Aram khachaturian biography samples

His colorful orchestration technique, admired by Shostakovich and others in the past, is still noted for its freshness and vitality by modern composers. Khachaturian's influence can be traced in nearly all trends of Armenian classical traditions, whether in symphonic or chamber music. Khachaturian made several commercial recordings, including a recording of his second symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as EMI recordings of suites from Gayane and Masquerade and his violin concerto in with David Oistrakh as soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

He later made stereo recordings of the violin concerto again with Oistrakh , the second symphony in on the Russian Disc label and music from Gayane. Some of his recordings have been reissued on CD. Khachaturian's works span a broad range of musical types, including ballets, symphonies, concertos, and numerous film scores. Login Register.

Main article: List of compositions by Aram Khachaturian. Our dream: to make the world's treasury of classical music accessible for everyone. See the about page on how we see the future. Help us with donations or by making music available! Contact Privacy policy Looking for classical mp3 downloads? We index the free-to-download classical mp3s on the internet.

In he made a six-month trip to his native Armenia "to make a thorough study of Armenian musical folklore and to collect folk-song and dance tunes" for his first ballet, Happiness which he completed in the same year. He learned a lot, saw and heard many things anew, and at the same time he had an insight into the tastes and artistic requirements of the Armenian people.

It was a great success that earned Khachaturian his second Stalin Prize, this time first-class. He composed the Second Symphony on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution and incidental music to Masquerade , "a symphonic suite in the tradition of lavish classical Russian music", on Mikhail Lermontov 's play of the same title.

In mid-December , the Department for Agitation and Propaganda better known as Agitprop submitted to Andrei Zhdanov , the secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee , a document on the "shortcomings" in the development of Soviet music. On 10—13 January , a conference was held at the Kremlin in the presence of seventy musicians, composers, conductors and others who were confronted by Zhdanov: [ 42 ].

We will consider that if these comrades Shostakovich , Prokofiev , Myaskovsky , Khachaturian, Kabalevsky and Shebalin namely who are the principal and leading figures of the formalist direction in music. And that direction is fundamentally incorrect. During the course of the conference, the newly appointed head of the Union of Soviet Composers, Tikhon Khrennikov complained that Khachaturian's Symphonic Poem had its premier in a half empty hall and that "everyone thought that Khachaturian's Cello Concerto was rubbish".

In response, Khachaturian — who admitted that speaking at such an event made him nervous — conceded that composers of more complex work might be guilty of ignoring popular taste, thinking that it would catch up with them in time. Zhdanov interrupted to say that such an attitude was "extreme individualism". I wanted this work to express the Soviet people's joy and pride in their great and mighty country.

Musicologist Blair Johnston believes that his "music contained few, if any, of the objectionable traits found in the music of some of his more adventuresome colleagues. In retrospect, it was most likely Khachaturian's administrative role in the Union [of Soviet Composers], perceived by the government as a bastion of politically incorrect music, and not his music as such, which earned him a place on the black list of By December Zhdanov had died in August he was restored to favor, receiving praise for his score for the film Vladimir Ilyich Lenin [ ru ] , a film biography of the Soviet leader.

In , Khachaturian began conducting [ 48 ] and started teaching composition at his alma maters—the Gnessin Institute since , and later at the Moscow Conservatory since In , he began working on his third and last ballet, Spartacus —54 , which later proved to be his last internationally acclaimed work. After completing Spartacus , since the late s, Khachaturian focused less on composition, and more on conducting, teaching, bureaucracy and travel.

He conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in a program of his own works. Khachaturian went on to serve again as Secretary of the Composers Union , starting in until his death. Khachaturian's works span a broad range of musical types, including ballets, symphonies, concertos, and film scores. Music critic Edward Greenfield expresses the opinion that Khachaturian "notably outshone other Soviet contemporaries in creating a sharply identifiable style, something which his successors have found impossible to emulate".

