The work of Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (1903 - 1978), full of genre and figurative versatility, fully reflected his subtle ability to feel and recreate in music the deep essence of the displayed era - from ancient historical to acutely modern themes.

The international spirit of his composing genius manifested itself in an original, organic synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions, marking a real breakthrough in their development. Thus, the desire for such a qualitatively new synthesis will become one of the leading trends in the musical art of the twentieth century:

“Khachaturian, for the first time in world musical practice, revealed the essence of the musical East in a new way, having managed to break free from the shackles of the traditions of perceiving the Oriental as an exotic beginning” (Z. Ter-Ghazaryan).

The musical language of A. Khachaturian's creativity

The brightly individual, original style of the composer, which has acquired a truly historical significance, successively goes back, on the one hand, to the traditions of the Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian composer schools (Khachaturian himself pointed out the enormous role of the Armenian folk music in his art). On the other hand, his music incorporates the achievements of European and Russian traditions, which manifested itself:

• in the field of rhythm, where the complexity of its organization, aimed at overcoming regular accentuation (in general, a characteristic sign), brings Khachaturian's work methods closer to Stravinsky's;
• the breadth and rich emotionality of the melodies, which goes back to stylistics;
• brilliance and versatility of the orchestral texture, taken from the Russian classical school of composers;
• the toccato character that distinguishes many of the composer's works refers, on the one hand, to the style, on the other hand, to the national origins of folk dance music;
• The striking characteristic of Khachaturian's harmonic language, associated with the active use of ostinato and organ points, goes back to Armenian folk music (G. Chebotaryan notes).

The composer himself emphasized that

"... our art should be a source of joy, sing good, bring happiness to people ...",

however, the figurative spectrum of his works turns out to be expanded to include heroic and dramatic moods

(The First and Second Symphonies, the ballets "Gayane" and "Spartacus", "Ode to the Memory of Lenin", the symphonic suite "Battle on the Volga", etc.).

The breadth inherent in the imaginative world of Khachaturian's work is also characteristic of his views on the significance of various areas of musical art in general. Thus, the conviction in the spiritual value of both professional and mass-consumer music is expressed by his words:

“... let the music that is being created in our time sound in the squares, if it can captivate the masses and infect them with their emotions ...”.

Traditionally, in connection with the specifics of Khachaturian's style, such features are noted as:

• improvisational freedom,
• poetry,
• rhapsody (definition of the composer himself).

Closest connection with folk origins in his work was expressed in an organic fusion of the very essence of nationality in a broad sense with the author's own melodies in the folk spirit, where the composer avoids direct quotation, being true to his deep conviction:

“If… a composer hides his lack of skill with an appeal to folklore… he can hardly be called a creator…”. Z. Ter-Ghazaryan notes: “His musical language was the common Eastern equivalent of Western European without national differentiation, but with mandatory potentialities.”

Instrumental creativity of A. Khachaturian

The first steps of Khachaturian as a composer are connected with pieces for cello, piano, songs, music for theatrical performances. In the early compositions, influence is felt in the field of harmony, in the texture - impressionistic trends (piano waltz-caprice, or "Waltz in nones"); most of the works of the early period remained unpublished.

The composer's first work was Song of the Wandering Ashug (1925) for cello and piano. This is followed by: Song-poem for violin and piano (1929), Dance for violin, Poem for piano, Toccata, seven fugues for piano (to each of which a recitative is written after 40 years), etc.

In the Conservatory years appear: orchestral "Dance Suite" (1933), trio for clarinet, violin and piano, Piano Concerto (1936).

Part of the gold fund Soviet music becomes the Violin Concerto (1940); Born in 1961, the Piano Sonata reveals a connection with the methods of Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

Symphonies by Khachaturian

In the area of symphonic music the name of this composer is on a par with the names of Prokofiev; one of the central ideas in symphonies, as in works of other genres, is the life-affirming power of the optimistic principle.

First Symphony

She marked the end of the student period in the composer's work; its significance is vividly characterized by Shostakovich's statement about the enormous role of the talent of a young composer for the national musical art, which

"... it was destined to open new horizons in the music of the twentieth century ...". This is a diploma work, in which "... the idea of ​​the indissolubility of times, of the unity of human ideals is expressed by Khachaturian quite definitely, figuratively both in the thematic of the symphony, and at the level of musical and dramatic plan" (M. Rukhkyan).

According to the composer himself, in the symphony he sought to embody

"... grief, sadness of the past, ... bright images of the present, faith in a beautiful future." “I dedicated the first symphony to the 15th anniversary of the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia, and I did it quite sincerely…” (A. Khachaturian).

In conversations with Schneerson, the composer noted that the tragic episode at the end of the symphony was inspired by memories of "the difficult past of my homeland, Armenia ...".

Second symphony

("Symphony with a bell" - the name given to it by G. Khubov) was created "... with a feeling of anger, protest against injustice ..." (A. Khachaturian) in grave war time. It is in connection with it that tragic moods penetrate Khachaturian's music. The music of the symphony is distinguished by its expressiveness, vivid associativity, and emotional accuracy in conveying moods (alarm and lamentation of the strings in the introduction, a funeral procession in the 3rd movement, and an ode in the finale); the folk-national basis here is manifested through the prism of personal perception while maintaining its figurative and expressive meaning. G. Khubov defines its genre as a monumental epic.

Third Symphony(“To the 30th anniversary of October!”)

She was branded as "unpopular" and accused of excessive pomposity. Khachaturian took this kind of criticism hard:

“Shostakovich, when he was scolded, worked, but I wanted to hang myself” (A. Khachaturian).

However, despite the accusations of formalism, the music of the symphony not only "sings the anthem ... of resurgent life" (B. Asafiev); but in many ways it anticipates the sonoristic discoveries of the second half of the 20th century.

Concerts of Khachaturian

Khachaturian's interpretation of the concerto genre is connected, first of all, with the triumph of a bright, optimistic beginning (G. Khubov notes that the composer remembered the comparison of a concerto with a lit chandelier - something bright, solemn, light). His six instrumental concertos, saturated with the energy of action and emotional richness, demonstrate a skillful mastery of both classical laws and forms, as well as innovative free techniques. Thus, the first three concertos (Piano, Violin, Cello) are based on the traditional 3-part structure of the genre and the sonata-symphonic principle of material development.

In the period from 1961-1968. the remaining 3 concertos appear (also Piano, Violin, Cello), much freer, based on one-partness and characterized by increased ties with typically oriental performing techniques. These features were reflected in the genre definition of them as rhapsodic concertos.

Cantata creativity of Khachaturian

In the 1930s, the genre of the jubilee cantata developed, which was facilitated by cultural and social events in preparation for the celebration of the Revolution and the 60th anniversary of Stalin. So, in 1938, the “Poem about Stalin” appears, which, at first glance, is in line with the trends of the late 40s associated with the cult of personality. In fact, an unconventional solution was found in the work, aimed at shifting the emphasis from a specific personality to the image of a people. The essence of Stalinism, implying the implementation of the idea happy life as inseparable from power, overcome by the fact that the essence of time is given through the eyes of ordinary people, for which folk poetic sources were involved (the words of ashug Mirza).

