It’s one of the 20th century’s most distinctive works: thrilling, evocative, at times bombastic, and also featuring one very unusual instrument. Read on for our guide to the Khachaturian Piano Concerto and some of its best recordings.
Who was Aram Khachaturian?
Born in Tblisi in 1903, the future composer Aram Khachaturian moved in his late teens to Moscow, where he studied with, among others, composer Nikolai Myaskovsky. Early works such his Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (1932) and First Symphony (1934) earned the admiration of the likes of Prokofiev and Shostakovich before his Piano Concerto really propelled him into the limelight. With one brief blip in 1948, he managed to stay on the right side of the Soviet authorities as he pursued a composing career that included various film scores plus the flamboyant ballets Gayane and Spartacus. He died in 1978.
What is Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto like?
Bold, brash and bombastic – as well as beguilingly beautiful – Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto is a showstopper. Like much of the composer’s music, it draws on a colourful timbral palette – notably the flexatone or, more commonly, a musical saw, which appears in the middle movement (more on that later).
Its melodic and stylistic freedom is evocative of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, with dramatic keyboard ascents and descents and a rumbling bass. The whirring motifs frequently take inspiration from eastern folk music: although he was born in what is now Tbilisi, Georgia, Khachaturian identified closely with his Armenian heritage – driving rhythms and spiralling cadenzas fill his Piano Concerto.
The opening Allegro maestoso begins with a bang – literally. Timpani leads the orchestra on a stomping hill-walk to the piano entry, which mimics and expands the theme, throwing it back to the ensemble. You’ll know by this point whether this piece is for you or not: melodic development, though enjoyable, is not particularly imaginative.
The extended cadenza concludes with a jolly orchestral flourish; the twirling theme reappears and the piano duets with woodwind. A flute solo underlines the eastern harmonic influence; an idea that recurs in the following Andante con anima, with its folksy, mysterious melodies.
What unusual instrument features in Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto?
This movement is famous – or notorious – for its use of a flexatone, a percussion instrument that features a small metal plate that is hit by beaters, creating an otherworldly tremolo sound. It produces a similar effect to the older, more established, musical saw, which is often used in lieu of the flexatone. The unusual timbre enhances the distinctive harmonies and gives the music a strange, unsettling overtone – albeit briefly (the percussion part comprises two minutes in the half-hour work).
The final Allegro brillante follows a Lisztian tradition for piano pyrotechnics: virtuosic passages pour across the keyboard, pausing to refuel in the lower octaves, before gathering pace for the final rush alongside the orchestra. After a quick revisit of the original theme – we’ve never lost sight of it on the horizon – there’s a big, brassy finale. The smell of gunpowder lingers in the air.
When was the first performance of Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto?
Given the characterful, charismatic nature of much of the music, this concerto requires projection from both pianist and piano – something that was lacking during its premiere in 1937. Lev Oborin, the work’s dedicatee, performed it with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Lev Steinberg. However, the only piano available was an upright (not unusual for the time).
Playing in the open-air venue Sokolniki Park made conditions even more unfavourable. At one point, a gust of wind took hold of Steinberg’s glasses and he had to conduct from memory. Khachaturian didn’t seem too worried – he later expressed delight at Oborin’s performance.
The British premiere was more successful. Though it was originally offered to Clifford Curzon, it was Moura Lympany – a versatile pianist who would secure her place in history playing in Myra Hess’s National Gallery lunchtime recitals during the Second World War – who gave the first performance in 1940. She then took it to the BBC Proms in 1942, and again in ’44 and ’49.
‘What was deemed frothy and fun has been recast as frivolous’
In 1950 it was taken on by another pianist, the Australian Noel Mewton-Wood (whose life was cut short by suicide at the age of 31 three years later – Britten’s Canticle III: Still falls the rain was composed for a concert in his memory). And then it disappeared from the Proms – it hasn’t featured there since – and, by and large, from programmes further afield too. Although not short of recording representation, when compared with Soviet compatriots Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Khachaturian is far less ubiquitous.
What once appeared frothy and fun – coveted qualities during World War II – seems now to appear frivolous. Reviewing a 2014 concert at Royal Festival Hall, in which the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) and Osmo Vänskä performed Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto with the intrepid Marc-André Hamelin, The Guardian’s reviewer wrote that even the soloist’s brilliance ‘couldn’t disguise the concerto’s emptiness; the piece is memorable for including a musical saw in the slow movement, not for Khachaturian’s music’.
