Khachaturian: Gayane (ballet highlights)

Owing in large part to their exotic inspiration, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade and Aram Khachaturian’s Gayane are among the most beautiful and most frequently performed Russian and Soviet works of music. The creator of Sheherazade, who as a young navy officer travelled the oceans, was enchanted by the Oriental collection of stories and folk tales The One Thousand and One Nights.

Yet Rimsky-Korsakov’s colourful instrumentation also gave lustre to another work, Mussorgsky’s fantasia Night on Bald Mountain, with its dramatic depiction of a wild Sabbath of witches. Khachaturian’s ballet suite Gayane includes Armenian folk melodies, which were the composer’s most powerful inspiration and undoubtedly helped to earn the piece global popularity (the celebrated Sabre Dance is one of the most frequently played compositions worldwide). The recordings of all three works were made between 1953 and 1955, the paramount period of Zdeněk Chalabala, the chief conductor of Prague’s National Theatre Opera at the time. The great imagination with which he tells stories, combined with the inimitable timbre of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, makes these recordings truly remarkable. Yet another treasure appearing on CD for the first time…

The Sabre Dance and the Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia may be Khachaturian’s most familiar works, but his colourful style and orchestral flair comes out in all his music, from the virtuoso concertos with their rhapsodic oriental-flavoured slow movements, to the satirical glitter of the Masquerade Suite.

Aram Khachaturian was born in 1903 into a poor Armenian family in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, which was then part of Imperial Russia and later the USSR. After moving to Moscow he took up studies with Myaskovsky at the Conservatoire, eventually becoming a professor there. In spite of having been an enthusiastic communist he was, in 1948, severely denounced by the Soviet authorities (along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich) for writing what they termed 'formalist' music: music that did not appeal to the masses. Khachaturian's works include some of the best-known music in the 20th-Century repertoire, most notably the ballets Gayaneh (from which comes the ever-popular Sabre Dance) and Spartacus, the Adagio from which was used in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Suites from both of these works are contained in this set, along with a fine recording of the Piano Concerto that is making it's first appearance on CD, and David Oistrakh's incomparable recording of the Violin Concerto conducted by the composer.

"I am firmly convinced that truly great music must in all its roots be linked with folk foundations, with the eternally youthful, inexhaustible sources of artistic folk creativeness.” With these words Khachaturian expresses more than a mere willingness (as a Soviet artist) to adhere to the communist party line and comply with the declared aesthetic requirements of the time.

All his great works reveal his being inspired by folk music, Armenian and Georgian in particular, which shaped his thinking as a composer. Gayane, Masquerade and the Violin Concerto (here featuring a bravura performance by Leonid Kogan) need no introduction. Noteworthy too is the sterling delivery of the young pianist Antonín Jemelík in the recording of the Piano Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

In a series of previously unreleased, newly remastered recordings from the 1950s, Khachaturian appears in the role of conductor, while several unique recordings capture him singing his own songs in Armenian by the piano. Soviet composer, conductor and spontaneous musician – the three faces of Aram Khachaturian.

‘Not a hair of a note was out of place; this was a performance by a world-class orchestra’ The Times

Kirill Karabits is without doubt one of the most exciting conductors of the younger generation.

Now principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, his reputation over two seasons has continued to spread around the world, and the steady stream of great artists working with him and the BSO is testament to his artistry and huge talent.

This CD is the first release in the new partnership between the BSO and ONYX.

Khachaturian’s vividly colourful and deliciously tuneful ballet scores have been popular as orchestral showpieces ever since the ballets had their premieres.

Kirill has made his own selection from the score, and those who want the famous Adagio from Spartacus and the Sabre Dance from Gayaneh will not be disappointed!

The second BSO release from ONYX will appear in 2011, and the programme will be Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.