The poem is distinguished by the complexity of the compositional plan, the saturation of sections, the concentration national start. Also, the composition has the features of a large-scale theatrical dramaturgy, which is manifested in the dynamics of injections and recessions (which is typical for the creative method of Khachaturian as a whole). The historical role of the work lies in the definition by the poem further ways symphonizations for Armenian cantata-oratorio music.

Music for theater and cinema

Considering different musical genres as equivalent, Khachaturian creates a large number of songs, plays, music for films and theatrical productions. The themes of the works are no less wide - from intra-national to universal.

It is with theatrical music that both the first experiments and monumental samples are connected. mature period. For example, the following have become very popular:

music for Lope de Vega's comedy "The Valencian Widow" (1940), music for Lermontov's drama "Masquerade" (included in the golden fund of Soviet music), music for dramatic performances "Kremlin Chimes" (1942), "Deep Intelligence" (1943), "The Last Day" (1945). Pepo's song from the film of the same name gained genuine popular popularity; from the music for the film "Man No. 217" the Suite for two pianos is born later.

Ballets by Khachaturian

In the field theater music ballet plays a huge role. The first sample this genre the music for the ballet "Happiness" (1938) turns out to be based on a story traditional for its time about frontier and collective farm life.

This music is used in the subsequent ballet "Gayane" (1942), created in harsh conditions for six months (later - awarded State Prize):

“All of us then were burning with the desire to prove that although the war was going on ... the spirit of the people was strong” (A. Khachaturian).

The music is full of bright folklore elements, folk rhythm intonations.

In the last ballet "Spartacus" features of the composer's mature style are revealed: the predominance of thought over emotions,

• strict and detailed thoughtfulness of the concept,
• continuity of deployment and mastery of the means of musical dramaturgy,
• the huge role of polyphony in the organization of musical fabric,
• the versatility of the characteristics of the characters and their dynamism in the process of plot development.

Khachaturian's ballets went through a difficult period in their stage life: the plot (in particular, "Gayane", "Spartacus") repeatedly in the productions turned out to be inconsistent with the original, the numbers were rearranged, cuts, semantic re-accentuation was carried out, which often distorted the idea of ​​the whole work. For example, "Gayane" each time turned out to be different, with partial changes in music, and even with a rethinking of the main characters of the ballet (staged by N. Kasatkina and V. Vasiliev). "Spartacus" directed by L. Yakobson was subjected to active interference with the rearrangement of episodes and musical cuts.

Pedagogy is another important aspect professional activity composer. It is with his class that the names of A. Eshpay, A. Rybnikov, E. Oganesyan, M. Tariverdiev, A. Vieru, etc. are associated.

One of the main tasks in its pedagogical activity the composer saw learning "not only the secrets of the craft, but the ability to hear life" (S. Khentova).

Being open to everything new, the musician managed to masterfully synthesize Eastern and European traditions, admitting that this was both a dream and a major task for him. It is in connection with creative activity A. I. Khachaturian (indicated by V. Konen)

"Music, which has an oriental folklore basis, has acquired world significance."

Composer, conductor and teacher Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was born on June 6 (May 24, old style) 1903 in the village of Kojori, Georgia. He spent his childhood and youth in old Tiflis.

At the age of 18 he moved to Moscow, where he entered the Musical College. Gnesins in the cello class.

In 1925 he began to study composition. Then he created his first compositions - "Dance" for violin and piano and "Poem" for piano.

In 1929 he entered the Moscow Conservatory (composition class of Nikolai Myaskovsky), from which he graduated with honors in 1934.

In 1934-1936 he studied at the graduate school at the conservatory.

After graduating from the conservatory, he began an active creative activity.

During the war years, Khachaturian created the ballet Gayane. The premiere of the ballet Gayane took place in 1942 in Perm, where Leningradsky was evacuated. Opera theatre named after S.M. Kirov. The performance was a huge success, and the Saber Dance was especially widely known. For the ballet Gayane, the composer was awarded the State Prize of the USSR in 1943.

In 1943 Khachaturian's Second Symphony was completed, in 1944 the composer became the author of the National Anthem of the Armenian SSR, in 1945 the Third Symphony - "victorious" was written.

Among the most famous writings- "Spartacus" (1954), concertos for piano (1936), violin (1940; Stalin Prize, 1941), cello (1946) with orchestra, rhapsodic concertos for violin (1961), cello (1963; State Prize of the Armenian SSR, 1965), piano (1968) with orchestra (USSR State Prize for a triad of concerts, 1971), symphonies (1934,1943; Stalin Prize, 1946), "Symphony-poem" (1947), works for soloists, choir and orchestra - " Ode to Joy" (1956), "Ballad of the Motherland" (1961), " children's album"for piano (notebook 1, notebook 2.).

A large place in the work of Khachaturian was occupied by music for dramatic performances. The most significant compositions in this genre are the music for Lope de Vega's The Valencian Widow (1940) and Lermontov's Masquerade (1941). The symphonic suites, created on the basis of the music for performances, received an independent concert life. In total, Aram Khachaturian wrote music for more than twenty performances.

The composer also paid no less attention to cinematography. Among the numerous films in which his music sounds, a special place is occupied by "Pepo" and "Zangezur".

Since 1950, Khachaturian has been a professor of composition at the Moscow Conservatory and the Gnessin Institute. In 1950, the composer's conducting activity began. With great success, his performances were held in the cities of the USSR and abroad.

was varied and social work composer. In 1939-1948 he was vice-chairman, and in 1957-1978 - secretary of the Union of Composers.

In addition, he fruitfully worked as a member of the World and Soviet Committee for the Defense of Peace, was president of the Soviet Association for Friendship and Cultural Cooperation with the Countries of Latin America.

He was awarded many orders and medals. Aram Khachaturian Hero of Socialist Labor (1973), People's Artist of the USSR (1954), People's Artist of the Armenian SSR (1955), People's Artist of the Georgian SSR (1963), People's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR (1973).

The name of Khachaturian was given to the Great Hall of the Yerevan Philharmonic (1978).

In 2006, a monument to Aram Khachaturian by sculptor Georgy Frangulyan was unveiled in the park near the House of Composers in Moscow.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

People's Artist of the USSR (1954)
People's Artist of the Armenian SSR (1955)
People's Artist of the Georgian SSR (1963)
People's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR (1973)
Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1944)
Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR (1938)
Honored Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1967)
Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1959, for the ballet "Spartacus")
Laureate of the State Prize (1941, for Violin Concerto)
Laureate of the State Prize (1943, for the ballet Gayane)
Laureate of the State Prize (1946, for the Second Symphony)
Laureate of the State Prize (1950, for the music for the two-part film " Battle of Stalingrad»)
Laureate of the State Prize (1971, for the music of the Triad of Rhapsodic Concertos for violin and orchestra; for cello and orchestra; for piano and orchestra)
Laureate of the State Prize of the Armenian SSR (1965)
Hero of Socialist Labor (1973)
Cavalier of three Orders of Lenin (1939, 1963, 1973)
Knight of the Order of the October Revolution (1971)
Cavalier of two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (1945, 1966)
He was awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
Awarded with the medal "In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow"
Awarded with the medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus"
Awarded with the medal "For the Defense of Moscow"
He was awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
Cavalier of the Order of Science and Art, 1st degree of the United Arab Republic (1961, for outstanding musical activity)
Honored Art Worker of the Polish People's Republic (for services to Polish culture)

“You can recognize his hand literally by a few measures of any work. And this individuality is manifested not only in technology, but also in the very worldview of the composer, based on an optimistic, life-affirming philosophy.” Dmitri Shostakovich.

