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Aram Ilych Khachaturyan was born June 6, 1903, near Tiflis, Georgia. During his childhood, Aram heard Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijan songs in the streets of the big southern city from morning to night, and these melodies became early impressions deeply engraved in the memory of this gifted child. Khachaturyan
began to study music at the age of nineteen, and he began to play the
“cello”. He went to Moscow and entered the Gnesin School of Music,
where he studied both composition and conducting, and by the time he
was thirty he was playing at the Moscow Conservatory. Khachaturyan’s
music was noted for being cheerful, rhythmic, and sensuous. His
musical idiom had roots deep in folk music, and most of his
compositions, large and small, were imbued with the spirit of national
art, and yet he seldom, if ever, quoted folk melodies. As
an internationally renowned composer, his works included Dance Suite, Sabre Dance, and the
ballets Gayane, Happiness, Masquerade, and Spartacus.
He also composed several symphonic pieces, music for films and plays,
and choral numbers. His native Armenian heritage is stirringly
reflective in his melodies, rhythms, and pulsating vitality. Khachaturyan
was considered the founder of a new symphonic school based on the
inexhaustible wealth of Transcaucasian folk song. He was the first
Armenian composer to create large-scale lyricoepic symphonic works
addressed to his contemporaries. His Symphonies, as well as his
concerts and symphonic poems, were comprehensible to millions of
listeners. The
period from 1935 to 1941 was among his most fruitful. He completed his
postgraduate studies at the Moscow Conservatory, wrote and
successfully performed his piano concert, and composed incidental
music for two films, Pepo
and Zangezur. The
composer kept in close touch with Armenia and was elected deputy to
the Armenian parliament. He was appointed to executive positions in
the organizing committee of the Composers Union.
Khachaturyan was awarded the Order of Lenin for his music for
the ballet Happiness,
performed during a ten-day festival of Armenian music in Moscow. For
some time Khachaturyan had been dreaming of conducting an orchestra.
He had rehearsed with small orchestras in theaters staging plays with
his music. His dream
finally came true in 1950, when he conducted a full orchestra. In
the summer of 1957, Khachaturyan and his wife made an extensive tour
of the Latin-American countries. During his three-month visit, he
conducted 12 concerts of his works, performing the Second
Symphony, the Violin, Piano and Cello concerts, and the Gayane,
Spartacus, and Masquerade
suites. Khachaturyan’s performance received very high praises from
the Latin-American critics. Khachaturyan’s
seventieth birthday, June 6, 1973, was widely observed. Booklets on
his life and work were published in Moscow and Yerevan. Jubilee
concerts of his music were held
in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Concert
Hall, and the Hall of Columns. There
was a large exhibition of photographs in the lobby of the
Conservatory, and the Bolshoi Theater gave a special anniversary
performance of Spartacus. In
1968, he toured the United States, visiting several cities and
conducting orchestras in concerts consisting entirely of his own
compositions. The concerts turned out to be very successful. Aram
Khachaturyan married composer Nina Makarova, who had studied with him
in the Myaskovsky’s composition class. They had one son. This was
his second marriage. By his
first wife, the pianist Ramella Khachaturyan, he had a daughter, named
“Nune” for whom he always showed a touching concern. She too
became a pianist and music teacher at the Moscow Conservatory Music
School. Khachaturyans
favorite Armenian dish was “Dolma”, minced meat with rice wrapped
in tender grape leaves and boiled. Aram
Khachaturyan died on May 1, 1978. Thousands
filed by his body as it lay in state in the Grand Hall of the Moscow
Conservatory, and later in the Opera and Ballet Theater in Erevan. Excerpts
of Article taken from Aram
Khachaturyan-by Victor
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