ARAM KHACHATURIAN

The Youngest of Five Gets a Cello

I was born on 6 June 1903 in Tbilisi, in an Armenian family, and I was the youngest of five children. Being the smallest in a big family teaches you to listen carefully, which is not a bad start for a musician. In 1921 I moved to Moscow and entered the Gnessin Institute, where I studied the cello. Composing came a little later: I began studying it in 1925, and in 1929 I transferred to the Moscow Conservatory, where Nikolai Myaskovsky was one of my teachers.

A Diploma, a Wife and a Concerto

In 1933 I married Nina Makarova, a fellow student at the Conservatory, who was also a composer, so our home was never short of opinions about music. The next year I received my diploma, and my First Symphony dates from that same year. In 1936 I wrote my Piano Concerto, and people began to notice that the newcomer from the cello class had a voice of his own. The real turning point came in 1940 with my Violin Concerto, which David Oistrakh premiered, and it won me a Stalin Prize the following year.

Moscow, My Second Home

Moscow was the city where I studied, worked and lived for the rest of my life, even though my roots were Armenian and my birthplace was Tbilisi. I was never a Russian composer, whatever people sometimes say, but Moscow gave me teachers, musicians and stages to work with. I also gave something back by teaching, both at the Gnessin Institute and at the Moscow Conservatory. A young composer who walks into a classroom with a pile of notes and a nervous smile is a sight I came to love.

Eleven Hours and a Sabre

The work most people connect with me is the ballet Gayane, which grew out of an earlier ballet of mine called Happiness from 1939. The Kirov Ballet premiered Gayane in Perm in 1942, and it earned me another Stalin Prize the following year. Its most famous piece is the "Sabre Dance", which comes in Act IV during the wedding celebration, and it races along as if the dancers had a train to catch. I wrote in November 1942 that I composed it in about eleven hours, after the Kirov Theatre's director asked for one more dance, though that is only my own account of the story.

A Telling-Off from the Top

In 1948 I was officially denounced for "formalism", together with Shostakovich and Prokofiev. In plain words, it meant that the authorities decided our music was not what it should be, and that is a very uncomfortable thing to hear when your whole life is music. I was restored to favour later that same year, but I never forgot how quickly the mood can change. Being in such company was a small comfort, though not one I would wish on anyone.

The Long Evening

In my later years I kept teaching and composing, and the honours kept arriving. In 1973 I received the title Hero of Socialist Labour, which sounds like something from an adventure story but was a serious state award. I died in Moscow on 1 May 1978, shortly before my 75th birthday. I had spent more than fifty years in that city, and it still feels right that I ended my story there.

Still Playing After All These Years

I won the Stalin Prize four times, in 1941, 1943, 1946 and 1950, and in 1944 I composed the anthem of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. My music has also travelled far from the concert hall: the BBC drama series The Onedin Line used the Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia from my ballet Spartacus as its theme. So a good many people have hummed my tune without ever knowing my name. My students and the musicians who still perform my works carry on what I started, and I find that more satisfying than any prize.

What I Would Like to Hand You

I would like you to feel the warmth and energy of the tunes I grew up hearing, even if you never learn a single musical term. You don't need to know anything about orchestras or ballets to enjoy a melody that sings or a rhythm that makes your foot tap. Just listen with an open mind, the way you would listen to a friend telling you a story. If a tune stays with you on your way home, then I have done my job.