According to James Bakst, what made Khachaturian unique among Soviet composers is "the blending of national Armenian vocal and instrumental intonations with contemporary orchestral techniques". Khachaturian is best known internationally for his ballet music. These two compositions "remain his most successful compositions". Khachaturian wrote incidental music for several plays, including Macbeth , , The Widow from Valencia , Masquerade , King Lear Khachaturian was the first Soviet composer to write music for sound films.

I do not see how modern composers could isolate themselves from life and not want to work among society. The more impressions that come from contact with life, the more and better the creative ideas. Musicologist Marina Frolova-Walker describes Khachaturian as the only internationally renowned Soviet composer "who emerged from the nationalist project".

The people create intonational music forms which reveal at once his national elements of an art work. Composer Tigran Mansurian suggested that Khachaturian's music incorporates American characteristics and called the United States his "second homeland" in terms of musical influences, especially due to the sense of optimism in his works and lifestyle.

Khachaturian is widely known for his use of folk songs of various ethnic groups in his compositions, most notably those of Armenians. However, his works markedly differed from the conventional orchestrations of folk themes", writes Rouben Paul Adalian. He suggests that Khachaturian's works carry "the vibrant rhythms and stirring pace of Caucasian dance music", but at the same time are "original compositions that reworked that cultural material through new instrumentation and according to European musical canons, resulting in a sound unique to the composer".

Khachaturian was particularly influenced by the folk-song collector, musicologist Komitas , [ 73 ] and composers Alexander Spendiaryan and Romanos Melikian. His plans to write an opera "on the destiny of the Armenian people, the tragic fate of Armenians scattered all over the world, their suffering and the struggle" never realized, and his "Armenian Rhapsody for mouth-organ and orchestra, intended for his close friend Larry Adler and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra " remained uncompleted.

During his university years, Khachaturian transcribed Armenian, Russian, Hungarian, Turkish and other folk songs. Khachaturian is cited by musicologists as a follower of Russian classical traditions. But Khachaturian's cultural identity and rigorous musical training within the Soviet establishment allowed him to penetrate more deeply to the essence of Eastern and Caucasian music and to incorporate it more fully in his mature work, including the ballets.

He inspired young Armenian composers [ 28 ] and had a great influence on the development of Armenian music. Khachaturian also influenced composers of Azerbaijan such as Kara Karayev [ ] [ ] and Central Asia. Khachaturian was a close friend of the Bulgarian composer of Pancho Vladigerov and Khachaturian admired his music. Harold C. Schonberg argued that Soviet-trained Chinese composers, such as Li Delun , were part of a "school of music strongly indebted" to socialist-realist composers like Khachaturian.

The music of the Japanese composer Roh Ogura had the influence of Khachaturian in "its rhythms and scoring.

Aram khachaturian biography samples

Khachaturian was described as a "stocky bushy haired Armenian. That's why, if I have the time, I never turn down a meeting with him. In Khachaturian married the composer Nina Makarova , a fellow student from Myaskovsky's class at the Moscow Conservatory. I am Russian and lyric. Nune became a pianist, while Karen—an art critic. In early October , Khachaturian was briefly admitted into a hospital in Geneva after a heart attack.

Khachaturian was an atheist , [ b ] and always remained enthusiastic about communism. Khachaturian denied any censorship of his music in the Soviet Union and when asked about purges, he said: "Well, they thought my music was too loud, I did write for 15 trumpets and even Stokowski decided against our doing that music when he found out the instrumentation.

But I wouldn't change it. The composer must stick to his conception. Khachaturian is generally considered one of the leading composers of the Soviet Union. According to the Los Angeles Philharmonic , "his works do not enjoy the international reputation that those of" Shostakovich and Prokofiev do. Unlike Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Khachaturian was "entirely a creation of the Soviet musical and dance establishment".