Aram Khachaturian was born on June 6, 1903 in Kojori, a suburb of Tiflis (now Tbilisi), into an Armenian bookbinder family.

His father Yeghiya (Ilya) Khachaturyan came from peasants who had long lived in the village of Upper Aza, Nakhichevan district, located near the city of Ordubad, near the border with Iran. In the late 1870s, Ilya, at the age of thirteen, left native village looking for a job in Tiflis. At that time, Tiflis was already a major trading and cultural center Transcaucasia, where enterprising people from all over the Caucasus gathered. Ilya arrived in Tiflis in peasant bast shoes, having only a few copper coins. He managed to get a job as an apprentice in a bookbinding workshop, and in a short time he mastered the profession of a bookbinder, gaining a strong reputation in the workshop of Tbilisi artisans. In the early 1890s, having saved up some money, he bought out the owner's declining business and was able to acquire a solid clientele in a short time. So Yeghia Khachaturian became the owner of a bookbinding workshop, where his sons Vaghinak and Levon later worked.

Aram's mother, Kumash Sarkisovna, before her marriage, lived in the village of Lower Aza, located next to Upper Aza, where Aram Khachaturian's father, Ilya, was from. The composer's parents were engaged before knowing each other when Kumash was 9 years old and Ilya was 19. But this engagement turned out to be very happy. Having married the 16-year-old Kumash, Ilya took her to Tiflis, where all 5 children were born: the eldest daughter Ashkhen (died at the age of one and a half years) and four sons - Vaginak, Suren, Levon and Aram. “Mother,” Aram Khachaturian later recalled, “was a very beautiful woman: tall, slender. Until the end of her days, she was a caring keeper of the family hearth and enjoyed deep respect from her father, which was not often found in those years in the East. Kumash loved to sing Armenian folk songs, and these tunes were deeply imprinted in the soul of the child. Under their impression, the boy climbed into the attic of the house and tapped out his favorite rhythms on a copper basin for hours. "This is my original" musical activity", - said Khachaturian, - gave me indescribable pleasure, but drove my parents to despair ... ". Later, Aram Khachaturian's mother eventually fell ill, became blind and died in 1956 in Yerevan in the family of her son Vaghinak, where she lived for the last 10 years of her life.

“Old Tiflis is a sounding city,” Khachaturian later wrote, “ music city. It was enough to walk along the streets and alleys that lie away from the center in order to plunge into the musical atmosphere created by a wide variety of sources ... ". At that time, a branch of the Russian musical society, as well as School of Music and an Italian opera house. The most prominent cultural figures came there, including Fyodor Chaliapin, Sergei Rachmaninov and Konstantin Igumnov. lived there talented musicians who played a prominent role in the formation of the Georgian and Armenian composer schools. All this formed the basis of Aram Khachaturian's early musical impressions. A kind of multinational intonation "alloy" was firmly part of his auditory experience. It was this "alloy" that, years later, served as a guarantee that Khachaturian's music was never limited by nationality and always appealed to the widest possible audience. It should be especially noted that Khachaturian himself was always alien to any manifestation of national narrow-mindedness. He had a deep respect and keen interest in music. different peoples.

The historical events of the beginning of the century were imprinted in Aram's memory. One of them was the revolution of 1905. Khachaturian later said: “Incomprehensible fuss around, crying women they take me out of the yard into a room, lock the gates, lower the curtains, screams come from the street ... "Then the First World War, economic crisis, revolution, Anglo-Indian, German, French troops and establishing Soviet power… At some point, the echoes of the genocide forced Armenian families to flee Tiflis. Leaving the apartment and the workshop, Yegia and his wife Kumash, along with two younger sons went on a long journey to the Kuban, to Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar), where their eldest son lived. "These were terrible days, full of anxiety, moral and physical stress. Suffice it to say that almost all the way, including through the Georgian Military Highway, we walked, carrying some miserable belongings. Fortunately, the Turkish executioners did not reach Tiflis. In the autumn of the same year, we returned home ... ".

Khachaturian family. Sitting: Suren, Kumash Sarkisovna, Aram, Egiya Voskanovich, Levon. Standing: Sara Dunaeva (Suren's wife), Vaginak and his wife Arusyak. 1913, Tiflis.

Internationalism was one of the characteristic features of the worldview and creativity of Khachaturian. At home, little Aram spoke Armenian, on the street with friends - in Georgian, at school - in Russian. Then it was normal and natural, there was no question of any national enmity. As a child, Aram was a mobile, strong and rather cocky child. He loved to sing, mostly Armenian folk songs that sounded in this area of ​​the capital of Georgia. When the time came to study, his father gave him to a private paid boarding school of Princess Argutinskaya-Dolgorukova (it was a school for children of wealthy parents). Most of all, Aram liked singing lessons there. The students sang Georgian, Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani songs, and Aram was among the best in these classes. Somehow, some family left the house where Aram lived with his parents and brothers, and his father bought for nothing, like old junk, a piano on which half of the keys did not work. Aram began to try his hand at playing familiar melodies on this instrument. He independently learned to play by ear and later became a pianist, completely unaware of musical notation.

However, his attraction to music did not meet with any support in the family. Relatives treated the musicians with ill-concealed contempt. It was believed that folk music performers who formed "sazandari" ensembles (they played at weddings, funerals, feasts, etc.), as well as actors, were people who could not acquire any serious profession and engaged in worthless business. Aram later regretted that he began to study music very late, when he was already 19 years old. “I soon grew bolder,” recalled Khachaturian, “and began to vary familiar motifs and compose new ones. I remember what joy these gave me - albeit naive, funny, clumsy, but still my first attempts at composition.

Pupils and teachers of the boarding house S. Argutinskaya-Dolgorukoy. Aram is second from the left in the first row. 1911, Tiflis.

After the boarding school, his father placed Aram at the Commercial School, but even there he was attracted mainly by classes brass band. The older brothers Aram entered Moscow University, and after graduation, brother Suren became a director at the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theater (later transformed into the Moscow Art Theater-Second).

Khachaturian arrived in Erivan in 1921 as part of an agitation group that left Tiflis by a special train. Their task was to explain the great ideas of October to the population of cities and villages in Armenia, to distribute leaflets and brochures, to organize rallies and concert lectures. There was one significant detail in this story. Here is how Khachaturian himself described it: “One of the cheap freight cars of the train on which the group arrived was turned into a concert stage with a piano standing in front of open doors. When the train stopped on the siding of a station, I began to play bravura marches. Members of our brigade, with the help of horns, began to call the public, which immediately gathered in front of the car. The rally began, accompanied by songs, simple concert numbers, distribution of propaganda materials. Even now I often recall the genuine delights of a motley audience.