The saw seems to be a sticking point – there’s no denying the sound and instrument’s appearance is engaging, or even amusing. The original flexatone is more subtle and, while Khachaturian is taken less seriously for its inclusion, there were several notable forebears – Shostakovich’s 1929 opera The Nose, for instance, features a flexatone, as does Erwin Schulhoff’s 1925 Symphony No. 1 – and several would also follow.
Khachaturian Piano Concerto best recordings
Best recording
Xiayin Wang (piano)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Peter Oundjian
Chandos CHSA5167
Hamelin and the LPO’s 2014 Southbank performance went out on BBC Radio 3 and, while not currently available as an official recording, curious listeners can easily find it online. (Perhaps an enterprising producer could add it to the Hyperion Records catalogue, as the work appears to be missing from the label’s otherwise extensive piano concerto collection.)
Hamelin’s energy, flair and technical precision is hard to match, which makes Xiayin Wang’s recording for Chandos all the more significant – the American-Chinese pianist’s 2016 version with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) is never less than thrilling.
Conductor Peter Oundjian sets a restrained pace, allowing the swell of sound to develop at a moderate speed, and leaving space for the music to breathe. Wang’s detailed phrases are impeccably mic’d: every single note of each glissando is detectable, and the cadenzas – particularly the all-important long one in the first movement and the riotous solos in the Allegro brillante – are clear as a bell.
‘The piano remains the star of the concerto’
Crucially, the RSNO is enlarged by a flexatone rather than a musical saw in the Andante con anima (player uncredited, unfortunately). As the plaintive, pared-back piano melody unfolds across the upper register, closing back into a simple scalic passage, the unmistakable eerie wobble begins.
Unlike other versions, the flexatone is better integrated into the orchestral paintbox, rather than a fluorescent yellow messily daubed across the top. Its entry is less jarring than the musical saw, and Oundjian, Chandos and the flexatonist do not forefront the part – if anything, the strings somewhat overpowered it.
The piano remains the star of the concerto, although a gorgeously resonant bass clarinet also gets its moment in the sun. Careful balance prevails through the Allegro brillante, with its pick ‘n’ mix piano passages, rhythmic chords and, later, brass explosions.
Wang creates tension in the central cadenza through subtle rubato, almost plucking the notes from the keyboard before setting off the fireworks. A wince-inducing comment from the Daily Mail’s reviewer claims that the pianist ‘may look fragrantly feminine but is a steely-fingered virtuoso of the old school’. In other, more appropriate, words, Wang has the necessary stamina, strength and style for this free-flowing, complex, multi-faceted music.
Three more great recordings
Moura Lympany (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra/Anatole Fistoulari
The sound quality isn’t ideal in Moura Lympany’s 1952 recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Anatole Fistoulari (rereleased in various guises over the years. However, it’s worth exploring both for its musicianship and historical significance.
As well as being the first pianist to introduce the work to British audiences and making it her own through her Proms performances, Lympany made two recordings with Fistoulari. The earlier 1945 reading (this time with the London Symphony Orchestra) also features in the Moura Lympany – The Decca Legacy collection for comparative listening. //(Decca 482 9404)
Mikhail Voskresensky (piano), Emin Khachaturian/USSR Symphony Orchestra
Falling somewhere between Wang and Lympany in terms of style, Voskresensky imbues Khachaturian’s Concerto with lush Romanticism without ever losing the thrust of the music. The former Moscow Conservatory professor once studied with the concerto’s dedicatee Lev Oborin. Further enhancing this lineage, the composer’s brother Emin Khachaturian conducts the USSR Symphony Orchestra in this 1982 recording. There is greater variation in tempos, especially in the Allegro brilliante, where Voskresensky pushes and pulls to great effect. //(Audiophile APL101516)
William Kapell (piano), Boston Symphony Orchestra/Serge Koussevitzky
While Lympany was introducing BBC Proms audiences to Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto in Britain, William Kapell was the work’s biggest advocate in the US. He made the best-selling premiere recording with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and Serge Koussevitzky in 1946, securing his name in the pantheon of pianists. Exaggerated rubato aside, his melting melodies and the salty-sweet BSO strings are well worth the minor inconvenience of an occasionally fuzzy piano – the recording has had multiple remasterings and rereleases. // (Naxos 8110673)