The Marketing Power Of TV

An Armenian born in Georgia and working for most of his life under the auspices of the Soviet Union, Aram Khachaturian was not always in an enviable position and his music is often dismissed accordingly. It is not without merit however and is shown to good effect on this disk of extracts from the ballets Spartacus and Gayaneh with the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by the composer himself. The music of both ballets is following in the footsteps of Rimsky-Korsakov with oriental touches and folk oriented themes spiced up with a hint of Hollywood film music styles. Both ballets have famous hit tunes. With Spartacus it is the adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia, which was given a totally changed context from Ancient Rome to 19th century sailing ships by the BBC making it the theme to the successful tv series The Onedin Line. That certainly gave a massive boost to the sales of this album in its' original vinyl format. Gayaneh was Khachaturian's second ballet and the famous hit here is Sabre Dance. The other extracts show similar oriental and folky aspects however and the Vienna band obviously enjoy the orchestral showcases. This reissue cd is completed by a performance of Glazunov's ballet The Season's, played by L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Ernest Ansermet. A plotless ballet, simply portraying the four seasons of the year, it isn't very profound music when divorced from the dance it was meant to accompany but fills out this disk in a pleasant enough fashion. Amongst the dreamy waltzes, Autumn has a familiar "big tune" that it might surprise some to discover in this work.