Gems from Armenia
Aznavoorian Duo (cello/piano)
rec. 2021, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago
ÇEDILLE CDR90000209 [76]
Ani and Marta Aznavoorian are American cello-and-piano playing sisters of Armenian heritage. Ani is a well-regarded soloist, and some may know Marta as a founder member of the Lincoln Trio, a first-class ensemble. Together they join for a recital focused squarely on the music of the country from which their great-grandparents fled around the time of the First World War.
Komitas remains the founding father of Armenian music and his attempt to absorb the essence of its musical soul and distil it for the betterment of future generations is rightly recognised here. The five pieces performed as a group explore the essence of the country’s music in pieces that evoke descriptive nature settings and problems of love. Garoun, the third of the five selected pieces, explores a lament on the subject of love – eloquently performed – whilst Krunk, the last of the five, is the most musically developed and sophisticated. I’m not sure I could link a piece to its title, necessarily, but they’re all very descriptive.
Khachaturian is represented by two little pieces, of which Yerevan is the more interesting. The title references the Armenian capital, and its fine melody is enhanced by recognition that both it and the percussive piano speak of the city’s prestige and sense of self. Most of the programme, in fact, is given over to small, largely descriptive pieces, such as Babajanian’s Elegy which represents his solo piano tribute to his late teacher, Khachaturian – it is well programmed, therefore, to follow Yerevan. The Aria and Dance contrasts the mournful-songful former with the catchy and flair-filled latter. At the heart of the programme is Avet Terterian’s Cello Sonata, composed in 1952 when he was in his early 20s. The first two movements are essentially slow, the first rising to a pitch before falling away into episodes of ruminative intensity, and the second both brooding and intense. The sense of accumulated tension is swept away by the brilliant finale, with its rich B section, and a resplendent restatement, that ends the piece in triumph.
Serouj Kradjian’s take on the traditional Sari Siroun Yar conforms to its essential sense of melancholy whereas Artiunian’s Impromptu is an athletic piece from 1948 compete with the richest of chording. The Petrified Dance of Vache Sharafyan is admirably pictorial, its coiling cello writing and still piano successfully conveying the spectral stillness of the forest. Finally, there is Peter Boyer’s Mount Ararat which is the disc’s outlier, given that Boyer is American. Nevertheless, he wrote it for the sisters, to pursue how Armenia’s biblical heritage chimed with a composer from a wholly different background. The answer is very dramatically, richly voiced as it is and full of very expressive writing. These concerns are dealt with by the Aznavoorian Duo very capably.
As always Çedille’s notes and recording are outstanding and the Duo both celebrates and projects Armenian music very effectively.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
Komitas VARTABED (1869-1935)
Chinar Es [2:47]
Tsirani Tsar [3:13]
Garoun A [4:01]
Al Ailux [1:23]
Krunk [3:49]
Aram KHACHATURIAN (1903-1978)
Ivan Sings arr Antti Hakkarainen [1:41]
Yerevan [3:04]
Arno BABAJANIAN (1921-1983)
Elegy (1978) [4:16]
Aria and Dance [5:33]
Avet TERTERIAN (1929-1994)
Cello Sonata (1952) [20:41]
Serouj KRADJIAN (b.1973)
Sari Siroun Yar (Traditional) [4:52]
Alexander ARUTIUNIAN (1920-12012)
Impromptu (1948) [4:25]
Vache SHARAFYAN (b.1966)
Petrified Dance [5:15]
Peter BOYER (b.1970)
Mount Ararat [9:31]
