GOMIDAS VARTABED - KOMITAS (1869- One of the most renowned Armenian Churchmen and musician of modern times was Gomidas Vartabed, also known as Komitas. He was born Soghomon Soghomonian in Kutaha, Asia Minor in the year, 1869. His life had an interesting turn of events, when at the age of eleven, he was orphaned, and at a young age he was sent to a Seminary in Etchmiadzin to study. Because of his singing prowess, he decided to teach music at the Seminary after he completed his studies. In 1896, Soghomon was ordained a monk or “apegha” of the Armenian Church. A few years later he was ordained a “Vartabed”, and as is the practice in the Armenian Church assumed his new name “Komitas”(or Gomidas). Komitas learned a great deal of music from the monks
and continued to study music with the famous composer Kara-Mourza,
which eventually led Komitas into both secular and religious music.
Komitas continued to study music, and in 1896, he was awarded a
doctorate degree in musicology. He later returned to Etchmiadzin as a
choir director, and Komitas wrote over three thousand songs in Armenian,
Arabic, Kurdish, and Persian, and also contributed significantly to
the modern Armenian Badarak.
His main contribution was to rediscover Armenian folk music. He
spent years traveling throughout the provinces and visiting many
villages listening to native songs and dances, and making notes of
them for further analysis. His work in arranging and collating the
folk music he had collected over the years eventually became excellent
songs for chorus music, and made the public aware of the existence of
true Armenian music. The
internationally known priest was the first non-European to be a member
of the International Music Society. Komitas performed concerts in
Paris, Geneva, Berne, Constantinople, Venice, and Alexandria.
It is interesting to note that in the spring of 1915, during
the imprisonment of leaders of the Armenian community, Komitas too was
taken into custody. Through the efforts of Henry Morgenthau,
Ambassador from the United States of America, and the Turkish poet
Mehmet Emin Yurdakul, who admired Komitas’ work, Komitas was released. After
the April 24, 1915 massacres of the Armenian people by the Turks, he
succumbed to mental and physical anguish and never fully recovered. Komitas lived as if a walking corpse for the next twenty
years. The revered holy man died in Paris on October 22, 1935 in a
mental hospital. One year after his death his ashes were transferred
to Yerevan and interred in the Yerevan Panthenon.
In the 1950’s his manuscripts were transported from Paris to
Yerevan where they were being studied and published “Komitas Vartabed is considered one of the immortals of the Armenian Church and is remembered in the minds and hearts of Armenians”. Have a comment, contribution or suggestion? Click here and send it to us
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