Composer who fused Armenian folk melody with the Soviet symphony
“I wrote around 700 pages of the Gayane score in half a year, in a cold Perm hotel room with only a piano, stool, table and bed. Gayane is the only ballet on a Soviet theme that hasn't left the stage for a quarter of a century.”
Aram Khachaturian was a Soviet Armenian composer and conductor, ranked with Shostakovich and Prokofiev among the leading Soviet composers. Raised in multi-ethnic Tbilisi, he moved to Moscow at 19 and studied under Myaskovsky at the Moscow Conservatory. His Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and the 'Sabre Dance' from Gayane brought international fame; Spartacus won the Lenin Prize. Denounced as a formalist in 1948, he was rehabilitated and served as Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers from 1957 until his death. His fusion of Armenian folk melody and Caucasian rhythms with the Russian classical tradition became a model of Soviet multinational cultural policy.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1939Deputy Chairman, Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers
- 1943Joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
- 1944Composed the Anthem of the Armenian SSR
- 1950Professor, Gnessin Musical Pedagogical Institute
- 1951Professor, Moscow Conservatory
- 1954People's Artist of the USSR
- 1957Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers
- 1958Deputy, Supreme Soviet of the USSR (5th convocation)
The 1948 denunciation and restoration
In the 1940s Khachaturian served as deputy chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers, and he joined the Communist Party in 1943. In 1947 he wrote a symphonic poem to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the October Revolution; the work was later called his Third Symphony. At a musicians’ conference at the Kremlin in January 1948, the Party leadership denounced Khachaturian, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and others as formalists, branding their music hostile to the people. The targeted Symphonic Poem had been intended to express the Soviet people’s joy and pride, but the Party officially condemned it.
In March 1948 Khachaturian made a public apology acknowledging artistic errors. In a later recollection, he said the apology had not been sincere and that he had even considered changing professions. The denunciation did not produce a lasting change in his musical style; by the end of that year he was praised for his score to the film Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and formally restored to favor. The 1948 campaign pressured composers to conform to the Party’s cultural standards, while Khachaturian continued working not only as a composer but also in teaching and the administration of the Composers’ Union.