The life, career, and music of aram khachaturyan: the origin of and influences on his musical style

Abstract

Khachaturyan was a popular composer of the Soviet era, ranked in his day alongside Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Although his formal musical education began at the late age of 19, he eventually graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with highest honours, and went on to enjoy a highly successful career as a composer, leading figure in the Composers' Union, conductor, and teacher. His music strongly reflects the folk music and dance of his Caucasian roots, and he was undoubtedly the most successful of the new breed of Soviet nationalist-minority composers who emerged in the 1930s. By happy coincidence his natural musical style was an affirmation of the Party's 'Realist' cultural ideals (for simplicity, folkishness, and optimism). He won the USSR's highest honours including the title 'People's Artist'. He lived through turbulent times - the Russian Revolution, the Civil War, Stalin's terror, the Great Patriotic War, and finally, the notorious Party condemnation of leading Soviet composers in 1948. After the death of Stalin, Khachaturyan attacked the Soviet musical establishment for the mediocrity of Soviet music, which led in part to a relaxation of Party cultural controls. Although he was considered to 'represent Soviet Realism at its best', his music was rather the genuine expression of his creative personality, in no way compromised by or tailored to political dictates. In his music he used the folk idiom, particularly that of Armenia, with intuitive taste and skill, together with the techniques and forms of European classical music. His music is characterised by lyrical melodies, often rhapsodic and presented in the manner of an improvisation. Rather than quoting folk material directly, he often adapted folk melodies, or created his own melodies in the folk idiom. In addition to the conventional major and minor scales, he used the intonations from the Eastern 'Mugam modes, adding exotic flavour and conveying the tuning and timbre of Caucasian folk instruments. He was also fond of spectacular effects, dynamic and shifting rhythms, rich harmonies, and orchestral colour, adding exotic spice, gaiety, splendour, and exuberance to his music. Although he wrote highly successful concertos, symphonies, and other abstract music, he preferred forms based on dramatic subjects. In the media of ballet, stage, and film his imagination was most fruitful in the depiction of character, emotion, mood, scene, and action. This is most evident in his ballets, Gayane and Spartacus, which contain perhaps his two most famous pieces, the Sabre Dance and the Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia.