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  • Lang, David Marshall (1970). Armenia: Cradle of Civilization. London: Allen & Unwin. 261 Saved from death by a compassionate German officer, Komitas ended his days at an asylum in Paris; his mortal remains were repatriated to Soviet Armenia, and lie in state for ever in Erevan, where his grave is a national shrine.


https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/komitas Komitas Michael Church explores the enduring influence of Komitas, the composer and pioneering folk-collector whose career met a brutal end


Levon Hakobian, Music of the Soviet Era: 1917-1991, [PDF]

https://books.google.am/books?id=eiolDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA115 Komitas 305, 318 [check others]

https://escs.am/am/news/20370 Կոմիտաս Վարդապետի ստեղծագործությունները գրանցվել են ՅՈՒՆԵՍԿՕ-ի Աշխարհի հիշողության միջազգային ռեգիստրում

The collection of works of Komitas registered in the UNESCO International Register of Memory of the World https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1111253.html

https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/register2023 List of the 64 new items of documentary heritage inscribed on the Memory of the World International Register in 2023. Collection of Works of the Composer Komitas Vardapet Submitter: Armenia

Komitas (1869-1935) is a musicologist and composer who was one of the pioneers in the world to invent folkmusic as phenomenon. His activity outlined new paths in collecting and analyzing traditional music and involving them in music composition. In this regard, he had a significant impact on the activity of folk music collectors of the 20th century. Komitas created a new style of composition, which synthesized authentic folk and Christian church music with Western means of composition. His work has been a guide for many composers and his music is performed by famous world musicians independent of nationality or geographic location. The significance of this collection is therefore evident in not just the Armenian, but the regional, Middle Eastern, and universal music culture. The collection includes the survived original copies and manuscripts of (a) folk music collections, (b) compositional works, and (c) scientific research on music.


[1]

https://variety.com/2021/film/reviews/songs-of-solomon-review-1234891581/ ‘Songs of Solomon’ Review: A Clumsy Rendering of Key Chapter of Armenian History

Impending Death as a Catalyst in Reconnection

Կոմիտասը աքսորում. 1915 թվական (ժամանակագրություն)

Կոմիտաս Վարդապետի թուրքերեն ստեղծագործություններ

Հայ երգի Մաշտոցն ու նրա ճեմարանական տարիները

https://armenianweekly.com/2020/12/15/songs-of-solomon-being-considered-for-the-93rd-academy-awards-international-feature-film-category/

https://armenianweekly.com/2021/02/03/songs-of-solomon-and-the-oscar-goes-to/?fbclid=IwAR1kBG0XuyF_xPfwmBr3FrXGvY5PauhdcPDiFih47GM0xUit99zyqBgjs9o

Asatryan, Anna (2019). "Komitas and the Ways of Development of Armenian Music (to the 150th anniversary of Komitas)". Journal of Armenian Studies (2): 149. Komitas saved the Armenian peasant song from oblivion. His efforts in this field are comparable with the deed of Mesrop Mashtots.

http://www.musicologytoday.ro/BackIssues/Nr.24/studies2.php

http://www.musicologytoday.ro/BackIssues/Nr.24/studies3.php

Komitas
Vardapet
Komitas in 1901[2] or 1902[3]
Born
Soghomon Soghomonian

8 October [O.S. 26 September] 1869
Kütahya, Ottoman Empire
(present-day Turkey)
Died22 October 1935(1935-10-22) (aged 66)
Paris, France
Resting placeKomitas Pantheon, Yerevan, Armenia
NationalityArmenian
EducationGevorgian Seminary
Frederick William University
Occupation(s)Musicologist, composer, choirmaster
Years active1891–1915

Soghomon Soghomonian,[A] ordained and commonly known as Komitas,[B] (Armenian: Կոմիտաս; 26 September 1869 – 22 October 1935) was an Armenian priest, musicologist and choirmaster, who is considered the founder of Armenian national school of music.[5][8] He is recognized as one of the pioneers of ethnomusicology.[9][10]

Orphaned at a young age, Komitas was taken to Etchmiadzin, Armenia's religious center, where he received education at the Gevorgian Seminary. Following his ordination as vardapet (celibate priest) in 1895, he studied music at the Frederick William University in Berlin. He thereafter "used his Western training to build a national tradition".[11] He collected and transcribed over 3,000 pieces of Armenian folk music, more than half of which were subsequently lost and only around 1,200 are now extant. Besides Armenian folk songs, he also showed interested in other cultures and in 1904 published the first-ever collection of Kurdish folk songs. His choir presented Armenian music in many European cities, earning the praise of Claude Debussy, among others. Komitas settled in Constantinople in 1910 to escape mistreatment by ultra-conservative clergymen at Etchmiadzin and to introduce Armenian folk music to wider audiences. He was widely embraced by Armenian communities, while Arshag Chobanian called him the "savior of Armenian music".[12]

During the Armenian Genocide—along with hundreds of other Armenian intellectuals—Komitas was arrested and deported to a prison camp in April 1915 by the Ottoman government. He was soon released under unclear circumstances and experienced a mental breakdown and developed a severe case of what has been retrospectively diagnosed as Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The widespread hostile environment in Constantinople and reports of mass-scale Armenian death marches and massacres that reached him further worsened his fragile mental state. He was first placed in a Turkish military-operated hospital until 1919 and then transferred to psychiatric hospitals in Paris, where he spent the last years of his life in agony. Komitas is widely seen as a martyr of the genocide and has been depicted as one of the main symbols of the Armenian Genocide in art.

