Aram Khachaturian
Work: Symphony No.3 “Symphony-Poem” / “Simfoniya-Poema” (1947)
Allegro moderato, maestoso – Allegro – Andante sostenuto – Maestoso – Tempo I
Orchestra: BBC Philharmonic
Conductor: Fedor Glushchenko
The Symphony No. 3 by Aram Khachaturian, subtitled Symphony–Poem, was composed in 1947 for the 30th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, and premiered on Leningrad on December 13 by the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky. It was his last contribution to the genre. Originally conceived as a symphonic poem, it is a single movement symphony featuring an organ solo and fifteen trumpets conceived as a hymn of praise of the Soviet Union, with Khachaturian saying that he “wanted this work to express the Soviet people’s joy and pride in their great and mighty country”. However, the work’s raw and strident style, which has been related to the 1920s Soviet constructivist avantgarde, and unorthodox structure and instrumentation dissatisfied the Stalinist cultural authorities, and it was condemned as formalistic in the 1948 Zhdanov decree.