Symphony No. 1 in E minor (1934)
Dance Suite (1933)

Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) composed three symphonies, ballets, various concertos, a string quartet, incidental music and plenty of pieces for solo piano and yet, all he seems to be remembered for are the famous, stand-on-its-own Sabre Dance from his ballet Gayaneh, and the enthrallingly riveting Adagio from the ballet Spartacus. Could this neglect be due to the fact that in 1948, along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich, he was denounced as "formalist" by the Soviet authorities. Or could it be because his music generally sounds too "Armenian", too "Caucasian" to appeal to everyone. But it's precisely its folk-inspired rhythms and melodies that lend it its charm and character.

And his Symphony No. 1 in E minor, written as a graduation piece, is a prime example of how he could seamlessly combine his native folk music with symphonic structure and development. The first movement in particular, with its strongly compelling main theme marked by definite Eastern influences, leads the listener through a myriad of vivid imagery opening up cogent vistas of the ancient land and its folklore. The highly dramatic and impassioned Adagio sostenuto which follows certainly adds to the music's arcane allure. The whole symphony is capped by an energetic coda that well demonstrates Khachaturian's orchestration skills.

And as the booklet notes point out, the Uzbek Dance from the Dance Suite "transports us into one of those wondrous landscapes that the great Martiros Saryan captured on his canvases." Just like Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez or Borodin's Polovstian Dances make your mind travel to mystical times and places, so does Khachaturian's idiomatic musical soundscape, expertly captured and projected here by the Robert-Schumann Philharmonie under the direction of Frank Beermann