Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099580120
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: KHACHATURIAN
Description
Aram Il'yich Khachaturian (1903- 1978) Spartacus Suite No.1 Introduction - Dance of the Nymphs Adagio of Aegina and Harmodius Variation of Aegina and Bacchanalia Scene and Dance with Crotala Dance of the Gaditanae - Victory of Spartacus Suite No.2 Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia Entrance of the Merchants - Dance of a Roman Courtesan - General Dance Entrance of Spartacus - Quarrel -Treachery of Harmodius Dance of the Pirates Suite No.3 Dance of a Greek Slave Dance of an Egyptian Girl Night Incident Dance of Phrygia - Parting Scene At the Circus The Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian was born in Tblisi in 1903 and had his musical training at the Gnesin Music Academy in Moscow, entering in 1929 the Moscow Conservatory, where he was a pupil of Prokofiev's friend and mentor, Miaskovsky. He established himself as a composer during the 1930s and held official positions in the Union of Soviet Composers, although he was included in the condemnation of formalism, together with Shostakovich and Prokofiev, in 1948. Nevertheless his style of composition, with the use of regional elements from Armenia and elsewhere in the southern areas of the Soviet Union, in the end ensured his continuing reputation, enhanced once more, after the death of Stalin in 1953, by his ballet Spartacus, a work that combined spectacle in its crowd scenes and attention to individual virtuosity in its solos, with a plot that could not but satisfy the ideals of the regime. Writing in a tonal idiom with richly coloured orchestration, Khachaturian was opposed to modern experiment in composition and in spite of the condemnation of 1948 held publicly that Soviet composers enjoyed a creative freedom impossible in the West, with its modernising fashions, to which subservience was obligatory. During his life-time he received many honours, including in 1954 the title People's Artist. He died in 1978. The ballet Spartacus, the score of which was completed in 1954, deals with the slave rebellion led by the hero of that name against Roman domination. The historical Spartacus himself was Thracian by birth, a shepherd who became a robber. He was taken prisoner and sold to a trainer of gladiators in Capua, but in 73 B.C. he escaped, with other prisoners, and led a rebellion during the course of which he defeated the Roman armies and caused devastation throughout Italy. He was eventually defeated by Crassus, a general well known for his wealth, and put to death by crucifixion, together with his followers. It should be added that to Karl Marx Spartacus was the first great proletarian hero, a champion of the people, while the ultimate fate of Crassus, killed in 53 B.C. during the course of a campaign that had taken him to Armenia, might have had a particular significance for Khachaturian. Spartacus was first produced at the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad in 1956, with choreography by Leonid Jacobson, and was re-staged at the Bolshoy in Moscow two years later, with choreography by Igor Moiseyev. The relativ
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Various
Various
Lully
