THE KOMITAS LEGACY: ARMENIAN PIANO TRIOS Arno Babajanian (Yerevan, 1921–Moscow, 1983) Piano Trio in F sharp minor (1952) 25:15 Dedicated to David Oistrakh and Sviatoslav Knushevitsky 1 I Largo 10:32 2 II Andante 7:11 3 III Allegro vivace 7:32 (Soghomon Soghomonian) Komitas (Kütahya, Turkey, 1869–Paris, 1935) Six Armenian Miniatures* 21:06 arranged (2016) for piano trio by Varoujan Bartikian 4 Shogher jan (‘Dear Shogher’) 3:56 5 Chinar es (‘You are as slender as a plane-tree’) 3:28 6 Hov arek (‘Give me a cool breeze’) 2:30 7 Krunk (‘The Crane’) 4:18 8 Dzayn tour, ov tsovak (‘Dear lake, answer me’) 4:10 9 Kele kele (‘Let’s walk’) 2:44 Nina Grigoryan (Derzhavinsk, Kazakhstan, 1976) Aeternus (2018)* 10:35 Dedicated to Trio Aeternus 10 I Andante maestoso 3:37 11 II Allegro con brio 2:25 12 III Andante spiritoso 4:33 2 Ardashes Agoshian (Istanbul, Turkey, 1977) Piano Trio, Homage to Komitas (2017)* 21:55 Dedicated to Trio Aeternus 13 I Broken Bells – 2:54 14 II Broken Dance – 1:15 15 III Possession (Shamanioso) – 0:58 16 IV Deus Internus – 6:53 17 V Broken Dance 2 – 2:43 18 VI Sitie (‘Thirst’) 7:12 Trio Aeternus TT 78:53 Alexander Stewart, violin Varoujan Bartikian, cello *FIRST RECORDINGS João Paulo Santos, piano 3 THE KOMITAS LEGACY: ARMENIAN PIANO TRIOS by William Melton Komitas (Gomidas) Vardapet bore the name Soghomon Soghomonian after his birth in the city of Kütahya in western Turkey on 8 October 1869. His father, Kevork, was a cobbler, but he and his wife, Takuhi, also cultivated poetry and music. Takuhi died when Soghomon was only six months old, which began an unhappy early childhood that later evoked poetry from her son: ‘She flew and went to the altar, Like a dove of the sky, Leaving me alone, and lonely’.1 Raised largely by a female relative (given variously by sources as an aunt or his grandmother), the boy regularly sang at the local St Theodoros Church but also enjoyed the folk-music of the kusans, troubadours of the Caucasus. Soghomon became an orphan when Kevork died in 1881 and was sent to Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin) in eastern Armenia to study for the priesthood at the Kevorkian Theological Seminary. According to a now-storied tale (that is nevertheless borne out in the important particulars), the young man did not begin auspiciously as he was brought before the Catholicos, or chief bishop of the Armenian Church. ‘But you don’t know any Armenian word’, said his holiness in Turkish, ‘how could you study in the college?’ The boy gave the following exhaustive answer. ‘That’s why I came here – to learn Armenian’, to which archimandrite Dertsakian added: ‘Your holiness, let little Soghomon sing a canticle’. 1 Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian, Archeology of Madness: Komitas, Portrait of an Armenian Icon, Gomitas Institute, Princeton, New Jersey, 2001, p. 13. 4 As the lad was singing tears began to trickle down the gorgeous beard of the catholicos. Not a single instant did he transfer his stare from the boy. Silence reigned for some time after the song before the catholicos spoke again, this time in an agitated voice: ‘Go, my boy, go ... go to college; learn Armenian and anything else you have your heart in’.2 Soghomon’s exceptional singing voice and musicality were duly recognised during his seminary years, and as his studies progressed, the lexicographer Sahak Amatuni (1856–1917) gave him instruction in Armenian liturgical song. He also mastered modern Armenian musical notation and began to study and collect local folksong and medieval tagh songs, putting together editions in the early 1890s. His regard for the originators of the songs he transcribed verged on awe: The peasant is the master wizard who reads nature authentically, creates fertile thoughts, blows into them his powerful and simple breath, stamps it with the impulse of his own being, with the whole of his internal and external life, and baptizes with words and melody his true child.3 In 1894, the year his research on ecclesiastical melodies was published, Soghomon was ordained with the name Komitas, originally the name of a musical seventh-century catholicos. The next year he gained the title Vardapet (doctor of theology) and published an edition of folksongs from the Agn region (Eğin in Turkish; it is now Kemaliye, in Turkish eastern Anatolia). ‘In 1896’, the composer wrote in an autobiographical sketch, through the aid of the well-known Armenian benefactor, Alexander Mantashian, I left for Berlin to further my musical education. I went to the world-renowned violinist Joseph Joachim, who was the Dean of the Royal School of Music in Berlin; he advised me to study at the private conservatory of Richard Schmidt. Headmaster and court musicologist, Rector Richard Schmidt agreed to teach me privately. Although I was familiar with the subject of harmony through ‘deceptive cadences’, we started from the beginning, to 2 Artush Vartani Khanjyan, Komitas Park Pantheon, author, Yerevan, 2008, p. 46. 