A Guest Post by Oleg Volkov

The Baltic record collector introduces us to an Armenian composer

Oleg Volkov is a friend, record collector, and fellow newsletter writer from Lithuania. We became acquainted through Office Hours on Substack and he’s been a great supporter of What’s Curation?

Oleg Volkov, from Vilnius.

Every week, Oleg shares book reviews, essays, musings on linguistics and languages, and more.

But today, he’s in the driver’s seat with an offering from Armenian composer, Aram Khachaturian. Take it away, Oleg!

---

It’s a pleasure to be here, Nikhil.

There are two types of people – those who need perfect silence and those who can't work without music. I've tried silence, white noise, grey noise, and those cute little mixes with rain sounds and café chatter. They're all fine, but nothing beats an album I know in and out to get me through a day of work.

For years, I had several albums on repeat - a few metal ones (Mastodon, Dark Tranquility, Tristania, Lacuna Coil) and Ofra Haza's Yemenite Songs, which is still one of my favorite Middle Eastern folk albums. But one day, by the whim of serendipity, I came across the music of Aram Khachaturian, the most famous Armenian composer of the 20th century.

Credit: Liana Karapetyan H. Used under CC BY-SA 4.0

Little did I know that his 2-hour-long ballets would become my go-to work soundtrack. After all, I've probably been to see ballet only twice in my life.

Gayaneh, in particular, is a masterpiece.

It has its epic parts (giving Hans Zimmer a run for his money) and its medleys. It changes so much through the four acts yet stays so cohesive. It’s classical music but has a distinct Armenian flair, expressed through the region’s percussion instruments, like the daira.

Interestingly, before sitting down to write this post, I thought Gayaneh was based on some old Armenian legend. And I was amazed to learn that actually it's set on a… collective farm!

The plot follows Gayaneh, a young Armenian woman, who leaves her drunkard husband for a Soviet officer. There’s stabbing (both of-the-back and of-the-knife kind), love, devotion, Kurdish-Armenian relations, and sabre dances. The Sabre Dance is also the ballet’s most famous piece.

But you don't need to know anything about the plot to enjoy the piece! That’s the beauty of symphonies, as you can set anything to them in your imagination. And parts of Gayaneh itself were repurposed for many soundtracks, including Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Cameron’s Aliens. So, even if you’re not a fan of classical music, but you’re looking for a piece to inspire you, give Gayaneh a try!

Thanks for reading What’s Curation? and I hope to see you on Fictitious!

-Oleg.