Aram Khatschaturian

Spartacus Suite

Aram Iljitsj Khatchaturian, an Armenian by nationality, was born 1903 in Tiflis, into the family of a book-binder. He began his musical education in Moscow in 1922 at the Gnessin Music School where his composition master was Mikhail Gnessin, and completed it at the Moscow Conservatoire where he was a pupil of Nikolai Miaskovsky, the famous Sovjet composer and pedagogue. Khatchaturian is the author of two symphonies, three concertos (for piano, for violin and for cello), the music for three ballets (Happiness, Gayane, Spartacus), and many chamber instrumental and vocal compositions. His latest work ' the ballet Spartacus ' has won in 1959 the Lenin Prize, at that time the highest honour. N. Volkov's libretto for the ballet 'Spartacus' is based on actual historical events ' the great uprising of the slaves in Rome in 74 ' 71 B. C. under the leadership of Spartacus. In spite of its historical subject, 'Spartacus' is essentially modern. Khatchaturian wrote : 'I think that the heroic personality of Spartacus is in many aspects close to the struggle the oppressed colonial peoples of today are waging for their rights'. 'Spartacus' is made out of three suites. Each of the suites is an independent work, complete by itself and possessing its own logic of development.