The Age wrote that he was the "last survivor among such household names as Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Rachmaninov" and his death marked the "end of an era of the great Soviet composers. Josef Woodard, writing for the Los Angeles Times , suggests that Khachaturian has long been considered a "lighter-weight participant among 20th-century composers", [ ] while classic music broadcaster Norman Gilliland describes him as a "major" composer of the 20th century.

He argued, "Such a view is simplistic, given that he had a major brush with the authorities in Anne Midgette opined that Khachaturian is "remembered for Technicolor music, film-score-like in scale and sensibility. Schonberg was often critical of Khachaturian. In he wrote that "Even at his best he was a minor figure, and his music these days has little to offer.

Not because it is conventional, but because its materials and ideas are second-rate. While praising his work as exotic and colorful, he described Khachaturian as a "bureaucratic composer, turning out well-crafted pieces of no particular personality, and certainly nothing that would rock the boat". One of the "modern icons of Armenian pride", [ ] Khachaturian is considered a national treasure, [ 13 ] and is celebrated by the Armenian people "as a famous son who earned world-wide recognition".

Two younger Armenian composers dedicated pieces to Khachaturian's memory. Arno Babajanyan composed an elegy inspired by Sayat-Nova upon his death, [ ] while Edvard Mirzoyan composed Poem Epitaph In Memory of Aram Khachaturian, for string orchestra in , on the 10th anniversary of his death. In , the Central Bank of Armenia issued dram banknotes depicting Khachaturian's portrait and the Yerevan Opera Theater on the obverse and an episode from the ballet Gayane and Mount Ararat on the reverse.

It remained in use until when it was replaced by a coin. Music schools are named after Khachaturian in Tbilisi, [ ] Moscow established in , named after him in , [ ] Yerevan, [ 53 ] Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh , [ ] and Watertown , Massachusetts, U. On 31 July a three-and-a-half meter high statue of Khachaturian in 19th-century realist style [ ] by Yuri Petrosyan was unveiled before the Khachaturian Hall of the Yerevan Opera Theater in attendance of President Robert Kocharyan , Speaker Karen Demirchyan and leading poet Silva Kaputikyan.

In , a year before his death, Studio Ekran made a documentary on Khachaturian. Soviet Union [ 75 ] [ ]. Other states [ ]. Academic titles [ 18 ]. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Soviet Armenian composer — Gnessin Musical Institute Moscow Conservatory.

Nina Makarova. Biography [ edit ]. Background and early life — [ edit ]. Education — [ edit ]. Early career — [ edit ]. Denunciation and restoration [ edit ]. Later life — [ edit ]. In , he transferred to the Moscow Conservatory where he studied under Nikolai Myaskovsky. In the 's he married the composer Nina Makarova , a fellow student from Myaskovsky's class.

His works include concertos for violin , cello and piano the latter originally including an early part for the flexatone , concerto-rhapsodies for the same instruments, three symphonies the third containing parts for fifteen trumpets and organ , and the ballets Spartak Spartacus and Gayane , the latter featuring in its final act what is probably his most famous movement, the ' Sabre Dance '.

He also composed some film music. Influenced by contemporary Western music, particularly the works of Maurice Ravel, his compositions began to show the maturity, mastery, and rich stirring color that so dominated his music. Said the music critic of the World-Telegram, "There is no piano concerto in the entire literature to equal this one in sheer energy, speed, and sheer drive….

It happens also to be pretty good music…. Other works followed, most notably: Happiness, a ballet ; Violin Concerto in D Minor , for which he won the Stalin Prize, Second Degree; Second Symphony , written for the 25th anniversary of the Russian revolution; Masquerade , a symphonic suite in the tradition of lavish classical Russian music; and Spartak, a ballet In addition, he composed violin and cello concerto and numerous minor works.

The second of Khachaturian's best-known works is Sabre Dance from his ballet Gayane This rhythmically stirring piece has received popular recognition since it was first performed. It is generally played in four-quarter rather than the three-quarter time in which it was written. He received his second Stalin Prize for this piece.