Spartacus • Gayaneh • Masquerade suites
Aram Ilich Khachaturian
London Weekend Classics 417 062-2
Spartacus—Suite
Masquerade—Suite
Gayaneh—Suite
Not many orchestral pieces drive me to a frantic pitch of delirious delight; this album has a couple of the ones that do.
The “Dance of the Gaditanae” is one, starting with utterly pure stateliness, moving to a sultry swaying and then a disdainfully proud posing, finally rushing through mad joyous whirling with guns blazing to end in a thunderous mayhem of brass fanfares and cliffhanger drama that scarcely attempts to hold to a set rhythm…in fact its ending is nearly the opposite of its beginning. A marvelous piece, and I do love this version (although it’s the only one I’ve ever listened to).
“Dawn, Ayeshe’s Dance” is another; in some ways it makes me think of Grieg’s “Anitra’s Dance,” Persianized, but perhaps it’s closer to Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Sheherezade,” just shifted a little further east. Either way, as well as independently of my comments, this is a robust and gorgeous piece that majestically compels one to dance exotically. And the “Lullaby” from the same score may be bombastically melodramatic as a lullaby but is exquisitely moving and ends with a strikingly bittersweet purity that doesn’t seem to be the likely conclusion after all that pathos.
I don’t recall which piece it was that made me buy this album in the first place, although I suppose it was the “Sabre Dance” from Gayaneh, but I’m delighted to have finally found an entrée to Khachaturian’s works. But I do wish they were published in full-score form for the general public as other composers’ works are, because then I could rejoice in these pieces even more by following along in the score while the recording plays as I do Ravel’s “La Valse,” Debussy’s “La Mer,” Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps,” and others. Dover Publishing, are you reading? Can you help me with this?
Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.