What an opportunity this is! As the Khachaturian Competition in Armenia (Yerevan) consistently proves, Aram Khachaturian (1903-78) is a composer to be reckoned with (see my review of that competition in 2021 here). He is one of Armenia’s national treasures.
It is the composer’s handling of the individual colours of Caucasian folk music within a grand symphonic scheme that distinguishes the First Symphony.
The first movement is an Andante maestro con passion, seemingly vast in intent (it is just a tad under 20 minutes). The performance here is magnificent: the Robert-Schumann Philharmonic is an expert ensemble, string capable of great depth, brass capable of real impact (the appearance of the Dies ire heme in the first movement, for example). Baermann and his orchestra find a core of lyricism to this music, and how it shines.
Khachaturian manages to achieve a seeming free-flow of ideas held within an symphonic schema in the first movement. The scoring is as expert and, often, bright as one might imagine from exposure to the composer’s more famous works.
The slow movement, a 13-minute Adagio sostenuto, is of noble intent as well as dimension. An Uzbek dance appears in the winds, delightfully. This is music of joy, and how the German players seem to enjoy their trip eastwards; the strings too, dance, and Khachaturian like to add little flecks of percussion to the equation:
The finale visits material from the first (but is shorter – at 12 minutes, it’s about the same as the slow movement(. Most of all, though, the finale is absolutely irrepressible and yet also there are moments of real cleverness and sophistication. Counterpoint is obviously a Khachaturian strength that is under-appreciated! That rigour might well be reflected in the movement tempo indication: “Allegro resoluto”. The Robert-Schumann Philharmonic are on fire; here is a real sense of elation here, and yet there is obvious deep rehearsal at the trickier moments, which all emerge clean as a whistle. the ending blazes:
There is no doubt there have been fine Khachaturian Firsts before (and ones of real historic import: Alexander Gauk – student of Glazunov oand Nikolai Tcherepnin and teacher of Myaskovsky- with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, plus the more recent complete symphonies from Loris Tjeknavorian, originally on ASV.
The coupling is the Dance Suite: dating from 1933, this is Khachaturian’s first orchestral work. It is ambitious in its scoring (and successful); all five movements are based on Transcaucasian themes: three dances (Caucasian, Armenian, and Uzbek), a march and a Lezghinka (a form that seemed to particularly appeal to Khachaturian). This piece did trail: the composer conducted the US premiere in 1968 with the National Symphony Orchestra, for example.
There is a Naxos recording (Yablonsky), but of modern recordings this cpo does the honours nicely. The “Armenian Dance” is most appealing, but most surprising is the 11″14 duration for the “Uzbek Dance”. As a mini-one poem, it both balanced and pairs well with the ensuing “Uzbek March,” with its hints of wildness:
The finale, that “Lezginka” (Wikipedia article) is joyous, and not a little riotous:
A truly wonderful disc. A final cautionary word, though, about the booklet note. As usual from this source it is long and detailed, but it appears to be rather badly trashed, and therefore often clumsy, in the instance. But don’t let that put you off. This release is, as the youth of today say, “fire”.
This wonderful disc can be purchased at Amazon here
