Various Composers - Gems from Armenia (Aznavoorian Duo)

Information

1. Komitas Vardapet - Chinar es
2. Komitas Vardapet - Dsirani dsar
3. Komitas Vardapet - Garoun a
4. Komitas Vardapet - Al aylughs
5. Komitas Vardapet - Krunk
6. Aram Khachaturian - Ivan Sings (arr. A Hakkarainen)
7. Aram Khachaturian - Garun Yerevan
8. Arno Babajanian - Elegy for Cello & Piano
9. Arno Babajanian - Aria & Dance for Cello & Piano: I. Aria
10. Arno Babajanian - Aria & Dance for Cello & Piano: II. Dance
11. Avet Terterian - Cello Sonata: I. Andante
12. Avet Terterian - Cello Sonata: II. Adagio
13. Avet Terterian - Cello Sonata: III. Presto
14. Serouj Kradjian - Sari Siroun Yar
15. Alexander Arutiunian - Impromptu for Cello & Piano
16. Vache Sharafyan - Petrified Dance
17. Peter Boyer - Mount Ararat

Aznavoorian Duo

    Ani Aznavoorian, cello

    Marta Aznavoorian, piano

Date: 2022

Label: Cedille

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Review

Ani and Marta Aznavoorian are American cello-and-piano playing sisters of Armenian heritage. Ani is a well-regarded soloist, and some may know Marta as a founder member of the Lincoln Trio, a first-class ensemble. Together they join for a recital focused squarely on the music of the country from which their great-grandparents fled around the time of the First World War.

Komitas remains the founding father of Armenian music and his attempt to absorb the essence of its musical soul and distil it for the betterment of future generations is rightly recognised here. The five pieces performed as a group explore the essence of the country’s music in pieces that evoke descriptive nature settings and problems of love. Garoun, the third of the five selected pieces, explores a lament on the subject of love – eloquently performed – whilst Krunk, the last of the five, is the most musically developed and sophisticated. I’m not sure I could link a piece to its title, necessarily, but they’re all very descriptive.

Khachaturian is represented by two little pieces, of which Yerevan is the more interesting. The title references the Armenian capital, and its fine melody is enhanced by recognition that both it and the percussive piano speak of the city’s prestige and sense of self. Most of the programme, in fact, is given over to small, largely descriptive pieces, such as Babajanian’s Elegy which represents his solo piano tribute to his late teacher, Khachaturian – it is well programmed, therefore, to follow Yerevan. The Aria and Dance contrasts the mournful-songful former with the catchy and flair-filled latter. At the heart of the programme is Avet Terterian’s Cello Sonata, composed in 1952 when he was in his early 20s. The first two movements are essentially slow, the first rising to a pitch before falling away into episodes of ruminative intensity, and the second both brooding and intense. The sense of accumulated tension is swept away by the brilliant finale, with its rich B section, and a resplendent restatement, that ends the piece in triumph.

Serouj Kradjian’s take on the traditional Sari Siroun Yar conforms to its essential sense of melancholy whereas Artiunian’s Impromptu is an athletic piece from 1948 compete with the richest of chording. The Petrified Dance of Vache Sharafyan is admirably pictorial, its coiling cello writing and still piano successfully conveying the spectral stillness of the forest. Finally, there is Peter Boyer’s Mount Ararat which is the disc’s outlier, given that Boyer is American. Nevertheless, he wrote it for the sisters, to pursue how Armenia’s biblical heritage chimed with a composer from a wholly different background. The answer is very dramatically, richly voiced as it is and full of very expressive writing. These concerns are dealt with by the Aznavoorian Duo very capably.

As always Çedille’s notes and recording are outstanding and the Duo both celebrates and projects Armenian music very effectively.

— Jonathan Woolf

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Ani Aznavoorian is an internationally recognized cellist who earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, studying with Aldo Parisot. She serves as principal cellist of Camerata Pacifica and has held faculty positions at the University of Illinois and the Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea. Praised for her sensitivity and virtuosity, she has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician with leading orchestras and artists worldwide. A committed advocate of new music, she has premiered major contemporary works and is a founding member of the Corinthian Trio.

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Marta Aznavoorian is an accomplished American pianist who studied with Menahem Pressler at Indiana University, earning her bachelor's degree and artist diploma, and later completed a master's degree at the New England Conservatory with Patricia Zander. A Chicago native, she has performed widely in the United States and internationally, appearing as a soloist with major orchestras including the Chicago Symphony and Sydney Symphony. She has collaborated with distinguished conductors and artists, won numerous prestigious competitions, and performed in leading concert venues and festivals worldwide.

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