Biography

[edit]

Childhood (1869–81)

[edit]

Komitas was born Soghomon Soghomonian in Kütahya, Hüdavendigâr (Bursa) Vilayet, Ottoman Empire on 26 September (8 October in New Style) 1869 to Armenian parents Kevork and Takuhi.[13][14] According to his autobiographical sketches, his parents' ancestors moved to western Anatolia from the Tsghna village in Nakhichevan's Goghtn province at the turn of the century. His family only spoke Turkish due to restrictions by the Ottoman government. Soghomon was their only child. He was baptized three days after his birth. His mother was originally from Bursa and was sixteen at the time of his birth. People who knew her described her as melancholic, while his father was a cheerful person; but both were interested in music. She died in March 1870, just six months after giving birth to him. Her death left deep scars on him, whose his earliest poems were devoted to her. Thereafter, according to different sources, either his father's sister-in-law or his paternal grandmother, Mariam, looked after him.[15]

In 1880, four years after he finished primary school in Kütahya, Soghomon was sent by his father to Bursa to continue his education. He possibly stayed with his maternal grandparents who lived in the city. He was sent back to Kütahya four months later, following his father's death who had became an alcoholic. Although Soghomon was adopted by his paternal uncle Harutyun, his "familiar and social structure had collapsed." A childhood friend described him as "virtually homeless." He was completely deprived of paternal care and was "placed in circumstances that made him vulnerable to the mental illness he suffered later in life".[16]

Etchmiadzin (1881–95)

[edit]
The Etchmiadzin Cathedral (1890s)
The Gevorgian Seminary (1910)

His life took a radical turn in the fall of 1881. In September, the twelve-year-old Soghomon was taken to Etchmiadzin by Kevork Vartabed Tertsagian, the local Armenian bishop, who was asked by the Holy See of Etchmiadzin to find an orphan boy with good singing voice to be enrolled in the prestigious Gevorgian Seminary. On 1 October 1881, Komitas was introduced to Catholicos Gevorg IV, who was disappointed with his lack of knowledge of Armenian, but was so impressed with his singing talent that he often asked Komitas to sing for visitors. After an unfortunate childhood, Komitas found "emotional and intellectual stability" in the seminary.[17]

Between 1881 and 1910, Komitas was mainly based in Etchmiadzin, although he did spent a significant time elsewhere.[18] During his first year at the seminary, Komitas learned the Armenian music notation (khaz) system based on ancient neumes developed earlier in the 19th century by Hampartsoum Limondjian and his students. He gradually discovered a great passion for music and started writing down songs sang by Armenian villagers near Etchmiadzin, who affectionately called him "Notaji Vardapet", meaning "the note-taking priest".[19]

In the early 1890s, Komitas made his first attempts to write music for the poems of Khachatur Abovian, Hovhannes Hovhannisian, Avetik Isahakyan (his younger classmate) and others.[13] In 1891, the Ararat magazine (the Holy See's official newspaper) published his "National Anthem" (Ազգային Օրհներգ, lyrics by seminary student A. Tashjian) for polyphonic choirs. He finished the seminary in 1893 and became a music teacher and was appointed the choirmaster of the Etchmiadzin Cathedral, Armenia's mother church.[13][20]

His earliest major influence was Kristapor Kara-Murza, who taught at the seminary only one year, in 1892. Kara-Murza composed and organized performances of European music for schoolchildren throughout Armenian-populated areas for educational purposes. And although Komitas criticized his works as not authentically Armenian, Kara-Murza was the person who taught Komitas polyphonic choral structure around which he built his musical achievements.[21]

In 1894, Soghomon was ordained hieromonk (կուսակրոն աբեղա) and given the name of the 7th-century poet and musician, Catholicos Komitas.[13] In February 1895,[22] he was ordained vardapet (celibate priest) and became thereafter known as Komitas Vardapet.[20] In the same year, his first collection of transcribed folk music, "The Songs of Agn" (Շար Ակնա ժողովրդական երգերի), which included 25 pieces of love songs, wedding tunes, lullabies and dances was completed. It was disapproved by a reactionary and ultraconservative faction of the Etchmiadzin clergy, who harassed and sarcastically referred to Komitas as "the love-singing priest". Rumors of alleged sexual misconduct were spread, leading Komitas into experiencing an identity crisis.[23]

Tiflis and Berlin (1895–1899)

[edit]
The Frederick William University c. 1900

In October 1895, Komitas left Etchmiadzin for Tiflis to study harmony under composer Makar Yekmalyan, whose polyphonic rendering of Armenian liturgy is the most widely used and who became one of Komitas's most influential teachers.[13] At the time, Tiflis was the most suitable option for Komitas as it was both relatively close to the Armenian lands and had a rectory, where he could stay. The six months Komitas spent with Yekmalyan deepened his understanding of European harmony principles and laid the groundwork for his further education in European conservatories. As Komitas prepared for entrance exams, the wealthy Armenian oil explorer Alexander Mantashev agreed to pay 1,800 rubles for his three-year tuition at the request of Catholicos Mkrtich Khrimian.[24]

