Khachaturian: Piano Concerto

Aram Khachaturian first conquered the classical music world with his Piano Concerto, a fiery combination of Armenian folk style music with the dazzling virtuosity of a Liszt concerto. Together with the “Sabre Dance” (from his ballet Gayaneh), it established Khachaturian as easily the most popular Soviet composer from the 1940s up until his death in 1978. Jean-Yves Thibaudet, an urbane yet charismatic pianist of superb virtuoso technique, here reveals the strengths of a composer whose very direct and technicolor expressiveness has tended to make many listeners underestimate his music. For the Concerto, Thibaudet is joined by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. They provide a vibrant yet polished and never overbearing account of Khachaturian’s brightly coloured score, which ideally complements Thibaudet’s fiery yet precisely executed pianism, inspiring renewed admiration for this virtuosic showstopper. For the atmospheric slow central movement, the eerie sound of a musical saw plays a role (rather than the originally specified but rather comical sounding flexatone). Besides the Piano Concerto, Thibaudet is our principal guide through Khachaturian’s greatest hits, with even popular works such as the Masquerade Suite presented in arrangements for piano solo. Thibaudet’s marvellous sensitivity to colour and texture makes all these pieces sound absolutely idiomatic as piano works. Even in his selection from the set of original piano pieces Scenes of Childhood, he reveals Khachaturian’s range in this unassuming music, whether the delicious melancholy of “Legend”, or the playfulness of “Birthday Party”.