About this Piece

Aram Khachaturian’s picture graced the walls of Russia’s conservatories, alongside those of compatriots Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, representing one of the country’s three greatest composers of the 20th century. His works—from favorites like the Masquerade incidental music and the ballets Gayane and Spartacus to his less-familiar, but no less engaging, symphonies and concertos—do not enjoy the international reputation of those by his two better-known countrymen. Perhaps this is because of Khachaturian’s relatively limited output—only three symphonies compared with Prokofiev’s seven and Shostakovich’s 15, for example—but his works, for the most part, lack the 20th-century edge that gives the music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich a more contemporary and challenging feel. But that’s why Khachaturian was a Soviet musical hero, especially after he publicly renounced formalism when criticized by the government in 1948; his music overflows with melody and vitality, its languorous moments alternating with sections of overwhelming rhythmic dynamism. As an ethnic Armenian born in a suburb of Tbilisi, Georgia, Khachaturian became a manifestation of one of the cornerstones of Soviet arts policy—combining the folk heritage of various Socialist states with Russia’s larger artistic traditions, embodied in music by composers such as Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Like Tchaikovsky, Khachaturian composed three ballets. His second, Gayane (1942, with its three suites arranged in 1943) reworked much of the material from his first ballet, Happiness (1939). The story takes place on a collective farm on the Georgian border in 1941, the year the Germans invaded the Soviet Union during World War II. The lives of its residents, their conflicts, and their allegiances offer an object lesson in how to be a loyal Soviet citizen and the rewards of a life devoted to the state, and Khachaturian’s music narrates the story and its intermittent set pieces with style and directness in the best Russian tradition. Charming allusions to Khachaturian’s Armenian heritage can be heard throughout the suite. To color his working-class characters, the composer drew upon folk music in the plaintive opening that introduces the cotton farmers—among them the titular heroine Gayane—and in the earthy dance of the carpet weavers. The third suite features an audience favorite: the raucous Sabre Dance, with its percussion (especially the xylophone) playing at breakneck speed.

—John Mangum