Komitas arrived in Berlin in early June 1896 without having been accepted by any university. A group of Armenian friends helped him to find an apartment. He initially took private lessons with Richard Schmidt for a few months. Afterwards, he was accepted into the prestigious Frederick William University.[25] With little left of Mantashev's money after paying for rent and supplies, Komitas cut on food, having one or no meal each day.[26] However, this did not distract him from education and he effectively absorbed the erudition of highly accomplished German teachers. Among them were 18th-19th century folk music specialist Henrich Bellermann, Max Friedlander, Osgar Fleischer. Fleischer in May 1899 established the Berlin chapter of the International Musical Society (German: Internationalen Musikgesellschaft), an active member of which became Komitas. He there lectured on Armenian folk music and suggested that it dates back to pre-Christian, pagan times. His studies at the university ended in July 1899.[27]

Main period of work (1899–1910)

[edit]

Upon his return to Etchmiadzin in September 1899, Komitas resumed teaching and composing. He assembled and trained a large polyphonic choir based on his acquired knowledge. Until 1906, he directed the Gevorgian Seminary choir.[28] It was in this period when he completed "most of the theoretical and research papers that earned him his place among the pioneers of ethnomusicology." Komitas spent summers in Armenian countryside, developing a unique relationship with villagers. He thus took the scholarly task of transcribing and preserving rural Armenian songs. In the fall of 1903 after three years of collection and transcription, Komitas published a collection of 50 folks songs titled "One Thousand and One Songs" (Հազար ու մի խաղ). Lyricist Manuk Abeghian helped him to compile the folk pieces. The same collection was reprinted in 1904, while in 1905 a further of 50 songs were published.[29]

He also composed music for Hovhannes Tumanyan's and Hovhannes Hovhannisian's works. Komitas initiated the creation of Anoush opera, based on Tumanyan's same-name ballad, though he never completed it.[13]

Komitas held concerts with the choir of the Gevorgian Seminary throughout the Caucasus: in Etchmiadzin, Yerevan, Tiflis (1905) and Baku (1908).[18][13]

In 1906, feeling pressured and not appreciated in Etchmiadzin, Komitas traveled to Europe. In Paris he held a successful concert of a choir of Armenian and French opera singers.[30] He gave a lecture at Romain Rolland's Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales ("School of Advanced Social Studies") in 1907.[13] In the same year he performed in Geneva and at the Armenian Catholic monastery in Venice's San Lazzaro degli Armeni.[13]

Constantinople (1910–15)

[edit]
Komitas's "Gusan" choir in 1910

In September 1910 Komitas left Etchmiadzin for Constantinople. The main reason for the departure was the harassment he received from ultra-conservative clergymen for "synthesis of ecclesiastical and folk elements".[31] Especially after the death of Mkrtich Khrimian, his beloved head of the Armenian Church, Komitas felt unwanted there.[18] Additionally, he sought to bring appreciation of Armenian music to a wider audience.[20] He settled in an apartment in the Pera district, where the painter Panos Terlemezian was his roommate. He began to amass a new circle of friends, organized a large, three-hundred member folk choir Gusan.[13] He quickly gained popularity in the Armenian community.[32] In Constantinople he was banned from performing a concert by the deputy Armenian Patriarch in December 1910. The concert was a success and was well received by the press and the public.[33] Despite the negative stance of the church, his popularity continued to rise among Armenians. In June 1911 by invitation of the Armenian community he traveled to Egypt where he performed with a large choir in Cairo and Alexandria.[34]

[35]

With the aim to produce professional musicians, he taught musicology to Barsegh Kanachyan, Mihran Tumacan, Vagharshak Srvandztian and others.[13]

Deportation and final years (1915–35)

[edit]

Permitted to return to Constantinople by special telegramme from Talat Pasha on 7 May 1915.[36]

The eight prisoners of this group were notified on Sunday, 9 May 1915, about their release[37] and left Çankırı on 11 May 1915.

  • After a brief stay in Çangırı, eight people were authorized to return to Istanbul on 11 May: [...] the musicologist Gomidas Vartabed[38]
  • In the cases of Gomidas or Torkomian, for example, it is said that diplomatic circles in Istanbul or court circles interceded on their behalf. It is also possible that after CUP bodies or the interior minister examined the matter it was concluded that this or that individual had been rather hastily added to the list of those to be banned.[38]
  • The patriarch had, moreover, helped organize a network to distribute aid to the deportees who had reached Syria. In this connection, he affirms that the American embassy’s legal advisor, Arshag Shemavonian, played a crucial role in obtaining Gomidas’s release, which others had also sought, and that he had, above all, persuaded the American Red Cross to send the deportees material aid.[38]

Put in an asylum in Constantinople in 1916; taken to Paris in 1919, where he died in 1935. His body was transferred to Yerevan in 1937.[39]

Works

[edit]
  • Komitas Vardapet (1869–1935),whose version of the liturgy is one of two in use today. Komitas Vardapet is highly regarded for his musicological studies and his collection, transcription, and arrangement of Armenian folk music.[40]
  • "Komitas always remained committed to his assertion that Armenians have their own unique music." Komitas's own work is an example of the classical style in Armenian professional music and has become a permanent part of the national heritage. Although the major part of it was lost during the genocide of 1915, the works that were found and preserved later (about 1,200 records of folk songs [of around 4,000]) influenced the subsequent development of Armenian music and demonstrated the value of this music to the world.[41]


