Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (; 6 June [O.S. 24 May] 1903 – 1 May 1978) was a Soviet Armenian composer and conductor. He is considered one of the leading Soviet composers.
Born and raised in Tbilisi (now the capital of Georgia), he moved to Moscow in 1921 following the Sovietization of the Caucasus. Without prior music training, he enrolled in the Gnessin Musical Institute, and subsequently studied at the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Nikolai Myaskovsky, among others. His first major work, the Piano Concerto (1936), popularized his name within and outside the Soviet Union. It was followed by the Violin Concerto (1940) and the Cello Concerto (1946). His other significant compositions include the Masquerade Suite (1941), the Anthem of the Armenian SSR (1944), three symphonies (1935, 1943, 1947), and around 25 film scores. Khachaturian is best known for his ballet music: Gayane (1942) and Spartacus (1954). His most popular piece, the "Sabre Dance" from Gayane, has been used extensively in popular culture and has been performed by a number of musicians worldwide. His style is "characterized by colorful harmonies, captivating rhythms, virtuosity, improvisations, and sensuous melodies".
During most of his career, Khachaturian was approved by the Soviet government and held several high posts in the Union of Soviet Composers from the late 1930s, although he joined the Communist Party only in 1943. Along with Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, he was officially denounced as a "formalist" and his music dubbed "anti-people" in 1948 but was restored later that year. After 1950 he taught at the Gnessin Institute and the Moscow Conservatory and turned to conducting. He traveled to Europe, Latin America, and the United States with concerts of his own works. In 1957 Khachaturian became the Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, a position he held until his death.
Khachaturian composed the first Armenian ballet music, symphony, concerto, and film score. He is considered the most renowned Armenian composer of the 20th century. While following the established musical traditions of Russia, he broadly incorporated Armenian and, to a lesser extent, Caucasian, Eastern and Central European, and Middle Eastern peoples' folk music into his works. He is highly regarded in Armenia, where he is considered a "national treasure".
Background and early life (1903–1921)
Aram Khachaturian was born on 6 June (24 May in Old Style) 1903 in the city of Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi, Georgia) into an Armenian family. Some sources indicate Kojori, a village near Tiflis, as his birthplace. Khachaturian himself said he was born in Kojori. His father, Yeghia (Ilya), was born in the village of Upper Aza near Ordubad in Nakhichevan (present-day Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan) and moved to Tiflis at the age of 13; he owned a bookbinding shop by the age of 25. His mother, Kumash Sarkisovna, was from Lower Aza, also a village near Ordubad. Khachaturian's parents were betrothed before knowing each other, when Kumash was 9 and Yeghia was 19. They had five children, one daughter and four sons, of whom Aram was the youngest. From 1906 to 1922, Khachaturian lived at 93 Uznadze Street in Tbilisi. Khachaturian received primary education at the commercial school of Tiflis, a school for merchants. He considered a career either in medicine or engineering.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries and throughout the early Soviet period, Tiflis (known as Tbilisi after 1936) was the largest city and the administrative center of the Caucasus. In Tiflis, which has historically been multicultural, Khachaturian was exposed to various cultures. The city had a large Armenian population and was a major Armenian cultural center until the Russian Revolution and the following years. In a 1952 article "My Idea of the Folk Element in Music", Khachaturian described the city environment and its influence on his career:
I grew up in an atmosphere rich in folk music: popular festivities, rites, joyous and sad events in the life of the people always accompanied by music, the vivid tunes of Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian songs and dances performed by folk bards [ashugs] and musicians — such were the impressions that became deeply engraved on my memory, that determined my musical thinking. They shaped my musical consciousness and lay at the foundations of my artistic personality... Whatever the changes and improvements that took place in my musical taste in later years, their original substance, formed in early childhood in close communion with the people, has always remained the natural soil nourishing all my work.
In 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power in Russia in the October Revolution. After over two years of fragile independence, Armenia fell to Soviet rule in late 1920. Georgia was also Sovietized by the spring of 1921. Both countries formally became part of the Soviet Union in December 1922.
In 1921, the eighteen-year-old Khachaturian moved to Moscow to join his oldest brother, Suren, who had settled in Moscow earlier and was a stage director at the Moscow Art Theatre by the time of his arrival. He enrolled at the Gnessin Musical Institute in 1922, simultaneously studying biology at Moscow State University. He initially studied the cello under Sergei Bychkov and later under Andrey Borysyak. In 1925, Mikhail Gnessin started a composition class at the institute, which Khachaturian joined. In this period, he wrote his first works: the Dance Suite for violin and piano (1926) and the Poem in C Sharp Minor (1927). Beginning with his earliest works, Khachaturian extensively used Armenian folk music in his compositions.
In 1929, Khachaturian entered the Moscow Conservatory to study composition under Nikolai Myaskovsky and orchestration under Sergei Vasilenko. He finished the conservatory in 1934 and went on to complete his graduate work in 1936.
His Armenian-influenced First Symphony, which Khachaturian composed as a graduation work from the Moscow Conservatory in 1935, "drew the attention of prominent conductors and was soon performed by the best Soviet orchestras" and was admired by Shostakovich. He began an active creative career upon completing his graduate studies at the conservatory in 1936. He wrote his first major work, the Piano Concerto, that year. It proved to be a success, establishing him as a respected composer in the Soviet Union. It was "played and acclaimed far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union", and "established his name abroad".
His Piano Concerto, along with the two later concertos—the Violin Concerto (1940), for which he won a Stalin Prize, second class and the Cello Concerto (1946)—are "often considered a kind of a grand cycle". The Violin Concerto "gained international recognition" and became part of the international repertory. It was first performed by David Oistrakh.
Khachaturian held important posts at the Composers' Union, becoming deputy chairman of the Moscow branch in 1937. He subsequently served as the Deputy Chairman of the Organizing Committee (Orgkom) of the Union between 1939 and 1948. He joined the Communist Party in 1943. "Throughout the early and mid-1940s, Khachaturian used that position to help shape Soviet music, always stressing technically masterful composition. In fact, in his memoirs, he reported pride about leading an institution that organized creative work in many musical genres and especially in all Soviet republics."
The years preceding and following World War II were very productive for Khachaturian. In 1939 he made a six-month trip to his native Armenia "to make a thorough study of Armenian musical folklore and to collect folk-song and dance tunes" for his first ballet, Happiness. He developed the latter at the suggestion of Anastas Mikoyan, based on a libretto by Gevorg Hovhannisyan. As one author noted, Khachaturian's "communion with Armenia's national culture and musical practice proved for him, as he put it himself, 'a second conservatoire'. He learned a lot, saw and heard many things anew, and at the same time he had an insight into the tastes and artistic requirements of the Armenian people." In 1942, at the height of the Second World War, Khachaturian reworked Happiness into the ballet Gayane. It was first performed by the Kirov Ballet (today the Mariinsky Ballet) in Perm, while Leningrad was under siege. It was a great success and earned the composer his second Stalin Prize, this time first-class. Khachaturian returned the prize money to the state with a request to use it for building a tank for the Red Army.