Student at the Commercial School, 1920s.

A sharp turn in his fate was determined by the arrival of his older brother from Moscow. Suren Khachaturov was 14 years older than Aram. While still studying at the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, he became interested in theater, became friends with Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko ... After graduating from university, he worked at the Moscow Art Theater - at first as an assistant director, then head of the production department of the newly created First Studio at the Moscow Art Theater, the founders of which were Sulerzhitsky , Vakhtangov and Mikhail Chekhov.

In 1921 (at that time Aram had just finished the 7th grade) Suren went to Tiflis and Erivan to recruit Armenians in the acting studio: he set about trying to lay the foundations of the Armenian national theater. At the same time, he took Aram and his younger brother Levon from Tiflis. “Well, what kind of commercial adviser are you?! Get better at art,” he said to Aram. At this time, Suren wrote to his wife about his younger brothers: “These boys follow me like a dad, look into my mouth, what I will tell them and whether I will take it with me. I love them, I really love them, because in them I see the genius of my people, the spirit of my people.” The journey from Tiflis to Moscow took 24 days, and the emaciated travelers had to earn their living by concerts and performances in roadside towns and villages. Aram accompanied these concerts and performances by playing the piano.

In Moscow, Aram and Levon settled with Suren. Arriving in Moscow, he experienced a real culture shock - he went to symphony concerts, to the best theatrical performances, enthusiastically listened to Mayakovsky's performances. At first he lived in Suren's house, in one of the Arbat alleys. Prominent artists gathered here, heated discussions were held about the theater, literature, and music. Brother's friends persistently advised Aram to take up music seriously. But it was not easy to make such a decision. “My father, who was passionately fond of folk music, nevertheless, having learned that I, already living in Moscow, was going to enter the Gnessin Music College, asked me with bitter irony: “Are you going to become a sazandar?” - that is busker playing in the markets, at weddings and funerals. Adults believed that music is not an occupation for a man. My father wanted me to become an engineer or a doctor. Yes, by anyone, but not a musician.

Suren forced Aram to prepare for entering the university, and in September 1922, after completing the preparatory courses, Aram entered the biological department of the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University. At the same time, he often attended musical performances and concerts, and soon realized that he was attracted not by biology, but by music. Without abandoning his studies at the university, he went to audition at the Gnessin Music School, which was then located on the Dog Playground. Evgenia Fabianovna Gnesina was entrusted with determining the musical data of Khachaturian, who, perhaps for the first time, encountered such a strange applicant without musical theoretical training, with only the most vague ideas about notes, and a lack of knowledge in the field of musical literature and music history. But on the other hand, the overgrown applicant easily coped with all the tests of hearing, sense of rhythm and musical memory In addition, he played quite smartly by ear. Khachaturian said: “Without even elementary theoretical training, I appeared before the commission. To test his voice and hearing, he smartly sang something like a “cruel” romance “Break a glass”, causing a smile from the examiners ... I easily coped with the tests of hearing, sense of rhythm and musical memory, despite the fact that I had to perform all these tasks for the first time in life. Shortly after the end of the exam, I was informed that I had been accepted into a musical technical school, but it was not known in what specialty.

At the Gnesins Music College. 1920s.

Khachaturian became a student at a music school, but it was too late to learn to play the piano, and Aram was enrolled again open class cello. Suren helped Aram get the instrument. It turned out that the relatives of the brother's wife in the city of Kovrov have a cello from the Zimmermann factory. Aram left for the instrument. He said: “It was unbearably cold in the car. All the passengers were lying on the bunk, huddled tightly against each other, riding in complete darkness. When our train was already approaching Moscow, I woke up in the arms of some bearded peasant, who, like me, had a cello case as a pillow ... ".

At first, Aram was far behind his fellow students in musical and theoretical disciplines. He mastered the technique of playing, theory and history of music. At the same time, he studied chemistry and took exams in zoology, plant morphology, osteology, human anatomy and other disciplines in courses at Moscow University. He even managed to earn extra money as a loader in a wine store. Once I cut my finger on a broken bottle and had to interrupt classes for several weeks. Elizaveta Fabianovna Gnesina, who taught solfeggio at the technical school, offered Khachaturian another type of income - tutoring, which, however, brought very little income. On Sundays, Aram with his brother Levon and students of the Armenian drama studio they sang in the choir at the Armenian church, receiving a gold piece for each performance.

When in 1924 the famous composer and teacher Mikhail Fabianovich Gnesin moved to Moscow from Rostov-on-Don, he took over the leadership of the composition class that had just been opened at the school. Aram took a course of obligatory harmony with him and showed a desire for writing. In an effort to quickly master the cello, Aram overplayed so much that for a long time he could not move the fingers of his left hand. Things got to the point that Mikhail Gnesin offered to leave the cello and study composition in a specially created class. Khachaturian denied for a long time, but as a result, he had to agree. He eventually left the university. Later, friends often recalled this incident, which "helped Khachaturian become a composer, and the world to find Aram Khachaturian." Later, Mikhail Fabianovich recalled about Aram: “The works that he wrote almost by the end of the second year of studies were so bright that the question of the possibility of their publication was already raised. A number of plays, which soon brought fame to Khachaturian, were written by him when he was a student of a musical college.

Aram Khachaturian.

In the future, Khachaturian regretted that he started learning to play the piano too late, believing that a good knowledge of the piano helps a lot when composing music. But even the knowledge and skills that the general piano lessons gave brought results. The teacher A.N. Yurovsky said: “It's strange, damn it! What is difficult is easy for you. What is easy is hard for you!” (Aram did not like to play scales, etudes, exercises).

During his studies, Aram, on the recommendation of his brother, began to study Armenian art at the House of Culture of Soviet Armenia in Moscow. Meetings of prominent figures of art, literature and science were held there. Ruben Simonov wrote about the House of Culture: “Each spectator felt like coming to an old mansion in the center of Moscow, in Armenian lane, as if in his own homeland. Artists, musicians, composers who worked here did a work of great patriotic importance.”

Khachaturian met Yeghishe Charents, Alexander Spendiarov and Ruben Simonov. The novice musician treated Alexander Spendiarov, the founder of Armenian symphonic music, with great reverence. He, in turn, called a lump young man, who was to become the author of the first Armenian symphony, the first instrumental concerto, and finally, the first Armenian ballet.

Khachaturian was actively involved in the work of the House of Culture. And even began to conduct music classes in kindergarten and Armenian school. “While working in a kindergarten, I created noise orchestras there. The fame about them spread in Moscow, and we were invited to perform in other kindergartens… Working with children gave me a lot. She excited the imagination, forced to find the exact colors to express thoughts. On behalf of the House of Culture, he traveled to Yerevan in search of talented children. On one of his visits, I noticed a boy who, barely reaching the pedals with his feet, enthusiastically improvised on the piano. Khachaturian tested his hearing, sense of rhythm, musical memory and was shocked. He explained to the child's parents that they should take their son's musical inclinations as seriously as possible and give him a good musical education. The boy's name was Arno Babajanyan.

