Aram Khachaturian may have been the most renowned Armenian composer of the 20th century, but he was actually born in Georgia, in the capital city of Tiflis (Tblisi) or thereabouts, on this date in 1903. Tiflis had a large Armenian population and served as a major Armenian cultural center.
Following the Sovietization of the Caucasus, Khachaturian moved to Moscow in 1921. There, he studied cello and composition at the Gnessin Musical Institute – which it is said he entered without any formal musical training – and the Moscow Conservatory, where Nikolai Myaskovsky was among his teachers.
In his lifetime, he was celebrated both at home and abroad. Everyone knows the manic “Sabre Dance” from his ballet “Gayane,” once the preferred music of plate-spinners everywhere, and frequently employed at the circus. Liberace played the “Sabre Dance” on his TV show. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick used the Adagio from “Gayane” on the soundtrack to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The same year, the Adagio from the ballet “Spartacus” was featured in the film “Mayerling,” starring Omar Sharif and Catherine Deneuve. More recently, the Coen Brothers used “Spartacus” (as well as the “Sabre Dance”) in “The Hudsucker Proxy.”
In the West, the public loved him, even as his music came in for critical brickbats, variously described as “lightweight,” “pop” and “schlock.”
At home, that’s precisely what they loved about him. Anyone who got too introspective or innovative was in danger of being labeled “formalist” and “anti-people.”
From the late 1930s, Khachaturian was rewarded with several high posts in the Union of Soviet Composers. But nobody was allowed to get too big in Stalin’s USSR. So in common with just about every other Soviet composer, Khachaturian was denounced, busted down, and humiliated, only to be built back up when it was thought he had been sufficiently humbled. As punishment, he was sent to Armenia – which I would think would be the equivalent of sending someone to their room, with all their things around them, when grounded!
Once Khachaturian was restored to favor, he taught at the Gnessin Institute and the Moscow Conservatory. As a conductor, he toured Europe, Latin America, and the United States. In 1957, he was appointed Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, a position he held until his death in 1978.
There’s plenty of great Khachaturian footage on YouTube. Below are some links to “Kach” at your convenience.
Happy birthday, Aram Khachaturian!
Khachaturian conducting his Violin Concerto, with a 13-year-old Yoko Sato the soloist
David Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan have a go at it
Khachaturian conducts his Piano Concerto, with Nikolai Petrov, the soloist (complete)
Petrov plays the Concerto-Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, in color (complete)
Mstislav Rostropovich plays the Concerto-Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra (complete)
Khachaturian at the keyboard
Khachaturian conducting his biggest hit, the “Sabre Dance,” at the Bolshoi
A “making of” featurette with lots of Khachaturian footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsuE8x77id0
The Manny, Moe and Jack of Soviet music: (left to right) Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Khachaturian in 1945
