Max Derrickson

Aram Khachaturian   (June 6, 1903 – May 1, 1978)

Sabre Dance from the ballet Gayane

There can be no more popular a work to one composer as Sabre Dance is to Aram Khachaturian.  It literally made him a household name around the world after its premiere in 1942.  Steeped in Armenian folk tune and “character” dance, the Sabre Dance uses long successions of repeated notes.    [. . .]

It’s a wonderful bit of humor, and reflective of the composer himself, that such a fierce string of phrases in this dance should lead into a toy-box like pentatonic scale, and then … puff, the end.