Spendiarov invited Aram to publish works under the surname Khachaturian (and not Khachaturov, as Aram suggested, taking an example from his older brothers). Everything began to come out from under the pen of Aram more essays, and not only on the initiative of M.F. Gnesin. Mikhail Fabianovich half-jokingly-half-seriously said: “Because you don’t know how to play the piano, you get it very original” (this was due to Khachaturian’s composition piano concerto).

After graduating from college, Aram entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he continued to study composition with the same M.F. Gnesin, then he became a student of the famous Soviet composer N.Ya.Myaskovsky. Even in the class of Gnessin, Khachaturian tried to combine the musical palette of the East with the most complex, strictly regulated musical form - this is how the “Seven Fugues for Piano” appeared. Subsequently, the author altered something and added seven more recitatives to the fugues. In the class of Myaskovsky, he composed a "Dance Suite" of 5 dances on the themes of Armenian, Georgian, Uzbek and Azerbaijani dances. At the same time, "Waltz-Caprice" and "Dance" appeared. "Dance" remains in the repertoire of many violinists to this day. It was performed by D.Oistrakh, L.Kogan, M.Polyakin and Y.Sitkovetsky. In 1929, a group of Armenian ashug folk musicians arrived in Moscow with their instruments. They sang ashug songs of Sayat-Nova and other masters of Armenian music. In honor of these ashugs, Khachaturian wrote "Song-poem" for violin and piano. In 1932, the Toccata for piano appeared, followed by the Trio for clarinet, violin and piano. Sergei Prokofiev liked the Trio so much that, with the consent of the author, he took the score of this work to Paris, where it was performed by French musicians.

Khachaturian’s first published work, “Dance” for violin and piano, already bore some of the characteristic features of the composer’s style: improvisation, a variety of variation techniques, as well as imitations of timbre effects widespread in oriental instrumental music, and in particular the famous “Khachaturian seconds” , rhythmic ostinato. The composer himself remarked: “I have these seconds from the sounds of folk instruments heard many times in my childhood: sazandar-tar, kemancha and tambourine. From oriental music comes my predilection for organ points.

Gradually, Khachaturian moved from small forms to more detailed ones, from the "processing" of folk song and dance material to its development. In 1932, the Suite for Piano was born, the first movement of which, Toccata, gained wide popularity and entered the repertoire of many pianists. She has stood the test of time. Created by Khachaturian in early years, "Toccata" and now retained all its charm and power of influence. “Many years have passed since the appearance of this dynamic brilliant play, but its performance still arouses the enthusiasm of the public,” wrote composer Rodion Shchedrin. “There is no professional who would not know her by heart, who would not treat her with a feeling of ardent sympathy ...”.

In 1933, Aram Ilyich married his classmate, composer Nina Makarova. At the same time, in 1933, his new work, “Dance Suite” for a symphony orchestra, was performed. Composer Dmitry Kabalevsky wrote: “The first performance of this work, which radiated sunlight, joy of life, spiritual strength, was a huge success and immediately introduced the young composer, who had not yet parted with the student bench, into the forefront of Soviet composers.” It contained a lot of new things. The young author showed his outstanding orchestral skills and a penchant for symphonic thinking. In the festively elegant, colorful score of the “Dance Suite”, the contours of Khachaturian’s brightly individual orchestral style were clearly visible.

In 1935, in the hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the orchestra under the direction of E. Senkar performed the First Symphony, presented by the graduate composer as a graduation work at the conservatory. She completed the most fruitful period of her studies and at the same time began a new stage in the life and work of the composer, who was entering the age of maturity. The audience, the press, colleagues and friends celebrated the great artistic value new composition, the originality and social significance of its content, the richness of melodies, the generosity of harmonic and orchestral colors, and the especially vivid national coloring of the music. In the winter of 1936, in the office of the director of the Conservatory, G.G. Neuhaus, an audition of the Piano Concerto took place. The first performer was the famous pianist Lev Oborin, to whom Khachaturian dedicated this concert. On February 14, 1942, the concerto was performed in Boston, after which a telegram from Sergei Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, arrived in Moscow from there. Koussevitzky reported that over the past 20 years he did not remember such a success of a new work. contemporary composer. The soloist was the young pianist W. Capell, who followed the premiere on a tour of a number of US cities with the performance of this Concerto. He was also played by the famous Arthur Rubinstein. The Globe and Mail newspaper wrote that from now on the name "Khachaturian" will be remembered by Americans. Khachaturian's fame grew in the USSR, he was introduced to the organizing committee of the Union of Composers as a deputy chairman.

At first social activity did not interfere with the creative work of Aram Ilyich, and he began to work on the first ballet "Happiness", which he completed in 1939. The reason for composing the ballet was a trip to Armenia, where the premiere of the ballet took place. At the same time, he began working on the Violin Concerto, and at the same time Khachaturian wrote music for the productions of Lermontov's drama Masquerade and Lope de Vega's comedy The Valencian Widow. In the same year, Aram Ilyich was awarded the Order of Lenin. He was on the crest of success.

When the war began, organized with the active participation of Khachaturian, the House of Creativity in Ruza, where they worked so well, was on the front line. Composers were evacuated to the Volga and the Urals. The Organizing Committee of the UK managed to achieve that the premises of the former poultry farm near Ivanovo were given to it under the House of Creativity. At the same time, the piano was placed in the houses of collective farmers, where the leading composers lived. For example, Dmitri Shostakovich, taken out of Leningrad, worked on his Eighth Symphony in a room adapted from a chicken coop. Khachaturian was appointed chairman of the Military Commission of the Union of Composers. During the war, composers worked extraordinarily intensively. Aram Ilyich himself finished the Violin Concerto, wrote music for the drama Masquerade, and from the autumn of 1941 began working on the ballet Gayane, which included fragments of his first ballet Happiness. The premiere of Gayane took place in December 1942 in Perm, where the Kirov Theater was evacuated from Leningrad. The choreographers and "controlling authorities" demanded a number of changes in the score. “I agreed to everything too easily: of course, these were unacceptable and unprincipled concessions on my part,” Khachaturian later lamented. When he completed the Violin Concerto, David Oistrakh became the first performer of the solo part (this Concerto was dedicated to him). This work became widely known outside the USSR. Oistrakh repeatedly performed it during his foreign tours and recorded it on gramophone records. At the same time, Aram Ilyich composed the 2nd, "Military" symphony (it is also called the Symphony with Bells), the first performance of which took place on December 30, 1943 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory (conducted by B.E. Khaikin). During the war years, Khachaturian wrote "The Song of Captain Gastello" and the march "To the Heroes of the Patriotic War". Khachaturian also graduated from the music for the comedy The Valencian Widow. At the end of 1941, the music for the drama "Masquerade" was completed. Some experts argue that if Khachaturian had not written anything other than the “Waltz” to “Masquerade”, he would still have become world famous. famous composer.

Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian.

