User:Yerevantsi/sandbox/Komitas

https://books.google.am/books?id=eiolDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA115 Komitas 305, 318 [check others]
 * Levon Hakobian, Music of the Soviet Era: 1917-1991, [PDF]

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.

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

[http://echmiadzin.asj-oa.am/14172/ 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

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

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

Soghomon Soghomonian, ordained and commonly known as Komitas, (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. He is recognized as one of the pioneers of ethnomusicology.

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". 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".

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.

Childhood (1869–81)
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. 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.

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".

Etchmiadzin (1881–95)
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.

Between 1881 and 1910, Komitas was mainly based in Etchmiadzin, although he did spent a significant time elsewhere. 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".

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. 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.

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.

In 1894, Soghomon was ordained hieromonk (կուսակրոն աբեղա) and given the name of the 7th-century poet and musician, Catholicos Komitas. In February 1895, he was ordained vardapet (celibate priest) and became thereafter known as Komitas Vardapet. 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.

Tiflis and Berlin (1895–1899)
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. 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.

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. With little left of Mantashev's money after paying for rent and supplies, Komitas cut on food, having one or no meal each day. 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 (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.

Main period of work (1899–1910)
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. 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.

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.

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

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. He gave a lecture at Romain Rolland's Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales ("School of Advanced Social Studies") in 1907. In the same year he performed in Geneva and at the Armenian Catholic monastery in Venice's San Lazzaro degli Armeni.

Constantinople (1910–15)


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". Especially after the death of Mkrtich Khrimian, his beloved head of the Armenian Church, Komitas felt unwanted there. Additionally, he sought to bring appreciation of Armenian music to a wider audience. 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. He quickly gained popularity in the Armenian community. 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. 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.

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

Deportation and final years (1915–35)
Permitted to return to Constantinople by special telegramme from Talat Pasha on 7 May 1915.

The eight prisoners of this group were notified on Sunday, 9 May 1915, about their release 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
 * 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.
 * 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.

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.

Works

 * ORIGINAL WORKS BY KOMITAS


 * 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.


 * "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.

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


 * 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.



Legacy and recognition
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." Komitas has often been compared to Béla Bartók, the noted Hungarian musicologist, who did similar work by "turning simple material into bewitchingly sophisticated polyphony." "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.

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


 * "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."

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.

Influence

 * Komitas Vardapet greatest contribution to Armenian music was as a collector of secular and sacred music as well as being its first musicologist.

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

The renowned Soviet Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian used the "raw material" made available by Komitas. Khachaturian acknowledged that he "singlehandedly laid the foundations for Armenia's classical tradition." 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."

The Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness was inspired by Komitas's works.

Memory


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

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

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), in Paris's Jardin d'Erevan (2003),  and a bust near the Parliament Building in Quebec City (2008), and Kamsky Park in Saint Petersburg (2015). At least three busts of Komitas have been placed in the Paris area: Chaville (1985), Villejuif (1995), Sarcelles (2015).

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

The Yerevan Conservatory, founded 1921 as studio, became conservatory in 1923 and was named after Komitas in 1946.
 * Komitas Chamber Music House
 * Komitas Quartet
 * Komitas Pantheon

In popular culture

 * Arseny Tarkovsky 1959 poem


 * WRITERS ABOUT KOMITAS


 * Paruyr Sevak Anlreli Zangakatun Hovannisian


 * 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.


 * 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)


 * dashnamuri mot nstats haytni nkar
 * Գեղջուկ երգեր (շապկի էսքիզ) PD
 * Kurdish collection cover

general bio









 * pp 13-24

Arshag Chobanian
 * http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005412762
 * http://serials.flib.sci.am/openreader/hay%20qnar/book/#page/1/mode/1up


 * Armenian Sacred and Folk Music 1998


 * Virtual Museum



journal articles



 * Կոմիտասը և հայ երաժշտական արվեստի զարգացման ուղիները
 * Ռիխարդ Վագներ և Կոմիտաս Վարդապետ
 * Կոմիտասի արխիվում պահվող մի քանի անտիպ նյութերի մասին
 * Կոմիտասի ստեղծագործական սկզբունքները
 * Կոմիտասը Կոստանդնուպոլսում
 * Կոմիտասի գործունեությունը Կոստանդնուպոլսում
 * Ֆրանսիական արվեստագետները Կոմիտասի ստեղծագործության մասին
 * Կոմիտասի անտիպ նամակները
 * Մանրաքանդաներ Կոմիտասի պատկերով
 * Կոմիտասի «Շար Ակնա ժողովրդական երգերի» ժողովածուն պատմա-քննական լույսի տակ
 * Կոմիտասը և Ներսես Շնորհալու երաժշտաբանաստեղծական ժառանգությունը
 * Հայ գեղջուկ երգի վերլուծության կոմիտասյան մեթոդի մասին
 * Կոմիտասի ծննդյան 100-ամյակի տոնակատարությունը
 * Կոմիտասի ստեղծագործական ժառանգության մի քանի հարցեր
 * Կոմիտասը և հայկական խազերի վերծանության խնդիրը
 * Կոմիտասը և քրդական երաժշտությունը
 * Կոմիտասի գեղագիտական հայացքները
 * Комитас и мировое музыкальное искусство
 * Կոմիտասի «Շար Ակնա ժողովրդական երգերի» ժողովածուն պատմա-քննական լույսի տակ
 * Կոմիտաս վարդապետ եւ Մանուկ Աբեղեան. Հազար ու մի խաղ. Ժողովրդական երգարան, առաջին յիսնեակ. Վաղարշապատ 1903




 * The Voice of Komitas Vardapet (recorded in 1908) released in 1995