  • "Although he composed for the piano, the string quarter, and a capella church music, Komitas's principal contribution to Armenian music, and music in general, came from his lifelong devotion to collecting and transcribing Armenian folksongs. He was the first person to do so, and he gathered more than 3,000 songs."[20]

"In addition to collecting popular songs, Komitas developed the scholarship that identified the ethnological characteristics specific to Armenian folk composition."[20]

  • "In the 19th and 20th centuries, Armenian priest, composer, and ethnomusicologist Komitas Vardapet arranged the Divine Liturgy and many sharakans for four voices. His aim was twofold: to carry Armenian liturgical music into its next stage of spiritual significance through the addition of harmony and to cleanse the music of inappropriate fashionable embellishments through careful research of church modes and the old notation systems (Komitas 1897:159)."[42]
  • Komitas Vardapet wrote the last official version of the Badarak arranging and harmonizing the mass in a four-voiced contrapuntal style for male voices. It was published in 1933 in Paris, by the Komitas COmmittee under the title Chants of the Sacred Liturgy of the Armenian Apostolic Church.[43]
  • Aksoy, Ozan E. "A brief review of Kurdish music literature". University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Retrieved 25 February 2014. At the end of the book there is a reprint of komitas' transcriptions of Kurdish melodies published in 1903. Komitas Vardapet, an Armenian musician and ethnomusicologist who studied the music of West Asia and Asia Minor, had collected approximately 4,000 tunes of Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish folk music. That reprinted piece, which includes thirteen Kurdish tunes, is the first collection of Kurdish musical notations and it is still considered a valuable source for the study of the relationship between Armenian and Kurdish music.


Legacy and recognition

[edit]

[Komitas's] work was after all the musical soul of Armenia, and its destruction by the Turks is easily equated with the Turkish attempts to destroy Armenia and its culture. [...] it is clear that Komitas's story was at least as responsible for his fame and position in Armenian musicological thought (as outside it) as his work.[44]

According to McCollum and Nercessian "Komitas is universally regarded as the 'founding father' of Armenian music, musicology, folk music, and so on. He is recognized as the figure most responsible for substantiating the very notion of an Armenian music and is without doubt the figure who has actually set the basis for our understanding of the Armenian folk musical traditions."[45] Komitas has often been compared to Béla Bartók, the noted Hungarian musicologist,[46] who did similar work by "turning simple material into bewitchingly sophisticated polyphony."[47] "Not everyone has a Bela Bartok or a Komitas to be their ears and to transcribe and preserve oral traditions in songs and poems," wrote French musicologist Lucie Rault.[48]

As early as 1903 the French musicologist Pierre Aubry called Komitas "the Dom Pothier of the East."[49] Arshag Chobanian described him as[50]

...one of the noblest figures of contemporary Armenia, a skillful musician and a great artist, who has collected some thousands of popular songs and has harmonised them. He has also sifted out from our old musical liturgy the Arabian, Byzantine, or Turkish infiltrations, and has brought to the light of day in all its purity the true Armenian musical style.
  • "While harmonizing the songs," writes musicologist Robert Atayan, Komitas "paid special attention to preserve the authentic character and pure national color, style and spirit of Armenian folk songs." [51]


Komitas. He is the Mashtots of the Armenian song and music. There is no Armenian identity and self-consciousness without Mashtots and Komitas, and it’s a fact.[52]

Influence

[edit]
  • Komitas Vardapet greatest contribution to Armenian music was as a collector of secular and sacred music as well as being its first musicologist. [43]

Komitas influenced the subsequent course of Armenian music. Armenian composers "recognized his central role in the creation of a modern Armenian musical culture".[53]

The renowned Soviet Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian used the "raw material" made available by Komitas.[54] Khachaturian acknowledged that he "singlehandedly laid the foundations for Armenia's classical tradition."[47] In reference to their role in Armenian music Şahan Arzruni suggested: "Komitas is the wellspring of Armenian music; Khachaturian is the musical ambassador of Armenian culture."[55]

The Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness was inspired by Komitas's works.[56][57]

Memory

[edit]
Yerevan
Quebec [1]

http://www.komitas.am/eng/modern_armenia.htm

Over the years, numerous statues of Komitas have been erected in Armenia and other countries.[58] In 1955, a statue by Ara Harutyunyan was put in his grave at the Yerevan Pantheon.[59] In 1988, a bronze-covered granite statue by Harutyunyan was erected in the small park near the Yerevan Conservatory.[60] In 1969, Yervand Kochar's statue of Komitas was erected in the central square of the city of Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin).[61]

Montreal https://en.armradio.am/2020/09/06/statue-of-komitas-unveiled-in-montreal/#:~:text=A%20statue%20of%20Komitas%20Vartabed,into%20emotional%20trauma%20by%20it.