In "The Valencian Widow" based on the play by Lope de Vega, in contrast to "Masquerade", Khachaturian used oriental motifs. The fact is that Aram Ilyich received from the writer Rafael Alberti as a gift a record of folk songs Spain and was shocked by the closeness of these songs to the scale and intonations on which he himself was brought up from childhood. “I even thought: if these recordings were broadcast on the radio and announcing that folk songs from, say, the Echmiadzin region were being performed, then many would probably have no doubt,” Khachaturian wrote. By the way, the phenomenon of proximity of many factors of Spanish (Basque) and Caucasian ethnic groups studied by modern ethnographers.

In 1944, Khachaturian wrote the national anthem of Armenia. Khachaturian arrived in Yerevan with his own version of music to the words of Sarmen. One late night, sitting at the instrument with his family, the composer began to sing and play his anthem. It happened in the summer, and everyone had their windows open. It turned out that a lot of people gathered around (on the balconies, in the windows, on the street), who, inspired by what they heard, sang Khachaturian's melody in unison. A year later, the war ended, and soon the Third Symphony appeared - “victorious”. Indeed, the Third Symphony is an agitated, full of pathos ode, a kind of hymn to the winners. In connection with the Third Symphony of Khachaturian, we can recall the words of Academician B.V. Asafiev: “The art of Khachaturian calls: “Let there be light! And let there be joy!”

After the war, Yerevan hospitals were full of wounded. Khachaturian, who arrived in Yerevan at that time, expressed a desire to visit one of the hospitals with a concert. During the performance, the music was interspersed interesting stories composer about the life of musicians during the war years. Among the memories of Khachaturian there was such a funny incident when during the evacuation, at one of the stations, he, Oistrakh and Shostakovich were literally starving. Oistrakh helped to get out of the critical situation, jokingly offering to give a concert right on the spot. However, the idea seemed tempting to Shostakovich and Khachaturian, and they gladly accepted the offer. For an impromptu concert, wonderful musicians received lunch.

In the summer of 1946, the composer created the Cello Concerto, which was performed in Moscow by S. Knushevitsky with great success. At the same time, a vocal cycle based on poems by Armenian poets was also created. If the instrumental concerto has long become one of the most favorite genres for the composer, then to vocal cycle he was addressing the merits for the first time.

Aram Khachaturian, Galina Ulanova and Vakhtang Chabukiani.

However, clouds began to gather over Khachaturian's head, as well as many leading composers of the Union. On Stalin's instructions, A. Zhdanov attacked the country's leading composers, accusing them of formalism, modernism, anti-nationality, and so on. Khachaturian, as best he could, defended his favorite composer, Sergei Prokofiev, and then a critical blow fell on him. He, one of the leaders of the organizing committee of the Union of Composers, was accused of missing the prosperity of modernism and formalism in the work of composers. In addition, he himself was credited with a passion for the same formalism. Organizational conclusions followed. Khachaturian was removed from his post in the organizing committee. In addition, his works were sharply criticized, and the critics themselves, in general, were completely incomprehensible what was at stake, because, of course, there were no traces of formalism in Khachaturian's work. In all his works, he started from folk music and repeatedly stated: "I am an ashug myself." At the same time, he strongly objected to quoting the phrase allegedly belonging to Glinka: “Music is created by the people, and we, composers, only arrange it.” Aram Ilyich argued that composers still create music, and they are the people - the creator of it. There are no direct citations of folk melodies in any of his works. “You can’t just be, as it were, dependent on folk music - to“ photograph ”it,” Khachaturian wrote. - It is tantamount to marking time. You can’t “pray” for folklore and be afraid to touch it: folk melodies should excite the composer’s imagination, serve as a reason for creating original works". omen folk style is the intonation character of the melody itself, he considered. In the process of composing, Khachaturian more than once proceeded from the auditory idea of ​​the sound of the folk instruments of Transcaucasia with their characteristic tuning. He once said: “I really love the sound of the tar, from which folk virtuosos are able to extract amazingly beautiful and exciting harmonies.” In the second part of the Piano Concerto, the lyrical song theme was composed on the basis of a radical modification of a popular song melody that he once heard in his childhood on the streets of Tiflis (it was sung by street singers from Guria - “krimanchuli”). But this is by no means a quotation of a folk song. Sometimes the melodies of Khachaturian themselves became a folk song. So it was, for example, with the song he composed in his youth for the film "Pepo": it is presented to listeners as a folk song.

Dismissed from an administrative position, Khachaturian plunged headlong into creative work. Shortly after the notorious decree of 1948, Aram Ilyich presented his Third Symphony for performance, prudently keeping silent at the same time that it was completed even before it was “worked out” by the Zhdanovites. The latter noted with satisfaction that the composer "took into account the critical remarks" and that this benefited him. Khachaturian continued to work on the ballet Spartacus, which he completed in 1954. The ballet premiered in 1956 at the Kirov Theater in Leningrad. Unfortunately, then the choreographers twisted a lot musical part ballet. In 1968 a new, more full version"Spartacus" was presented to the public in Moscow, on stage Bolshoi Theater. It should be said that "Spartacus" became widely known abroad, and "Sabre Dance" from the ballet "Gayane" turned into a real hit, especially in the USA, which made the author quite angry.

Lauren, Georgy Alexandrov, Aram Khachaturian and Nina Makarova.

By chance, in 1950, Khachaturian began to conduct in the performance of his works. It began with the fact that he was asked to conduct a concert before the next elections in The Supreme Council. L. Kogan performed the second part of the Violin Concerto; then the orchestra was to play the dances from Gayane. The organizers of the concert assured Aram Ilyich: “The orchestra has rehearsed, everything is done. Even if you conduct in reverse, the musicians will still play correctly.” “From that day on, I was poisoned by conducting,” Khachaturian recalled. By the way, conductor Khachaturian was sometimes dissatisfied with Khachaturian the composer.

Aram Ilyich was also widely involved in composing music for films. In total, he wrote music for 25 paintings and 20 dramatic performances. Based on some of these works, he created suites that began to be widely performed, for example - "The Battle of Stalingrad", "Masquerade", "The Valencian Widow", "Lermontov", "Macbeth", "King Lear", "Spartacus", "Gayane "and other works.

With Nina Makarova visiting Hemingway. Cuba, 1960

In 1950 he was invited to teach composition at the Gnessin Institute and at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his students were Eshpay, Gabunia, Khagagortyan, Rybnikov and Vieru. The 1960s in Khachaturian’s work were marked by another concert “splash” - three rhapsody concertos appeared one after another: the Rhapsody Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in 1961, the Rhapsody Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in 1963 and the Rhapsody Concerto for piano and orchestra in 1968. The composer repeatedly shared his thoughts about his desire to write the fourth Rhapsody Concerto, where all three instruments would perform in concert, uniting at the end of the work ... In 1971, the triad of Rhapsody Concertos was awarded the State Prize.

With Queen Elizabeth of Belgium. Brussels, 1960

Khachaturian devoted a lot of energy to pedagogical work. For many years he led the composer class at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the Gnessin Musical Institute. Developing the pedagogical principles of his teacher Myaskovsky, relying on his own life and creative experience, Khachaturian created his own composer school.

