Aram Khachaturian of the Movies
By Jirair Tutunjian
The Gayane ballet, Masquerade suite, Spartacus ballet, the symphonies and the concertos are instantly recognized as the distinctive music of one remarkable composer: Aram Khachaturian. Composer of classical music, conductor, and teacher, Khachaturian is less known for the 25 scores he wrote for Armenian and Russian movies.
Khachaturian wrote the music for the Armenian film Pepo (1935) which was followed by Zangezur (1938), another Armenian movie. He composed the music of some twenty-five — mostly Russian–movies. Among the better known are the soundtracks of Othello, Girl no. 217, The Great Battle, The Battle of Stalingrad, and Attack from the Sea. A significant number of the soundtracks were composed during the Second World War and were intended to boost patriotism in the war against Nazi Germany. Despite his crammed calendar during the same period, he wrote the Gayane ballet and the rousing anthem of Soviet Armenia.
From 1950 to 1957 a great deal of Khachaturian’s time was taken by the Spartacus ballet. Before composing the ballet, he toured Italy to research the story of the slaves who, led by Spartacus, rose against the Roman Empire and almost vanquished it. Upon his return from Italy he spent several years writing the Spartacus score and putting it on the stage. He eventually composed three versions of Spartacus.
In the early sixties, when British director David Lean and Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel had finished shooting Lawrence of Arabia, they began looking for a musician to compose the movie’s soundtrack.
During his meeting with French composer Maurice Jarre at Paris’ plush Hotel George V, Spiegel said that he wanted three composers for the film. The first one to show the eastern side of the story, the second to show the British side, while Jarre would write the European aspect of the film.
Spiegel said he wanted Khachaturian to write “the Arabic music.” Years later, Jarre said he had thought Spiegel’s choice had been strange: “a Russian to write Arabic music,” said the French composer. Jarre blundered twice in one sentence: he assumed the Armenian composer was Russian; and he was unaware that Russian classical music composers frequently wrote music inspired by orientalism (Scheherazade by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the Polovetsian Dances by Alexander Borodin in Prince Igor while Sergei Rachmaninov included bits of traditional Armenian music in his compositions. in the mid-19th century, Russian classical music pioneers Mikhail Glinka and Mily Balakirev also wrote music inspired by the Orient.
Jarre eventually became the films sole composer. it’s not known why Khachaturian didn’t participate in the prestigious movie. There were rumors that the Kremlin didn’t allow Khachaturian’s participation. This and similar reports were not confirmed.
About the same time, actor Kirk Douglas decided to produce Spartacus. The film about the rebellion of slaves against the Roman Empire would feature Sir Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis, Charles Laughton, and– as they say in Hollywood — “a cast of thousands.” Douglas would play the lead. Since Khachaturian had composed the popular Spartacus, he was contacted to compose the movie’s soundtrack. However, again for unknown reasons, Khachaturian didn’t compose the movie’s score. Veteran Alex North did. But that wasn’t the end of Khachaturian’s involvement in western movies.
Director Stanley Kubrick—one of the two Spartacus Directors–used Khachaturian’s adagio from Gayane for 2001: a space odyssey. In the mid-sixties, Khachaturian’s music was used in the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, starring Sophia Loren, James Mason, Omar Sharif, Stephen Boyd.
Throughout the seventies, BBC’s Onedin’s Line used music from Spartacus as its theme.
In 1994, The Hudsucker Proxy, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, borrowed the Spartacus adagio.
In 2007, a new version of War and Peace used Khachaturian’s masquerade.
Why the film industry’s great interest in Khachaturian’s music? Because, as a music critic said long ago, Khachaturian is incapable of writing a single note that is not melodic.
