Legends are inseparable from legendary people.
Legends are inseparable from legendary people. This is the case with great Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian. There is a famous story in Yerevan art loving community: All his titles and awards were mentioned in the poster of his author concert. The members of the orchestra had also secretely added “pilot, astronaut”.
We present less-known facts about the life of the renowned composer.
1. Argentinean revolutionist Ernesto Che Guevara adored Aram Khachaturian’s music. Once he said, “Aram Khachaturian’s music is immortal. The spirit of Armenian people is in it – the spirit of struggle and victory.
2. The monument in memory of Aram Khachaturian was put up in Moscow on October 31, 2006. The author of the composer’s bronze statue is Georgy Frangulyan, and the architect is Igor Vaskresnki. The statue is located in the neighborhood of the house, where Khachaturian lived and worked once.
3.”Erebuni-Yerevan” holiday was first celebrated in 1968 October. The distinguished Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, too, joined the celebrations.
4. “Aram Khachaturian’s handwritten notes and music for films” have been recorded in UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register. Aram Khachaturian’s name has been classified next to such world-famous composers as Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin.
5. The statue of Aram Khachaturian located in front of Yerevan Philharmonic Hall is not the one in Yerevan. The composer’s bust has opened in Arabkir administrative unit on the occasion of the composer’s 100th birthday anniversary. The monument authored by sculptor Gevorg Gevorgyan has been placed in a renovated green territory – in the neighborhood of the crossing of Khachaturian-Papazyan streets.
6. The author of the hymn of Soviet Armenia, with life of 71 years, is Aram Khachaturian.
7. For the first time Aram Khachaturian has visited Yerevan in the staff of a propagating group arriving from Tiflis in 1921 by a special train. They had a task to spread the sublime idea of the October Revolution in Armenian villages and cities.
8.Once Khachaturian told that his father had a special love for national music, and knowing that he was going to be admitted to a music college in Moscow, he said with regret, “Are you going to become a sazandar (a street musician, who also played during weddings, different occasions, in markets, etc.)?Khachaturian’s father wanted his son to become an engineer or a doctor. He considered that music does not suit a man.
9. Khachaturian liked animals very much. In Germany she had received a poodle, whom he called Lyado (according to the notes lya and do). Aram Khachaturian’s work “Lyado got seriously sick” speaks about the love for Lyado.
10. The ballet “Spartacus” was being staged in Yerevan: it was the last performance attended by the author. The performance was perfect and the ballet group – wonderful. But from the half of the first action Khachaturian unexpectedly left the hall. The action finished, but the composer still did not appear. After some period of time they found him not far from the opera theater.
“If I stayed I would raise a big noise. They reduced an entire 4 cadences from my music,” said Khachaturian. Though the audience had not noticed the “loss” of that small part of the Khachaturian music, nevertheless, that fact had strictly annoyed the author.
11. During an evacuation in soviet years Khachaturian, Oistrakh and Shostakovich had remained hungry in one of the stations. Oistrakh helped them in this difficult situation jokingly proposing to give a concert. Shostakovich and Khachaturian liked the idea. For a wonderful concert the musicians deserved dinner.