The personal life of the composer was also eventful. In 1963, Khachaturian was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the ASSR, he became an honorary academician of the Italian Music Academy "Santa Cecilia" in 1960, an honorary professor of the Mexican Conservatory - in 1960, and in the same year - a corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the GDR. Aram Khachaturian had the title of professor and doctor of art history. No one could understand how a man of his age, burdened with a serious illness, could work so intensively and productively outside the home, and not only work himself, but also cause activity in everyone who was involved in this work in one way or another. In the sixties he wrote three Rhapsody Concertos: for violin in 1961, for cello in 1963 and for piano in 1968. Unlike Dmitry Shostakovich, he did not refuse foreign business trips organized by the authorities for propaganda purposes. He met and talked about music with Chaplin, Hemingway, Karajan, Rubinstein, Sibelius, Stravinsky, the Pope, Belgian Queen Elizabeth, actively traveled to different countries and continents. “I could write an opera if I were relieved of these representational duties,” he once said woefully. On his seventieth birthday, Khachaturian was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

With Ernesto Che Guevara. Moscow, 1965.

In a happy and long marriage, Aram Ilyich and Nina Vladimirovna had a son, Karen.

With his wife, composer Nina Makarova, and son Karen. 1945

Aram Khachaturian was the absolute head of his small family, and this brought him great joy. His incredible energy was enough for everything - for the smallest concerns of the current life and for the implementation of the largest "global" family concerns. But with all the "independence" in this very current life, he still absolutely could not do without Nina Vladimirovna, with whom they were always inseparable. Once Nina Vladimirovna was hospitalized for three weeks. Aram Ilyich felt at a loss in his own home, spoke a lot with pride to all his relatives and friends about Nina Vladimirovna, spoke with excitement about her illness and tormented the attending physicians with questions and demands. His faithful companion and assistant was absolutely necessary for Aram Ilyich on his countless trips, in business and friendly meetings. He always strived to ensure that the whole family was together, and was pleased if in distant countries, at home or in the country, there was also a son nearby. Due to his hot temperament, Aram Ilyich did not easily go through the trials of parental love associated with Karen's marriage, with the fact that he had his own family, his own worries. The death of Nina Vladimirovna was a real blow to him. This was a sudden upheaval of his whole life, a grief that fell on Aram Ilyich as a heavy burden that crushed him until the last hour of his life and, of course, broke him. Once, in the middle of his wife's illness, he wrote: "... if Nina dies, she will take me away with her." The meaning of these words was extremely clear - life without her could not continue for a long time for him.

About Aram Khachaturian and Nina Makarova was filmed TV Broadcast from the cycle "More than love".

In the early 1970s, Aram Ilyich began to get sick often, and latest works(these were the Fantasy Sonata for Cello, the Monologue Sonata for Violin and the Song Sonata for Voice) were written by him almost in a hospital ward. His health was noticeably undermined by the death of his wife Nina in 1976. Aram Ilyich died on May 1, 1978. The composer was buried in the pantheon of the Komitas park in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

On October 31, 2006, a monument to Aram Khachaturian was unveiled in Moscow. Sculptor Georgy Frangulyan and architect Igor Voskresensky captured the maestro in moments of creative inspiration surrounded by musical instruments. The monument was also installed in the center of Yerevan in front of the Bolshoi concert hall named after the great composer.

About Aram Khachaturian, a television program "How the idols left" was filmed.

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The text was prepared by Tatyana Khalina

Used materials:

Tigranov G. "Aram Khachaturian"
Kharajanyan R. "Piano works of Aram Khachaturian"
Eva Kochikyan, "From Aram to Khachaturian"
Site materials www.khachaturian.am
Serper Y. "The Way of the Ashug"
Spartacus - libretto and photographs of the ballet staged by the Theater of Classical Ballet, directed by N.Kasatkina and V.Vasilev

Works by Khachaturian:

Ballet:

Happiness - Ballet in three parts with an epilogue, 1939
Gayane - Ballet in four parts with an epilogue, 1942,
Spartacus - Ballet in four parts with an epilogue, 1954.

Symphonies:

Dance suite - 5 parts, 1933
Symphony No. 1 - 1934
Two Dances - 1935
Symphony No. 2 ("Symphony with a Bell") - 1943, revised 1944
Russian fantasy - from the ballet "Happiness", 1944 - 1945
Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony-poem") - 1947
Ode to the memory of V. I. Lenin - 1949
Battle of Stalingrad - 1949
Solemn Poem - 1952
Welcome overture - to the opening of the XXI Congress, 1958

Artworks for single instruments and orchestra:

Piano Concerto - 1936
Violin Concerto - 1940
Cello Concerto - 1946
Rhapsody for cello and orchestra - 1961 - 1962
Rhapsody for violin and orchestra - 1963
Rhapsody for piano and orchestra - 1967

Suites:

Suite from the ballet "Happiness" No. 1 - 1939
Suite from the ballet "Happiness" No. 2 - 1939
Suite from the ballet "Gayane" No. 1 - 1943
Suite from the ballet "Gayane" No. 2 - 1943
Suite from the ballet "Gayane" No. 3 - 1943
Suite from the music for the play "Masquerade" - 1943
Suite from the music to the film "Battle of Stalingrad" - 1949
Suite from the music for the play "The Widow of Valencia" - 1953
Suite from the ballet "Spartacus" No. 1 - 1955-57
Suite from the ballet "Spartacus" No. 2 - 1955-57
Suite from the ballet "Spartacus" No. 3 - 1955-57
Suite from the music for the play "Lermontov" - 1953
Suite from the ballet "Spartacus" No. 4 - 1967

Other orchestral works:

March for brass band No. 1 - 1929
March for brass band No. 2 - to the tenth anniversary of the Armenian SSR, 1930
Arrangement of Armenian Folk Songs - for brass band, 1933
Arrangement of Uzbek folk songs - for brass band, 1933
To the Heroes of the Patriotic War - march for brass band, 1942
March of the Moscow Red Banner Militia - 1973

Music section publications

Aram Khachaturian: “I combine different musical languages»

And Ram Khachaturian began to study music late - only at the age of 19. Prior to that, he improvised, picking up different melodies by ear. However, by the age of 30, the composer had become known to everyone. Soviet Union, and a little later - to the whole world. In 2014, Aram Khachaturian's manuscripts were included by UNESCO in the International Register of World Documentary Heritage "Memory of the World".

"Old Tiflis - the sounding city"

Aram Khachaturian was born in 1903 in a suburb of Tiflis into an Armenian family. The first impressions of his childhood were folk songs that his parents sang. From early childhood, Aram Khachaturian tried to reproduce the motives that he heard at home and on the streets. “Old Tiflis is a sounding city,” Khachaturian later wrote, “a city of music. ... Here, from the open window, one can hear the characteristic sound of a choral Georgian song, nearby someone is plucking the strings of the Azerbaijani tar, if you go further, you will stumble upon a street organ grinder playing a waltz that was fashionable at that time.

Aram Khachaturian participated in school amateur performances, but did not study music: his parents did not support his son's hobbies. The family believed that professional musicians and actors are people without serious education.

