Aram Khatchaturian was born in Tiflis, Russia, on June 6, 1903. He was
of Armenian extraction. He came to Moscow in 1920, and enrolled in the
Gniessen School of Music. From 1929 to 1934 he attended the Moscow
Conservatory. He first achieved recognition as a composer in 1935 with
his first Symphony, and in 1937 he scored a major success throughout the
music world with his first piano concerto, still a favorite in the
modern concert repertory. As one of the leading composers in the Soviet
Union he has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the Order
of Lenin in 1939, and the Stalin Prize in 1940 and 1942. In 1954 he
visited London where he led a concert of his own music, and early in
1960 he toured Latin America.
Khatchaturian’s music owes a strong debt to the folk songs and dances of
Armenia and Transcaucasia. It is endowed with a sensitive and at times
exotic lyricism, a compulsive rhythmic strength, and a strong feeling
for the dramatic.
The most popular single piece of music by Khatchaturian comes from his
ballet, _Gayne_ (or _Gayaneh_), first performed in Moscow on December 9,
1942, and the recipient of the Stalin Prize. The heroine of this ballet
is a member of a collective farm where her husband, Giko, proves a
traitor. He tries to set the farm afire. The farm is saved by a Red
Commander who falls in love with Gayne after Giko has been arrested.
Khatchaturian assembled thirteen numbers from his ballet score into two
suites for orchestra. It is one of these pieces that has achieved
widespread circulation: the “Saber Dance,” a composition whose impact
comes from its abrupt barbaric rhythms and vivid sonorities; midway,
relief from these rhythmic tensions comes from a broad folk song in
violas and cellos. “Saber Dance” has become popular in numerous
transcriptions, including an electrifying one for solo piano. In 1948
Vic Schoen made a fox-trot arrangement that was frequently played in the
United States.
Two other excerpts from these _Gayne_ suites are also familiar. “Dance
of the Rose Girls” presents a delightful Oriental melody in oboe and
clarinet against a pronounced rhythm. “Lullaby” has a gentle swaying
motion in solo oboe against a decisive rhythm in harp and bassoon;
flutes take up this subject, after which the melody grows and expands in
full orchestra, and then subsides.
_Masquerade_ is another of Khatchaturian’s orchestral suites, this one
derived from his incidental music to a play by Mikhail Lermontov
produced in 1939. Each of the five numbers of this suite is appealing
either for sensitive and easily assimilable melodies or for rhythmic
vitality. Gentle lyricism, of an almost folk-song identity,
characterizes the second and third movements, a “Nocturne” and
“Romance.” The first and the last two movements are essentially
rhythmic: “Waltz,” “Mazurka,” and “Polka.”