Makar Ekmalian - Piano Works (Mikael Ayrapetyan)

Information

Composer: Makar Ekmalian

• Nocturne for Piano
• Song Without Words
• 10 Armenian Folk Songs
• 3 Armenian Folk Esquisses
• Patarag (excerpts, arr. M. Ayrapetyan)

Mikael Ayrapetyan, piano

Date: 2022

Label: Grand Piano

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Review

Makar Ekmalian, born in Armenia in 1856, and a student of Rimsky-Korsakov, was to become one of the nation’s most influential composers in the Nineteenth century.

His library of pieces was varied and included orchestral, vocal scores and a number of piano pieces, and a large number of works for sacred use. This release offers just a brief survey selected by the Armenian pianist and composer, Mikael Ayrapetyan that opens with a charming Nocturne reminding me of Chopin in his most sentimental mood, the attractive basic melody heavily decorated. It is to set the mood for the programme that follows with Song Without Words, a delightful cameo from his student days in 1888, pre-dating the arrangement of Ten Armenian Folk Songs that were completed the following year. In content they all have the tonal colours emanating from that part of the world, but now placed within a west European framework, variation relying on tempos and length that is mixed in the gentle picture of The Lovely Mountains coming next to the activity of the Spinning Wheel. The disc’s most extended section comes with Ayrapetyan’s selection from Patarag (The Divine Liturgy). Composed by Ekmalian for a four-voiced a cappella mixed choir, Patarag is the name given to the musical participation of Christian worship in the Armenian church. From that backdrop Ayrapetyan has chosen twelve sections ‘transcribed’ for piano, and again we have a work where variance comes not only from length, but equally from the pulse of each track, the whole lasting around forty minutes. I found The Spirit of God, Our Father and the final Blessed be God deeply moving. Much of the disc relies on simplicity, and the sound engineering reflects that requirement in a Los Angles studio in May of last year.

— David Denton

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Makar Ekmalian (2 February 1856 - 6 March 1905) was an Armenian composer. Born in Vagharshapat, he studied at the Gevorgian Theological Academy and later at the St Petersburg Conservatory under Rimsky-Korsakov. Ekmalian contributed significantly to the preservation and standardization of Armenian liturgical music and expanded its genre boundaries by integrating Armenian melodic traditions with European polyphonic forms. His magnum opus, the four-voice a cappella Patarag (1892), became a landmark in Armenian church music. A respected educator and choral director, he influenced composers such as Komitas.

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Mikael Ayrapetyan (born 1984) is an Armenian pianist, composer and researcher. Following his debut at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, he has championed the works of numerous Armenian composers through performances, recordings and his Secrets of Armenia project, initiated during his studies at the Moscow Conservatory. Trained in the Russian piano tradition, Ayrapetyan performs a broad repertoire from Baroque to contemporary music, with a particular focus on rarely heard Armenian works. He is a recipient of Armenia's State Prize and has received critical acclaim for his many award-winning recordings.

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