Music From Where East Meets West

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Pianist Sahan Arzruni has full command of the usual classical repertoire. Along with many years playing the “straight man” alongside Victor Borge, Arzruni has amassed an extensive discography including recordings of Haydn and Bartok. But for his upcoming concert at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center, he will reach beyond Chopin’s familiar etudes or Brahms’ piano concertos. At the South Milwaukee PAC, Arzruni will explore classical music with roots in Armenia, an ancient land at the rim of Asia and Europe. Specifically, he will perform works by a trio of composers from three nations where Armenians have lived: Aram Khachaturian (Soviet Union), Komitas Vartabed (Turkey) and Alan Hovhannes (USA).

The concert takes place at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29 at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center, 901 15th Ave., South Milwaukee. General admission tickets are $25 with proceeds benefitting the Fund for Armenian Relief. For tickets, visit www.southmilwaukeepac.org or purchase at the South Milwaukee PAC box office.

Arzruni Speaks About the Concert in South Milwaukee

You will be performing work by the following composers at your Milwaukee concert: Aram Khachaturian, Alan Hovhannes and Komitas Vartabed. Tell me about them.

Komitas is the fountainhead of new Armenian music. Without Komitas, you would not have Hovhaness or Khachaturian as you know it. In the 1890s, Komitas, a celibate cleric, wandered from village to village and collected folk songs—he notated them, he analyzed them, he organized them.

Komitas then recreated them in a format that would be accessible to urban Armenians, Armenians who lived in the cities, who were exposed to western music. Komitas “arranged” the folk songs in such a way that they seemed as if they belonged to the concert stage rather than come from the mouths of the peasants. He set them for chorus, and he construed them for voice and piano. But he did it in a way that the melodies stayed true to their Armenian roots, the songs remained authentic to their Armenian nature.

In addition, Komitas composed a number of dances for piano based on Armenian folk tunes. The concert program will include a number of them in order to give the audience a taste of Komitas’s music.

Hovhaness learned about Armenian music when he was appointed organist at the Watertown Armenian Church in Massachusetts in the early 1940s. The music he composed prior to 1942 was European in character. He learned about Armenian secular music from Yenovk Der Hagopian, a troubadur from Van, a city in Eastern Anatolia where Armenians lived for thousands of years.

I consider Alan Hovhaness to be a direct disciple of Komitas. During his intense studies of Armenian sacred and secular music, Hovhaness internalized Komitas’s music, the underlying principles of Komitas’s composition and the essentials of his aesthetics. Similar to Komitas, Hovhaness’s music also relies on monophony – a single melodic line – non-western meters, and Middle Eastern melodic patterns.

Most of the music Hovhaness composed until the mid 1950s stayed true of these basic principles. Afterwards he expanded the modes of expression into Indian, Korean, Japanese and other Asian cultures. I will present a number of works by Hovhaness from his “Armenian Period.”

Aram Khachaturian is the Armenian musical ambassador to the world at large. It is unlikely that Khachaturian would enjoy his popularity without the support he received from the Soviet Union. While in New York for concerts in the 1970s, at a press conference, a reporter identified him as a Russian composer. Infuriated, Khachaturian roared, “I am not a Russian composer, I am a Soviet composer, a Soviet Armenian composer.”

Khachaturian did not have a single music lesson until he was 19 years old. When he was kicked out of the Moscow University for failing grades, he managed to enter the Gnessin School of Music. His prodigious ability to compose opened the door to the Moscow Conservatory. There he learned the essentials of composition. His music is known for its surging melodies, throbbing rhythms, and piquant harmonies.

Yet, Khachaturian’s music remains Armenian to the core. Every summer he would travel to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, invite folk musicians to his house and would listen to them play and sing folk material. There are many examples in his music, where he uses portions of Komitas’s music,

Aside from their ethnic heritage, is there anything linking Khatchaturian, Hovhannes or Komitas? Is there an “Armenian musical heritage” that all three composers shared?

All three composers were intimately familiar with Armenian folk music. In a folk song, the text comes first and the melodic contour takes shape according to the accents—the prosody—of the language. Armenian is an independent branch of Indo-European languages and has existed since the second century at the latest. That is how Komitas, Hovhaness and Khachaturian are interconnected, inextricably interconnected. Just remember: every independent language has a unique prosody, an inherent system of accentuation, that is reflected in its folk songs.

What do you tell non-Armenians to encourage them to listen to this music? Of course, Khachaturian is familiar to classical music listeners (and Sabre Dance is well known beyond those circles)—but what about Hovhannes and Komitas?

Just expose yourself to their music. Khachaturian’s music is fetching. Easy to love, easy to like. There is an energy that is infectious. Alan Hovhaness’s music is hypnotic. He is the first New Age music composer. There is nothing complex about his music. It’s direct. It is forthright. Komitas requires dedication. It is so sparse, you have to listen to it with concentration, dedication, and empathy. But Komitas is the mother of all Armenian music. You need to penetrate Komitas in order to enjoy Hovhaness and Khachaturian.