Musical Armenia

Unknown pages of Lazar Sarian 's Life and Creative work Based on his Letters from 1939-1940

Ruzan Ghazaros (Lazar) Saryan — 2026-09-01

The rich epistolary heritage of Lazar Sarian provides a basis for a more detailed study of his biography and creative work, especially during the years of his formation as an individual and as a composer. The focus of our research is on his letters from 1939 to 1945, written during his studies at the Gnesin Music College in Moscow, his military service, and the last two years of the war. From the letters addressed to his father, the outstanding painter Martiros Sarian; his mother, a writer, educator, and enlightener, the daughter of Ghazaros Aghayan, Lusik Sarian; his aunt, Katarine Samartsian; and his uncle, Hovhannes Sarian, many interesting and important facts emerge about the formation of Lazar’s character and strong-willed temperament, as well as about his musical interests and compositions. The letters are written with a good command of the Armenian and Russian languages and are marked by sincerity and an unrestrained style. They are also filled with deep emotional feelings and longing when speaking of Armenia, the paternal home, and beloved and close people. The letters of these six years reveal a strong, purposeful, principled, and masculine young man, who in later years — already as the mature Lazar Martirosovich, a composer, rector of the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory, and a public figure — would be known, loved, and respected by his many colleagues and students.

The “Ghazaros (Lazar) Saryan” Collection within the Main Holdings of the Martiros Saryan House-Museum

Sophia Lazar Sarian — 2026-09-01

The article is dedicated to the activity of the author's beloved father, Ghazaros (Lazar) Saryan, in his capacity as the President of the Union of Composers of Armenia, and from 1960 to 1986, as the Rector of Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory. It also explores a nearly unknown page of his biography: the fact that the emi- nent composer also assumed the position of the first director of the Martiros Sarian Museum. In this role, he undertook the responsibilities of building construction, organizing the exhibition, and developing the strategy for the future replenishment of the museum's funds. A handwritten list of the exhibition, compiled by Lazar Saryan, has been preserved; it includes the works that remain on display in the museum's halls to this day

“Tone Painting in the Symphonic Panel “Armenia” by Ghazaros (Lazar) Saryan”

Mikhail Artyem Kokzhayev (Kokzhayan) — 2025-12-02

The article by composer, PhD in Arts, and Professor of Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory, Mikhail Kokzhayev, entitled "Tone Painting in the Symphonic Panel 'Armenia' by Ghazaros Saryan" (based on a presentation delivered at a conference dedicated to the composer's anniversary), is devoted to the phenomenon of ideoplastic interconnection between the four musical images - the movements of the monumental symphonic cycle by Ghazaros Saryan - and specific paintings by his father, artist Martiros Saryan. The author not only establishes a distinct imagery-based correspondence between the paintings of Martiros Saryan and their tone-painting analogues in the movements of Ghazaros Saryan 's symphonic work, but also reveals graphic similarities between fragments of the musical score and their pictorial counterparts. Delving into the constructive features of musical form, the author addresses the paradoxes of spatial proportions between individual local structures and the integrity of the overall composition, and attempts to identify the algorithms that determined the logic of cause-and-effect relationships within the musical process. Particular attention is also given to the intonational originality of Saryan's compositional style. In the concluding part of the article, three instances of graphic coincidence are demonstrated between pages of Ghazaros Saryan's score and the placement of details within the pictorial space of Martiros Saryan's paintings. The publication concludes with a reconstruction of the Temple of Garni in the graphic contours of musical notation, where Ghazaros Saryan, through the means of musical writing, recreated the outlines of the Temple of Garni. Musical symbols, having become "brushstrokes" (or rather points in the technique of pointillism - essentially common to both painters and composers), served as a medium for the embodiment of the artistic idea.