Yielding to his father's desire to see him as an engineer or a doctor, Khachaturian went to Moscow - to enter the biological department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow State University. But soon he entered the Gnessin Musical College. Having no special training, he performed the song "Break the glass" at the entrance exam and played several piano pieces. It was accepted despite big competition. “... I easily coped with all the tests of hearing, sense of rhythm and musical memory, despite the fact that I had to perform all these tasks for the first time in my life,” Khachaturian recalled.

Difficult years of study began. Khachaturian had to fill in the gaps in theoretical knowledge, simultaneously mastering the cello and piano, studying at the university (which he did not immediately leave) and earning a living. At first he worked as a loader in a liquor store, and later as a tutor and participant church choir. The future composer tried to find time to follow the cultural life of the capital: he attended symphony concerts, performances and poetry evenings.

"One rebellious and noisy child"

Already in the first compositions of Aram Khachaturian, one could trace folk motives. He wrote that his musical tastes changed with age, but the music that he absorbed in early childhood has always been the "natural soil" of his work.

“You can’t just be, as it were, dependent on folk music - to“ photograph ”it,” Khachaturian wrote. - It is tantamount to marking time. You can’t “pray” for folklore and be afraid to touch it: folk melodies should excite the composer’s imagination, serve as a pretext for creating original works.”

After graduating from the music school, Khachaturian entered the Moscow Conservatory. There he first studied under the guidance of Mikhail Gnesin, and then became a student of the Soviet composer Nikolai Myaskovsky. While still studying at the conservatory, Khachaturian began to write symphonic and chamber works. The first published composition was "Dance for Violin and Piano". In 1932, the Toccata for Piano appeared.

"Toccata for Piano"

“Many years have passed since the appearance of this dynamic brilliant play, but its performance still arouses the enthusiasm of the public. There is no professional who would not know her by heart, who would not treat her with a feeling of ardent sympathy.

Rodion Shchedrin

In total, during the years of study at the conservatory, Khachaturian wrote more than 50 works. But his professionalism had to be confirmed in his thesis, and the composer created the First Symphony, in which, according to the author, he sought to embody "grief, sadness of the past, bright images of the present and faith in a beautiful future."

In December 1942, the premiere of the ballet Gayane took place. It came from the first Armenian ballet "Happiness", which Khachaturian decided to rewrite. Many critics consider "Gayane" best achievement modern symphonic music, and the most famous fragment was "Saber Dance". Khachaturian composed it at the request of the choreographer in almost a day and gave it to him with the inscription: "Damn it, for the sake of the ballet." As the Armenian composer Tigran Mansuryan said about the composition, it is “the counterpoint of the Armenian wedding dance from Gyumri and the real American saxophone, which led to a very interesting and organic synthesis.” Thanks to the work in many countries of the world, Khachaturian began to be called "Mr. Saber Dance."

In The Valencian Widow, based on the play by Lope de Vega, Khachaturian used Spanish motifs. He received records with Spanish folk songs as a gift and was pleasantly surprised by how similar they are to Armenian ones. “I even thought: if these recordings were broadcast on the radio and announcing that folk songs from, say, the Echmiadzin region were being performed, then many would probably have no doubt,” wrote Aram Khachaturian.

"Masquerade" is considered the best work of Khachaturian in drama theater. Some musicologists argue that even if Khachaturian had not written anything other than the waltz for Masquerade, he would still have become a world-famous composer. Now it is already impossible to imagine the ballroom scene of Lermontov's work without the emotional intensity of the waltz music, its depth and, at the same time, absolute lightness.

Waltz to the drama "Masquerade"

“To be honest, it was the waltz that gave me the most trouble when composing the music for Masquerade. I endlessly repeated Lermontov's words and could not find a topic that, in my own opinion, would be both “new” and “good”, in other words, worthy ... I literally lost my peace, almost raved about the waltz. At that time, I posed for a portrait of the artist Evgenia Vladimirovna Pasternak. And in one of the sessions, I unexpectedly “heard” a theme that became the second theme of my future waltz.”

During World War II, Aram Khachaturian worked on the radio, writing patriotic songs and marches. In 1944 he wrote National anthem Armenian SSR.

For many years, Khachaturian led composer classes at the Moscow Conservatory and the Gnessin School. He created his own school of composition. Andrei Eshpay, Mikael Tariverdiev, Alexey Rybnikov, Edgar Oganesyan and other famous authors became his students.

Aram Ilyich Khachaturian died on May 1, 1978. The People's Artist of the Four Republics and the USSR is buried in the pantheon of Yerevan's Komitas Park. The name of Aram Khachaturian is listed on the marble plaque of the best graduates of the Moscow Conservatory.

Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (May 24 (June 6), 1903, Tbilisi - May 1, 1978, Moscow) - Soviet Armenian composer, conductor, teacher, musical and public figure, National artist USSR (1954), Hero of Socialist Labor (1973), Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR (1963).

Biography
He was the fourth son in the family of a poor craftsman. did not show as a child special interest to music and began to study it only at the age of 19. In 1921, together with a group of Armenian youth, A. Khachaturian left for Moscow and entered the training courses to Moscow University, then became a student of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. A year later, 19-year-old Khachaturian entered the Gnessin Musical College, where Mikhail Gnesin drew attention to the gifted Khachaturian and helped him. He studied first on the cello, then moved to the composition class.

In the same years, Khachaturian, for the first time in his life, found himself on symphony concert and was shocked by Beethoven and Rachmaninov. "Dance for Violin and Piano" was the composer's first work. “Like all violinists, I am proud that A. Khachaturian's first serious work, his Dance, was written for the violin. The composer feels the violin like a true virtuoso master,” said David Oistrakh about Khachaturian. In 1929, Khachaturian entered the symphony class of the Moscow Conservatory, from which he brilliantly graduated in 1934 and entered graduate school. Back to student years include such works as a song-poem for violin and piano (1929), toccata for piano (1932), a trio for piano, violin and clarinet (1932). Further, Khachaturian wrote the 1st Symphony (1934), concertos with orchestra for piano (1936) and for violin (1940). During the Second World War, he worked on the all-Union radio, wrote patriotic songs and marches.

In 1939 Khachaturian wrote the first Armenian ballet "Happiness". But the shortcomings of the libretto of the ballet forced to rewrite most of the music, and thus "Gayane" was "born". The premiere of the ballet took place in hard years World War II, Winter (December 3, 1942). In 1943, for this ballet, Khachaturian received Stalin Prize first degree - one of the most high awards of that time in the field of culture. Through very a short time after the premiere, this ballet won worldwide fame. The ballet "Spartacus" became greatest work Khachaturian after the war. The score of the ballet was completed in 1954 and premiered in December 1956. Since that time, this ballet has become a "frequent guest" on best scenes peace.

At the same time, Khachaturian worked in theater and cinema: Masquerade, Zangezur, Pepo, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Russian Problem, Secret Mission, They Have a Homeland, Admiral Ushakov, Giordano Bruno", "Othello", "Battle of Stalingrad" - this is not a complete list of films for which Khachaturian wrote music. From 1950 Khachaturian acted as a conductor, toured with author's concerts in many cities of the USSR and in foreign countries.