3 Komitas, Armenian Sacred and Folk Music, transl. Edward Gulbekian, Curzon, Richmond, Surrey, 1998, p. 92. 5 Komitas Vardapet in Cairo, 1911 6 establish a solid foundation. I stayed with Schmidt for exactly three years, from June 1896 to June 1899. I completed all the courses in theory and particularly in applied music.4 In addition, Komitas enrolled at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in philosophy, musicology and aesthetics, studying music under the tutelage of the theorist Heinrich Bellermann, the musicologist Oskar Fleischer and the folk-music specialist Max Friedländer. A further experience in Berlin was a loneliness witnessed by a visitor in late 1896: He stayed in his room and worked without interruption so he could master the art of music in the shortest possible time. Every visit found him at his piano. He left the building only to take instruction from a professor or attend theatre, opera and concerts. He had brought the folksongs that he had collected and transcribed, and he liked to play and sing these when we visited him.5 News from home of the latest outrages perpetrated by the Turkish government on Armenians naturally unsettled Komitas further, and Richard Schmidt offered his student a sympathetic ear, as well as many meals at his own home. During his Berlin stay, Komitas composed Lieder and a setting of the 137th Psalm that displayed his new technical prowess, but the application of this technique to Armenian folksong was perhaps even more important for his progress – he would eventually collect and transcribe about 4,000 songs from many regions, including Turkish and Kurdish songs. Komitas joined the International Musical Society, and the first issue of theIMS Journal carried his article on ekphonetic transcription, the deciphering of obscure memnonic symbols present in old Armenian liturgical chants. Back in Vagharshapat with his fresh doctorate from the Friedrich-Wilhelm University, Komitas continued preparing arrangements of both folk- and sacred songs. He also deciphered ancient neumatic khaz notation and wrote about the relationship between folk- and sacred songs, convinced that the future musical development of his country must have roots in its own musical past. He led the seminary choir in 4 Komitas: Essays and Articles, transl. Vatsche Barsoumian, Drazark, Pasadena, 2001, p. 4. 5 Mesrob K. Krikorian, Franz Werfel und Komitas, Lang, Frankfurt, 1999, p. 65. 7 concerts of his transcriptions, even recording some, and toured as far as Yerevan and Tbilisi. He also taught the next generation, producing gifted musicians, including Romanos Melik’ian (1883–1935), who would study further with Ippolitov-Ivanov, Taneyev and Steinberg. With carefully chosen Armenian singers and a well-coached French choir, Komitas gave concerts in Paris and Switzerland in 1906–7, generating sympathetic reviews in the press and the admiration of Claude Debussy. The increasing international attention made the seminary authorities at home suspicious, and in 1910 Komitas left Vagharshapat behind. The city he chose for his new home was Constantinople, which boasted a large Armenian population. There he created the 300-voice Gusan choir, and the cities of Izmir, Alexandria and Cairo would also benefit from ensembles established by Komitas. His activities increased both his reputation and the cultural pride of Armenians around the eastern Mediterranean. The International Musical Society congress in Paris in 1914 was a high point, where Komitas’ concert and lectures increased international awareness of the richness of Armenian folk- and sacred music, winning over even cynical voices: Shall we go to the Salle Gaveau, where the Schola de St Louis awaits us with a programme of Renaissance works, a programme unfortunately produced by makeshift means [...]? Will we accept the invitation of Temple du Saint-Esprit where music by Huguenots from the 16th century would detain us for two interminable hours [...]? Or will we turn towards the East, following in the footsteps of the eminent Father Komitas, who guides us to the Armenian Church in rue Jean Goujon? Here rising, transcendent melody intertwines with the burning incense, while two voices in fourths and fifths attempt to bind it to earth.6 Only a year after the civility of the IMS congress, the Ottoman authorities ordered the massive deportation and annihilation of western Armenians in 1915. On 24 April that year Komitas and other prominent intellectuals were rounded up in Constantinople 6 Anon., ‘Le Cinquième Congrès de la Société Internationale de Musique: Auditions et festivités’, La Revue Musicale S. I. M., July– August 1914, p. 23. 8 Concert in the Armenian Church, Paris, summer 1914 (Komitas standing in front, fourth from right) 9 and taken to an internment camp in Çankırı, deep in the interior of Asia Minor.