KOMITAS - the Founder of Modern Armenian Classical Music The author of this marvelous music composition is SOGHOMON SOGHOMONYAN, commonly known as Komitas Vardapet or KOMITAS. The outstanding Armenian priest, composer, choir leader, singer, music ethnologist, music pedagogue and musicologist was born in 1869 in Kütahya (Turkey). In childhood he could already sing perfectly, and no wonder in Kütahya he was nicknamed “a little vagrant singer”. Orphaned at 11, he was sent to live in the monastery at Etchmiadzin, the Holy See of the Armenian Apostolic Church, where he was given a new name, Komitas (named after the seventh-century Armenian catholicos). As it was forbidden to speak Armenian at that time the boy spoke Turkish and when being greeted by the Catholicos Gevorg IV, he replied, “I don’t speak Armenian, if you wish I will sing”. Then with his fine soprano voice he sang an Armenian sharakan (a church hymn) without understanding the words. A talented musician, Komitas traveled to Berlin to continue his musical education at the conservatory and the Frederick Wilhelm Imperial University. He visited various regions of Armenia treating and putting down thousands of Armenian, Kurdish, Persian and Turkish songs. He started serious scientific research work, studied Armenian folk and church melodies and worked on the theory of voices. KOMITAS GAVE MANY LECTURES AND PERFORMANCES throughout EUROPE, TURKEY and EGYPT, thus representing very little known Armenian music. Komitas was the FIRST NON-EUROPEAN TO BE ADMITTED INTO THE INTERNATIONAL MUSIC SOCIETY, of which he was a co-founder. In 1910 Komitas moved to Istanbul, where he established a 300-member choir, “Gusan” (poet-musician or minstrel). On April 24, 1915, the day when the Armenian Genocide affected the most prominent Western Armenians, he was arrested and deported on a train together with 180 other Armenian notables. In the autumn of 1916, he was taken to a hospital in Constantinople, and then moved to Paris, where he died in a psychiatric clinic in 1935. Next year, his ashes were transferred to Yerevan and buried in the Pantheon that was named after him. “The Armenian people found and recognized its soul, its spiritual nature” in Komitas’ songs. Komitas Vardapet is a beginning having no end. He will live through the Armenian people, and they must live through him, now and forever” (Vazgen I, the Catholicos of all Armenians). Father Komitas, who was in our carriage, seemed mentally unstable. He thought the trees were bandits on the attack and continually hid his head under the hem of my overcoat, like a fearful partridge. He begged me to say a blessing for him ["The Savior"] in the hope that it would calm him.” The Yerevan State Musical Conservatory is named after Komitas. There also exists a worldwide renowned string quartet named after Komitas. youtube/watch?v=8H72E1CykAQ
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 21:09:47 +0000
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