One of the most popular musicians in the former Soviet Union, Aram Khachaturian was originally trained as a biologist and only started to study music at 19. An Armenian – although born in Georgia – he had a knack for stirring rhythms and driving melodies, blending the orientalism of his native music with the lush Russian Romantic tradition. Beginning with his Piano Concerto in 1936 and including such later works as his Violin Concerto and the ballets Gayane and Spartakus, he created a series of compositions that became instantly popular around the world. 

In spite of Khachaturian’s popularity and leadership role in the Soviet Composer’s Union and his expressed opposition to modern experiments, he was not spared from interference by the Soviet bureaucracy. Together with Shostakovich, Prokofiev and a host of lesser composers, the Central Committee of the Communist Party chastised him for his “modernistic” transgressions. It was only after Stalin’s death in 1953 that he felt free again to compose in his own idiom.

Khachaturian composed the Piano Concerto in 1936. Since he was not a gifted pianist, he sought the help and technical advice of Sergey Prokofiev, who had extensive experience in concerto writing. It was premiered in Leningrad in 1937 and became an instant favorite with the public and commissars alike. The fact that the Concerto highlights the modes and melodies of Georgia and Armenia, two of the Soviet republics, made its exoticism politically acceptable.

The entire Concerto is rhapsodic in nature, its formal themes alternating with elaborate fantasies for piano in the traditional ambience of the steppe. It opens with fortissimo introductory chords by the whole orchestra, heralding the rhythmically compelling theme introduced by the soloist. In this movement, Khachaturian employs the theme almost as a refrain, periodically returning to it after the lengthy sinuous excursions of the piano. 

The slow movement is based on two melodies, the first of which, according to the composer, is derived from a melody once popular in his native Tbilisi. It is introduced by the bass clarinet, an uncommon touch, after which the soloist immediately takes up a second theme. Throughout the movement, the composer continually varies and embellishes these melodies in an almost improvisatory way. As in the opening movement, however, he periodically returns to the original unaltered version of the melody as a refrain or anchor. In this movement, Khachaturian made use of a curious instrument, originally used in jazz, the flexatone, which makes an eerie tremolo sound similar to that of the musical saw. One of those experimental instruments to fall by the wayside, the flexatone is now frequently replaced by a violin. 

The trumpet opens the exuberant and brilliant finale with its dance rhythms both folksy and jazzy. The momentum is interrupted by a long dreamy digression for the soloist. The piano gradually builds momentum, returning to the mood of the opening and leading back finally to a varied and rousing restatement of the opening theme of the first movement of the Concerto.