ages from the History of the Creative Collaboration between Arno Babajanian and Alexander Harutyunyan

Abstract

Art historian, Vice President of the Arno Babajanian International Foundation for Scholarly Research, Artyom Gerasim Andreasyan. - “Pages from the History of the Creative Collaboration between Arno Babajanian and Alexander Harutyunyan”.

Alexander Harutyunyan and Arno Babajanyan, both People’s Artists of the USSR, were close friends from preschool age until the latter’s untimely death. These two outstanding musicians, who left a deep mark on the path of development of Armenian classical, as well as Estrada music, together created works of various genres: “Song of the Attacker Squad” dedicated to the Great Patriotic War (early 1940s); Candidate for the State Anthem of the Armenian SSR (1944, lyrics by Sarmen), which has come down to us in a number of versions and was soon published with new lyrics as a festival ode to Stalin; “Armenian Rhapsody” for two pianos (1950); “Festive” for two pianos and percussion (1960). Some publications present another composition as their joint work: that is the Dance for two pianos, written by Babajanian in 1942, performed frequently during that decade yet preserved just in a couple of draft fragments. The present article comprises the available historical data on all these works to the extent possible. In addition, two musical materials are published here for the first time: a draft version of the 1944 Anthem and the two fragments attributed the 1942 Dance. In addition to their compositional collaboration, Babajanyan and Harutyunyan frequently performed as a piano duo, the repertoire of which contained more than their own works.