By Aaron Keebaugh
BOSTON (Boston Musical Intelligencer) — Researching the life of Aram Khachaturian calls for one to gaze into the cracks of a fractured legacy. Born in the Caucasus, the composer embraced the ideology of the Soviet Union with unapologetic vigor. Indeed, most of his works provided the very model for socialist realism: they are tuneful, saturated in the sounds of folk music, yet consistently bent towards a triumphant finish that, more than his contemporaries Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich (the May Day Symphony excepted), symbolized the triumph of populist will.
Yet even during his lifetime, Khachaturian leaned heavily on his Armenian heritage in crafting some of his most beloved pieces. The Armenian people continued to return the affection, even after the fall of the Soviet Union, by elevating him into a figure that, paradoxically, symbolizes Armenian independence.
That spirit of nationalistic fervor set the tone for the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra’s visit to Symphony Hall on June 26 as part of the ensemble’s first U.S. concert tour. With an all-Khachaturian program in tow — music seldom heard in Boston — the orchestra treated us to a rip-roaring good time, as did the Armenian National Symphony in its Khachaturian-plus concert at Symphony Hall last November.
This is an orchestra that can turn up the heat and have fun while doing it. Sergey Smbatyan the orchestra’s founder, artistic director and principal conductor didn’t so much lead as simply lay back and manage his considerable forces. The strings played with a bright, biting tone that pierced through the powerful waves of the woodwinds and brass. But the seismic urgency rarely resulted in an unbalanced sound. If one wanted a little more plushness to their approach in Khachaturian’s languid moments, the sheer vitality of this performance at least made you sit up and listen carefully.
The familiar Violin Concerto generated such edge-of-the-seat panache from the onset. Sergey Khachatryan, the major-prize-winning soloist, made easy work of the bustling lines and zipping scales. Through it all, his tone cut against the orchestral forces, at times even brusquely. Only in his upper register did his tones tip towards lightness.