Khachaturian Sabre Dance

Khachaturian Sabre Dance Program Notes

Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance is from his 1942 ballet Gayane. On a collective farm, the young woman Gayane’s husband is reprehensible (a kidnapper, arsonist and drunkard). The Red Army Border Guard helps solve the farm’s problems, and Gayane’s too, and she now marries the noble leader of the Guards.  The marriage features celebratory regional dances. This Sabre Dance sounds nothing like the music of the Kurds who it’s meant to represent, but it may capture the bravery and fierce loyalty of their Peshmerga fighters.

Aram Khachaturian
Born: June 6, 1903, Tbilisi, Georgia
Died: May 1, 1978, Moscow, Russia