File:Komitas bust, Melkonian Educational Institute, Nicosia.jpg Melkonian Educational Institute

Akhurian statue https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=700057910763078&id=233281094107431

File:Komitas.png, Vardablur, Lori

There are at several statues and busts of Komitas outside Armenia: in Detroit, near the Renaissance Center (1980/81),[62][63] in Paris's Jardin d'Erevan (2003),[64][65] and a bust near the Parliament Building in Quebec City (2008),[66] and Kamsky Park in Saint Petersburg (2015).[67] At least three busts of Komitas have been placed in the Paris area: Chaville (1985),[68] Villejuif (1995),[69] Sarcelles (2015).[70]

A major avenue in Yerevan's Arabkir district and a small road in Paris's Armenian-populated Alfortville suburb are named after Komitas.[71]

The Yerevan Conservatory, founded 1921 as studio, became conservatory in 1923 and was named after Komitas in 1946.[72]

[edit]
Panos Terlemezian, 1913
  • Paruyr Sevak compared Komitas [...] with 5th century genius Mesrop Mashtots the founder of the Armenian alphabet. He had good reason. Both contributed to securing for the future a defining dimension of Armenian cultural identity. Mesrop Mashtots set the foundations for the flourishing of a written culture. Some fifteen hundred years later Komitas played a similar role in the world of Armenian music and song.[73]
  • Don Askarian 1989 film http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/119699/Komitas/details
  • Документальный фильм. Голос Комитаса. 1969г., Кинообъединение "Ереван" Ер.СТ, 29мин. (800м), цвет. Авт.сцен./реж. Р.Марухян, опер. С.Мартиросян [О творчестве выдающегося композитора Комитаса]
  • Документальный фильм. Комитас (Песнь вечности). 1970г., ЕСХДФ, 10мин. (277м), ч/б. Авт.сцен./реж. Л.Исаакян, опер.: Г.Санамян, О.Есаян [Фильм посвящен великому армянскому композитору, этнографу-исследователю]
  • Документальный фильм. Комитас. 1982г., ТОДФ “Арменфильм”, 19мин. (540м), ч/б. Авт.сцен. Ю.Арутюнян, реж./опер. Б.Овсепян [О великом армянском композиторе Комитасе, о его жизни и творчестве]
  • Music to Madness: The Story of Komitas (2013) [2][74]


sources

[edit]

http://echmiadzin.asj-oa.am/7653/ Կոմիտասի դերը հայ երաժշտության պատմության մեջ 1994


http://echmiadzin.asj-oa.am/3191/ Չարենցը Կոմիտասի մասին

http://echmiadzin.asj-oa.am/6586/ Հուշեր Կոմիտասի մասին Աճառյան

http://echmiadzin.asj-oa.am/6577/ Կոմիտաս։ Երգ Կոմիտասին Գուրգեն Մահարի

http://echmiadzin.asj-oa.am/6601/ Կոմիտասի անմահ հիշատակին Իսահակյան

http://echmiadzin.asj-oa.am/6579/ Կոմիտասին Սահյան, Համո

http://echmiadzin.asj-oa.am/6606/ Կոմիտասի հետ Սարյան


Sahakyan, Lusine (2012). "Ferenc Liszt's Appraisal by Komitas Vardapet / Valoración de Ferenc Liszt por Komitas Vardapet". Anuario Musical (67). Spanish National Research Council: 215–222. doi:10.3989/anuariomusical.2012.67.142. ISSN 0211-3538. The article, which was titled "Ferents Liszt", was published in one of the numbers / N 19 / of "Taraz" weekly in Tbilisi, in 1904. This article was preceded by Komitas Vardapet's short but meaningful studies devoted to Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi1, distinguished representatives of the western music world, which were also published in serial numbers of "Taraz" weekly / N8; N 23 / in 1904

---

Vagramian-Nishanian, Violet (1981). "Gomidas Vartabed, Pioneer Of Armenian Folk Music". Choral Journal. 22 (3): 5.

---

[75]

  • he spent more than a decade traveling throughout the Ottoman Empire collecting and transcribing nearly 3,000 folk songs and dance tunes, and investigating the Armenian neumatic (khaz) notation[76]
  • Komitas was the first to systematically catalog Armenian national music and publish a volume of folk songs.[77]
  • Komitas’ research greatly increased the awareness of Armenian music throughout Europe. In addition to his musicological endeavors, Komitas organized and directed many choirs in his homeland and abroad. His arrangements of Armenian folk, sacred, and dance music aroused great enthusiasm among his audiences, and helped Armenians to become more familiar with their own musical heritage.[78]
  • In the decade before World War I he traveled throughout Anatolia and the Caucasus gathering songs from Armenian villages, transcribing them in European notation, studying and categorizing them. His manuscripts and analytical essays constitute the Armenian folk and classical music canon almost on their own. [58]
  • In his years of field work Gomidas observed the spontaneous process of song creation in Armenian villages; his meticulous documentation anticipated the work of Bela Bartok and later ethnomusicologists.[58]
  • In his years of field work Gomidas observed the spontaneous process of song creation in Armenian villages; his meticulous documentation anticipated the work of Bela Bartok and later ethnomusicologists. He analyzed the use of particular song forms for celebrations, religious events, chores, laments and other activities. He devotes several pages of his treatise on the plowmen’s songs of the Lori region to an obsessively detailed typology of syllables of exclamation: ho! hey! ay! and the like.[58]
  • Robert Atayan, a scholar of Gomidas’s life and work, has argued that the composer’s three years spent studying music theory in Berlin led him not to make Armenian music sound European but to try to produce a comparable body of work on behalf of his own people.[58]

Ordained celibate priest. attended the Friedrich Wilhelm university studying philosophy of music. Appointed choirmaster and head of music department at Echmiadzin seminary in 1899; became first non-European member of the International Musical Society.[39]

Collected more than 3,000 folk songs – Armenian, Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish and Persian (most subsequently lost). Gave concerts in Paris, Geneva, Berne, Venice, Constantinople, Cairo and Alexandria. Published first ever collection of Kurdish folk songs, 13 in number, Jurgensen, 1904.[39]

Met Egon Wellesz in Vienna, who admired his harmony and counterpoint. Left for Constantinople in 1910, where he founded a choir of 300 voices named Kusan ('Minstrel'). Encountered some opposition from conservative religious circles for his use of religious melodies. Arrested 24 April 1915; deported to Chankiri; driven mad by the sight of the slaughter of fellow Armenians; saved from death.[39]

During his visit to Paris in 1906, Komitas was praised by the French composer Claude Debussy. After hearing his song The Homeless (Անտունի Antuni), Debussy said that the song alone made him a great composer.[39][46][79][80]

general bio

[edit]

[3] [13]

[4] [81]

[5] [82]

pp 13-24

Arshag Chobanian

journal articles

[edit]


References

[edit]
Notes
  1. ^ Սողոմոն Սողոմոնեան in classical orthography and Սողոմոն Սողոմոնյան in reformed orthography. Sometimes anglicized as Solomon Solomonian.[4][5]
  2. ^ He is widely known as simply Komitas (transliterated as Gomidas from Western Armenian). His church rank, Vardapet, is sometimes used alongside: Komitas Vardapet (Կոմիտաս Վարդապետ), Gomidas Vartabed in Western Armenian. In the early 1900s, and as late as 1908, he signed his name as Soghomon Gevorgian (Kevorkian or Keworkian),[6] after the Gevorgian Seminary.[7]
Citations
  1. ^ Badikyan, Khachik [in Armenian] (26 September 2014). "Հայ երգի Մեսրոպ Մաշտոցը [Mesrop Mashtots of Armenian Songs]". Grakan tert (in Armenian). Archived from the original on 2021-01-29.
  2. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 46.
  3. ^ "Etchmiadzin. 1902". Virtual Museum of Komitas. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  4. ^ Lang, David Marshall (1980). Armenia: Cradle of Civilization. London: Allen & Unwin. p. 256. ISBN 9780049560079.
  5. ^ a b "Komitas". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 26 January 2014. Komitas [...] created the basis for a distinctive national musical style in Armenia.
  6. ^ The Monthly Musical Record. 30. London: Augener: 15. 1900. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 45–46.
  8. ^ Editorial Board (1969). "Հայ ազգային երաժշտության հիմնադիրը [The Founder of Armenian National Music]". Lraber Hasarakakan Gitutyunneri (in Armenian) (11): 3–6.
  9. ^ Poladian 1972: "He was among the pioneers in ethnomusicology, a younger contemporary of Carl Stumpf (1848-1936)."
  10. ^ McCollum, Jonathan Ray (2004). "Music, Ritual, And Diasporic Identity: A Case Study Of The Armenian Apostolic Church" (PDF). University of Maryland. p. 11. Retrieved 4 February 2014. Komitas Vardapet, considered a pioneer in ethnomusicology, turned his attention to the anthropological, sociological, and historical aspects of comparative musicology.
  11. ^ Crutchfield, Will (5 October 1987). "Music Noted in Brief; Choir From Armenia At Avery Fisher Hall". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 January 2014.
  12. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 51.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Atayan 1979, p. 539.
  14. ^ Nersessian, Vrej, ed. (1978). Essays on Armenian music. Kahn & Averill. p. 13. ISBN 0-900707-49-6.
  15. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 10-12.
  16. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 15–16.
  17. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 21–24.
  18. ^ a b c Mooradian 1969, p. 61.
  19. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 28.
  20. ^ a b c d e Adalian, Rouben Paul (2010). Historical Dictionary of Armenia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 391. ISBN 978-0-8108-7450-3.
  21. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 29–30.
  22. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 32.
  23. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 33.
  24. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 33–34.
  25. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 39–40.
  26. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 41.
  27. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 43–44.
  28. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 44, 46.
  29. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 47–49.
  30. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 57–58.
  31. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 73.
  32. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 71–72.
  33. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, pp. 73–74.
  34. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 79.
  35. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001.
  36. ^ "Kastamonu Vilâyeti'ne" (PDF) (in Turkish). State Archives of the Republic of Turkey. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-02-27.
  37. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 131.
  38. ^ a b c Kévorkian, Raymond H. (2011). The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. London: I. B. Tauris. pp. 528–529, 537. ISBN 9781848855618.
  39. ^ a b c d e Walker, Christopher J. (1990). Armenia: The Survival of a Nation (revised second ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 429–430. ISBN 978-0-312-04230-1.
  40. ^ ""To Know Wisdom and Instruction": The Armenian Literary Tradition at the Library of Congress". Library of Congress. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  41. ^ The Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 2. New York: Taylor & Francis. 2008. p. 848. ISBN 978-1136096020.
  42. ^ Mathias, Alyssa (12 March 2013). "CD Review: "Officium Novum" by the Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek". Ethnomusicology Review. University of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved 26 January 2014.
  43. ^ a b McCollum & Nercessian 2004, p. 153.
  44. ^ McCollum & Nercessian 2004, p. 8.
  45. ^ McCollum & Nercessian 2004, p. 55.
  46. ^ a b Spence, Keith (June 1970). "Armenian Songs by Komitas; Khatchik Pilikian Review". The Musical Times. 111 (1528). Musical Times Publications: 616. doi:10.2307/956845. JSTOR 956845. A little-known contributor to that struggle was the composer Komitas (1869-1935), who collected thousands of folksongs from Armenia and her neighbours at the end of the 19th century- a kind of Armenian Bartók. [...] These three 7" discs contain a dozen or so songs, one of which, The Homeless, moved Debussy to call Komitas a great composer.
  47. ^ a b Church, The Guardian 2011
  48. ^ Rault, Lucie (2000). Musical instruments: craftsmanship and traditions from prehistory to the present. New York: Harry N. Abrams. p. 79. ISBN 9780810943841.
  49. ^ Aubry, Pierre (1903). Le rythme tonique dans la poésie liturgique et dans le chant des églises chrétiennes au moyen âge (in French). Paris: H. Welter. p. 36. Il faut dire pourtant qu'il y a en Orient une brillante exception a l'etat du chant liturgique tel que nous venons de l'exposer: ce sont les executions qu'on peut etendre et que nous avons nous-meme entendues dans la metropole religieuse de l'Armenia, a Etchmiadzine. Le moine qui les dirige, Komitas, est le dom Pothier de l'Orient.
  50. ^ Tchobanian, Archag (1914). The people of Armenia: their past, their culture, their future. G. Marcar Gregory (translator); Viscount Bryce (introduction). London: Dent. p. 54.
  51. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 207.
  52. ^ "President Serzh Sargsyan's remarks at the official ceremony of the public presentation of the Komitas Museum-Institute". president.am. The Office to the President of the Republic of Armenia. 19 September 2012. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. He is the Mashtots of the Armenian song and music. [...] There is no Armenian identity and self-consciousness without Mashtots and Komitas...
  53. ^ Blum, Stephen; Bohlman, Philip V.; Neuman, Daniel M., ed. (1993). Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780252063435.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  54. ^ Soulahian Kuyumjian 2001, p. 26.
  55. ^ Ziflioğlu, Vercihan (12 October 2012). "Virtuosos to sing works by Armenian musicians". Hürriyet Daily News. Archived from the original on 14 November 2012.
  56. ^ "The Piano Works of Alan Hovhaness Chakmakjian". The American Music Teacher. 16–18. Music Teachers National Association: 22. 1966. The first major influences on young Hovhaness were the study of astronomy and the music of the Armenian composer-priest, Gomidas Vartabed.
  57. ^ Michaelyan, Julia (Winter 1971). "An Interview with Alan Hovhaness". Ararat Quarterly. 12 (1). New York: Armenian General Benevolent Union: 19–31. Astronomy and the music of the Armenian composer-priest, Gomidas Vartabed, were his earliest influences.
  58. ^ a b c d e Toumani, New York Times 2008
  59. ^ Shahverdyan, Karine (20 February 2013). "Ոգու վերադարձը [Return of the Spirit]". Republic of Armenia (in Armenian). Retrieved 17 February 2014. 1955 թ. դրվել է Կոմիտասի գերեզմանին՝ Պանթեոնում։
  60. ^ "Monuments of Yerevan". Yerevan Municipality Official Website. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  61. ^ "Վերանորոգվում է Կոմիտաս Վարդապետի արձանը [Komitas Vardapet Statue Being Restored]" (in Armenian). Official Website of the Municipality of Ejmiatsin. 2 May 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  62. ^ "Statue of Gomidas Vartabed, Detroit, MI". Armenian National Institute. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  63. ^ "Gomidas Vartabed, (sculpture)". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2 July 2014. Dedicated June 21, 1981
  64. ^ Staff Report (May 2003). "Monument to Komitas Vardapet Unveiled in Paris in Memory of Armenian Genocide Victims". Armenian Studies Program California State University, Fresno. Retrieved 26 January 2014.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  65. ^ "Komitas Monument and Armenian Genocide Memorial in Paris, France". Armenian National Institute. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  66. ^ "Le monument Komitas" (in French). Commission de la capitale nationale du Québec. 20 July 2010. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
  67. ^ "В Камском саду открыт памятник армянскому композитору Комитасу". gov.spb.ru (in Russian). Administration of St. Petersburg. 6 November 2015.
  68. ^ "Stèle du Père Komitas". acam-france.org (in French). Association Culturelle Arménienne de Marne-la-Vallée (France). Archived from the original on 18 March 2020.
  69. ^ "Stèle du Père Komitas". acam-france.org (in French). Association Culturelle Arménienne de Marne-la-Vallée (France). Archived from the original on 18 March 2020.
  70. ^ "Buste du R P.Komitas". acam-france.org (in French). Association Culturelle Arménienne de Marne-la-Vallée (France). Archived from the original on 18 March 2020.
  71. ^ "Rue Komitas 94140 Alfortville, France ‎". Google Maps. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  72. ^ Melik-Vertanessian, G. (1960). "Կոմիտասի անվան պետական կոնսերվատորիան [The Komitas State Conservatory]". Patma-Banasirakan Handes (in Armenian) (4): 230–238.
  73. ^ Arnavoudian, Eddie (21 April 2003). "The Salvaging of an Authentic Armenian Musical Tradition". Armenian News Network / Groong. University of Southern California. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  74. ^ "New Film About Komitas and the Armenian Genocide to Benifit SOAR". Massis. 14 October 2013. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  75. ^ Wolverton 2002.
  76. ^ Wolverton 2002, p. 6.
  77. ^ Wolverton 2002, pp. 6–7.
  78. ^ Wolverton 2002, p. 7.
  79. ^ "Komitas Choral Society of Boston Sponsors Tenth Annual Armenian Folk Music Concert". The Heights. Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts: Boston College. 7 May 1965. Concerning his composing, Claude Debussy has said, "If Komitas had written only his Antoone that would be sufficient to list him among the great composers."
  80. ^ Music Journal. 29. Elemo Publishing: 36. 1971. ...Debussy congratulated the composer for his "Andouni," saying that this song alone would rank him as a great artist. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  81. ^ Atayan 1979, p. 540.
  82. ^ Atayan 1979, p. 541.

Bibliography

[edit]

http://serials.flib.sci.am/openreader/Hogevor%20st.%20-%201998/book/Binder1.pdf

Robert Atayan's volumes
  • Atayan, Robert, ed. (1960). Կոմիտաս. Երկերի ժողովածու, առաջին հատոր՝ Մեներգեր [Komitas: Collected Works, First Volume: Solo Songs] (in Armenian). Yerevan: Haypethrat.
  • Atayan, Robert, ed. (1969). Կոմիտաս. Երկերի ժողովածու, երկրորդ հատոր՝ Խմբերգեր [Komitas: Collected Works, Second Volume: Choir Pieces] (in Armenian). Yerevan: Hayastan.
  • Atayan, Robert, ed. (1969). Կոմիտաս. Երկերի ժողովածու, երրորդ հատոր՝ Խմբերգեր [Komitas: Collected Works, Third Volume: Choir Pieces (in Armenian). Yerevan: Hayastan.
  • Atayan, Robert, ed. (1976). Կոմիտաս. Երկերի ժողովածու, չորրորդ հատոր՝ Խմբերգեր և մեներգեր [Komitas: Collected Works, Third Volume: Choir Pieces and Solo Songs] (in Armenian). Yerevan: Hayastan.
  • Atayan, Robert, ed. (1979). Կոմիտաս. Երկերի ժողովածու, հինգերորդ հատոր՝ Խմբերգեր և մեներգեր [Komitas: Collected Works, Third Volume: Choir Pieces and Solo Songs] (in Armenian). Yerevan: Sovetakan grogh.
  • Atayan, Robert, ed. (1982). Կոմիտաս. Երկերի ժողովածու, վեցերորդ հատոր՝ Դաշնամուրային ստեղծագործություններ [Komitas: Collected Works: Piano Pieces] (in Armenian). Yerevan: Sovetakan grogh.
Books
  • Atayan, Robert, ed. (2001). Essays and Articles, The musicological treatises of Komitas Vardapet. Vatche Barsoumian (translator). Pasadena, California: Drazark Press. OCLC 50203070.
  • Begian, Harry (1964). Gomidas Vartabed: His Life and Importance to Armenian Music. University of Michigan.
  • Karakashian, Meline (2011). Կոմիտաս՝ Հոգեբանական Վերլուծում Մը [Gomidas: A Psychological Study] (in Armenian). Antelias, Lebanon: Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia. ISBN 978-9953021638.
  • Komitas, Vardapet (1998). Armenian Sacred and Folk Music. Edward Gulbekian (translator). Surrey, England: Curzon Press.
  • McCollum, Jonathan; Nercessian, Andy (2004). Armenian Music: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Discography. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810849679.
  • Melikian, Spiridon [in Armenian] (1932). Կոմիտասի ստեղծագործությունների անալիզը [Analysis of works of Komitas] (in Armenian). Yerevan: Melikian Fund.
  • Soulahian Kuyumjian, Rita (2001). Archeology of Madness: Komitas, Portrait of an Armenian Icon. Princeton, New Jersey: Gomidas Institute. ISBN 1-903656-10-9.
  • Tahmizian, Nikoghos (1994). Komitas ev hay Zhoghovoordi Erazhshtakan Zharanguty'yun [Komitas and the Musical Legacy of Armenian Notation] (in Armenian). Pasadena, California: Drazark Press.
  • Terlemezian, Ruben (1924). Կոմիտաս վարդապետ: Կեանքը եւ գործունէութիւնը [Komitas Vardapet: Life and Activities] (in Armenian). Vienna: Mkhitarian Press.
  • Vagramian, Violet (1973). Representative Secular Choral Works of Gomidas: An Analytical Study and Evaluation of His Musical Style. University of Miami.
Academic articles
Journal and newspaper articles
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