Khachaturian To ares Ilyich

Main article: History of music in Russia

Biography

At the age of 18, the Tiflis boy comes to conquer Moscow. Not knowing the musical notation, enters the famous musical college.

In three years he is already trying to compose, and he is doing it very well. Sergei Prokofiev, who decided to visit his homeland in the status of a world star, is amazed at the composer's maturity of a student at the Moscow Conservatory.

Silent American film legend Charlie Chaplin has always called Khachaturian's Violin Concerto his favorite composition. The real boom overseas also spawned the Saber Dance. He was charged into the drums of jukeboxes. The melody from the Soviet ballet sounded in the United States in the most unexpected interpretations. It was played by jazzmen, boogie performers. There was even a vocal version accompanied by harmonica. The popularity of the issue from the ballet Gayane was so high that Newsweek magazine suggested calling 1948 the Year of Khachaturian in the USA.

Khachaturian unexpectedly turned out to be on the wrong shore. The laureate of the three Stalin Prizes was declared a formalist in the USSR along with other colleagues in the workshop - Prokofiev, Shostakovich... Much later, he would tell Rostropovich that if he had not fallen under the press of the state machine, he would not have become a real composer.

Aram Ilyich comes close to composing the ballet "Spartak." He writes not quickly, with many months of pauses, as if he was waiting for something. He finishes the manuscript after Stalin's death. Before us is a composer-philosopher. He parted with illusions about the eternal celebration of life. Love and death are always there. The ballet about the Roman gladiator ascended Khachaturian to the musical Olympus. He is invited to Italy. He appears at the La Fenice Theater to the applause of the hall, and the conductor plays a welcome march in his honor.

Khachaturian decides on a grand final... He creates a scenario for his own funeral. Yerevan calls the place of burial. After the death of the master, the Union of Composers of the USSR insists on burial in Moscow. The Armenian government resists, referring to the will of the deceased. The republic eventually enlists the support of the country's top leadership. At the Yerevan airport, a coffin with a body meets the Armenian State Chapel. Choral singing sounds under a terrible downpour. The procession moves to the opera house. The next day, the main avenue of the city is strewn with flowers - the last path of the composer to the Pantheon named after Komitas.