
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/161165/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress