Aram KHACHATRIAN (1903-1978)
Violin Concerto in D minor (1940) [34:41]
Cello Concerto in E minor (1946) [35:01]
Funeral Ode in Memory of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1948) [9:55]
Sabre Dance from Gayane [1:38]
Song; 'Garun Yerevan' (Springtime in Lovely Yerevan) [1:55]
Song; 'Zdravitsa' [1:26]
Masquerade Suite (1944) [17:51]
Gayane (ballet highlights, excerpts from the suites) (1942) [21:27]
Piano Concerto in D flat major, Op.38 (1936) [33:31]
Leonid Kogan (violin) Sviatoslav Knushevitsky (cello) Antonín Jemelík
(piano)
USSR State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra/Aram Khachaturian (violin
concerto) Alexander Gauk (cello concerto)
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra/Aram Khachaturian (Lenin Ode, Masquerade)
Aram Khachaturian (piano and vocals) (Songs, Sabre Dance)
Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra/Aram Khachaturian (Gayane)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Alois Klima (piano concerto)
rec. 1946-60 (see end of review for recording details)
SUPRAPHON SU4100-2 [79:54 +78:20]
Supraphon’s ‘Archiv’ line has come up with a particularly
spicy twofer here. It documents Khachaturian as composer - yes, pretty obviously
- but also conductor and pianist. It also captures him singing. What more
could the dedicated admirer possibly want? Well, they might want novelty and
variety, and rare live performances. They might add that a top-line soloist
and a brilliant but rather unknown executant wouldn’t be bad either.
Let’s see if this fits the bill.
There are the three big concertos. The Violin Concerto is played by Leonid
Kogan who, with David Oistrakh, pretty much owned the work in those days.
His studio recording in Boston with the unlikely but inspired collaboration
of Pierre Monteux has just been reissued on Guild, but other performances
of Kogan’s sovereign way with the work - not least with the composer
himself in Moscow - have survived. Here we hear Kogan and Khachaturian live
with the USSR State Radio and TV orchestra in the Smetana Hall during the
Prague Spring Festival of 1959. And what a performance it is: dashing, lithe,
exciting, brilliant, and technically superb. The much earlier preserved Moscow
performance cedes a great deal to this one in terms of quicksilver refinement
and sheer adrenalin. With the very distinctive wide vibrato of the Russian
brass blare and, in the slow movement the rather ‘watery’ wind
colours, this is a highly communicative reading, essential for lovers of work,
performer and/or composer.
There’s not so much to write regarding the Cello Concerto. This isn’t,
as I’d hoped, Sviatoslav Knushevitzky live in Prague. It’s the
same commercial recording that’s out in a Brilliant box devoted to the
cellist [8924]. The date is 1 October 1946, though Supraphon’s documentation
is silent about this. It’s a torrid sounding studio recording in the
rather basic Russian manner of the time. Still, it preserves the cellist’s
tone in all its appreciable breadth and colour. Note, too, the clarinet’s
folkloric piping, and the excellently realised musing cadenza for the solo
cello. Knushevitzky doesn’t stint on that intensely melancholy
paragraph from around 3:00 in the finale. It was the work’s first recording
and it’s still one of the best, interpretatively speaking.
Finally there’s the Piano Concerto (recorded in 1960), which is in the
hands of the short-lived Czech pianist Antonín Jemelík, who
died at the age of 31 two years after making the recording. The conductor
for this is Alois Klíma, and the orchestra the Czech Philharmonic.
The playing is characterised by a barnstorming element that matches florid
virtuosity, bravura projection and intense heroism. Not everything quite comes
off, but most things come off - and more besides. The poetic soliloquy in
the first movement certainly does come across well, for instance, just one
incident amongst many. Jemelík’s ability to recreate, in the
studio, the drama of a live performance is certainly worthy of note.
We also hear the suite from the incidental music to Masquerade with
the Prague Radio Symphony under the composer (studio 1955) which is as exciting
and droll as it is idiosyncratically voiced - terrific clarinet and flute
principals. Khachaturian liked the orchestra, and no wonder. The excerpts
from the 1942 ballet suites for Gayane were taped with the Karlovy
Vary Symphony in that town in September 1955. It’s not quite in the
Prague Radio orchestra’s league, technically, but this live concert
performance captures a riot of exotica and fun. Listen out for a brief touch
of overload. Finally, we have the man himself at the piano. He rattles through
the Sabre Dance and then plays the piano and sings two very brief songs;
all very approximate vocally, but full of verve. This trio of performances
was taped in Prague in April 1950 and apart from the non-Czech Cello Concerto
recording, is the earliest material here.
I suspect that, apart from that Cello Concerto recording, very little of this
will be familiar. I had a superb time with it, and so, I’m sure, will
any Khachaturian admirer.
Jonathan Woolf
I had a superb time with this and so will any Khachaturian admirer.
Performance details
Violin concerto: May 1959 in concert in Prague
Cello concerto: October 1946, Moscow
Lenin Ode, Masquerade: Prague, September 1955
Songs, Sabre Dance: Prague, April 1950
Gayane: September 1955 in concert in Karlovy Vary
Piano concerto: Prague, November 1960