# Aram Khachaturian Violin Concerto



## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

Aram Khachaturian's Violin Concerto in D minor is a violin concerto in three movements composed in 1940. It was composed for David Oistrakh and was premiered on September 16, 1940 by Oistrakh.

I would love to hear your views on how you rate this concerto. Good, bad or ugly?
Your experiences, feelings about interpretations, concerts, recordings.
I have my preferences and my opinions. I do rate this VC in my top ten. Better than Shostakovitch, maybe not, but still very good.


----------



## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

My Choice of recording is as follows:
#1









#2


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I own a recording by Leonid Kogan and Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony from the early stereo era. I haven’t felt the need to move on from there.


----------



## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

Triplets said:


> I own a recording by Leonid Kogan and Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony from the early stereo era. I haven't felt the need to move on from there.


Yes, just listened on the Guild Historical Label and its a super recording. Thank you for your input


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

It's vulgar, almost trashy, but oh so much fun! I love this concerto - I love hearing it and playing it (the bassoon parts are fun). It's a challenge to violinists, and a pleasure to audiences - not too long, chock full of great tunes, emotional, beautiful and plenty of fireworks. I really like the relatively new one from Julia Fischer, but this one is a real winner, too:








It works wonderfully as a flute concerto!


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

AK music has that inherently trashy quality to it, but it can be endearing if it is kept concise. Currently enjoying the Piano Concerto


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Triplets said:


> AK music has that inherently trashy quality to it, but it can be endearing if it is kept concise. Currently enjoying the Piano Concerto


Has anyone made better use of the flexatone (musical saw)? This past spring I got to play the Masquerade Suite and a couple of excerpts from Spartacus. If there had been more 20th c music like Khachaturian's, maybe "modern music" wouldn't have gotten such a bad rap. And to think he didn't know much of anything about music until his late teens.


----------



## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

trashy?

never occurred to me to use that adjective to describe this work......I know it through what is obviously the more refined rendition that is presented by Mordkovitch, Jarvi and the SNO.

When I did listen to the concerto with any frequency I always imagined that the melody from the slow movement has turned up somewhere else...….just never worked out where!


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

No trashy. How about vulgar, crude, bombastic....

There are several numbers in both Gayane and Spartacus that can be described as such. But boy could he write things with instant audience appeal, such as Sabre Dance from the former and the Adagio from the latter. For vulgar and bombastic you need listen no further than the Third Symphony with that insane Phantom of the Operaesque organ part and 16 (?) trumpets. Then there's the Adagio from Gayane that was used in 2001: A Space Odyssey - it was a perfect, unbeatable choice for that scene. No one else could have written it.


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

His music has long been criticized for the bombastic, trashy, call it what you will, elements. I had been put off exploring it until someone got me to try the VC, in the aforementioned Kogan recording. I have since taken on a few other pieces, currently the P.C.
The kitsch is part of the package, and some times e can be pretty endearing. 
Btw, back to the O.P., I wouldn’t rate the VC above either Shostakovich work, but that’s o.k., it stands up well on its own and doesn’t need to be compared with any other Composer


----------



## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I like it. Cant say I own too many recordings but the Fischer / Kreizberg is my go-to. I first heard a small excerpt from the VC in a film and it piqued my interest enough to go and buy a recording.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> Has anyone made better use of the flexatone (musical saw)? This past spring I got to play the Masquerade Suite and a couple of excerpts from Spartacus. If there had been more 20th c music like Khachaturian's, maybe "modern music" wouldn't have gotten such a bad rap. And to think he didn't know much of anything about music until his late teens.


Modern music doesn't have a "bad rap" within serious classical music devotees except among a relatively small group that includes, it seems, you.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Triplets said:


> AK music has that inherently trashy quality to it, but it can be endearing if it is kept concise. Currently enjoying the Piano Concerto


Nicely put. Sums up my feeling about his music. I wish we had more distinction in many of our threads ... and recognition that a piece can be both enjoyable, fun (whatever) and trashy, facile, bombastic etc (I'm not necessarily applying all those words to AK). Too much of our dialogue has works as either the greatest ever (sometimes put as "my favourite piece") or deeply flawed rubbish.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> Modern music doesn't have a "bad rap" within serious classical music devotees except among a relatively small group that includes, it seems, you.


I guess that depends on what a "serious classical music devotee" is, doesn't it? There's a lot of modern music I like. Just today I was listening to the symphonies of Sallinen. Yesterday the symphonies of Humphrey Searle. Does that count in your opinion? What I was saying by "bad rap" doesn't necessarily imply it's a deserved reputation. I think a lot of people would enjoy modern music if they would give it a chance. Modern music has however been tainted by some really dreadful crap and unfortunately people tend to think all modern music is the same. But being realistic, I know a lot of professional musicians: conductors, orchestral players, singers, etc and I would certainly consider them "serious" devotees - yet when the perform music they really prefer music of the 18th and 19th centuries with some of the more popular (and needless to say tonal) works of the 20th. And if you're honest, there is a lot of bad 20th c music, just as there was a lot of bad music from the 19th and 18th c. Fortunately, neither you or I, or anyone on this site, has the ability to discern what music from the last half of the 20th c will become "classic".


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ Of course, Sallinen and Searle count! 

I don't mean anything complicated by "serious classical music devotee" - just people who listen to it a lot and have at least a little knowledge of it in all its manifestations (even if they don't like some of them). I just don't think we should swallow the line that is regularly repeated in this forum that modern and contemporary music in general have problems and are widely despised. Music is as vibrant as ever. I don't ask everyone to like everything. And, yes, understanding modern music does mean recognising that some of it (just like music from other periods) is really not very good.


----------



## MelodicOne (Nov 29, 2018)

The Szeryng/Dorati/LSO recording is wonderful!


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> For vulgar and bombastic you need listen no further than the Third Symphony with that insane Phantom of the Operaesque organ part and 16 (?) trumpets.


I've never paid much attention to this composer. It's one of those old school-day prejudices someone put in me with the intent to warn me that if I listened to less-than-exalted music, my brain would turn into mush. I'm now listening to the 3rd symphony. What fun!


----------

