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, RussiaThe Sabre Dance is a brief but electrifying orchestral piece from Aram Khachaturian's ballet Gayane, composed in 1942. It depicts a wild sword dance and is one of the most immediately recognizable pieces of classical music in the world.
Khachaturian composed the entire ballet Gayane in just 8 days under wartime pressure in 1942, and it was premiered in Perm, Russia on December 9, 1942 by the evacuated Kirov Ballet.
The Sabre Dance lasts just approximately 2 minutes — but those 2 minutes are among the most exciting in the orchestral repertoire.
Listen for the relentless, driving rhythm that gives the piece its irresistible energy, and the way the various sections of the orchestra pile in one after another. The woodwind and brass writing is particularly brilliant and demanding.
Khachaturian initially considered the Sabre Dance a minor throwaway piece dashed off to fill a gap in the ballet. He was reportedly surprised and somewhat bemused when it became the most famous thing he ever wrote, eventually appearing in everything from circus acts to toothpaste commercials.
