Scholarly record
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARMENIAN PIANO MUSIC IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY: FIRST ARMENIAN VIRTUOSO CONCERT PIECES IN DIKRAN TCHOUHADJIAN'S PIANO HERITAGE
Abstract
This article is dedicated to the comprehensive study of virtuosic concert piano pieces of Dikran Tchouhadjian (1837-1898): Armenian classical musician, a genius composer, the founder of Armenian musical theatre, a gifted pianist, a talented conductor, a skillful pedagogue and an active musical and public figure, who lived and worked in Constantinople in the 19th century. We used traditional methods of research, such as study of archives, empiric and theoretical analysis of the pieces. In this article an attempt is made to reveal the musical-stylistic features of D. Tchouhadjian's virtuosic concert pieces and to define the place and role of his piano works both in the composer's musical heritage and in the history of the Armenian music. In the second half of the 19th century, when polyphony had just started taking roots in the Armenian monophonic music, D. Tchouhadjian's piano compositions made a revolution: the composer “Armenianized” the piano, connecting the future of the Armenian music with the European polyphony. Adding Armenian colors to a number of genres of the European piano music (which later were widely employed in the Armenian piano music), having mastered the ample arsenal of the European composing technique, being a connoisseur of the expressive means of both European and Oriental music, D. Tchouhadjian created the first virtuosic pieces of Armenian piano music, among them: Caprice for piano “La lyre orientale”, Danse caracteristique “L'oriental”, Impromptu “Cascade dе Couz”, Grande Valse Fantastique “Illusions”, “Fantasies orientales sur des motifs turcs” \#1, 2, “Perpetuum mobile”, the first in the Armenian piano music “Marche funebre” – a Mass for the Armenian Patriarch in Turkey, Nerses Varjabedyan. D. Tchouhadjian's piano pieces greatly influenced the life of music and theatre, as well as the teaching practice of Constantinople in the middle of the 19th century. They introduced and promoted the piano performing art in the Armenian reality and in the general musical life of the Ottoman Empire.
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