Avet Terterjan

Avet Terterjan ( Armenian Ավետ Տերտերյան , often transcribed as Avet Terterian ; born July 29, 1929 in Baku , † December 11, 1994 in Yekaterinburg ) was an Armenian composer .

Life

Avet Terterjan was born as Alfred Rubenowitsch Terterjan, but used the first name Avet as a stage name. His father Ruben Terterjan was a doctor, but also appeared as an opera singer. The mother - also not a professional musician - gave concerts as a singer. In 1948 Terterjan began studying at the Baku Music Academy, which he continued in 1951 at the Romanos Melikian Music Academy. From 1952 he studied composition with Edward Mirsojan at the state Komitas Conservatory in Yerevan .

From 1960 to 1963 he was executive secretary of the Armenian Composers' Union and from 1963 to 1965 its vice-president. From 1970 to 1974 Terterjan was chairman of the music department in the Ministry of Culture of Armenia and at the same time worked as editor. In 1985 he became a professor at the Yerevan State Conservatory , and in 1993/1994 he gave master classes at the Urals Conservatory in Yekaterinburg. In 1994 Terterjan received the Brandenburg Scholarship and worked in Wiepersdorf for six months . For 1995 he was awarded a one-year DAAD scholarship in Berlin, which he was no longer able to take advantage of. His body was cremated on December 19, 1994 in the Pantheon in Yerevan.

Works

Terterjan wrote eight symphonies (between 1969 and 1989), two operas, a ballet, chamber music (including two string quartets), numerous vocal works and film music.

Terterjan's music is characterized by the renunciation of themes or motivic work in the classical sense as well as a reduction to formulas and forms that sometimes seem archaic. In addition to influences from Armenian folk music (with the use of non-tempered folk music instruments), progressive elements of “western” music ( dodecaphony , aleatoric , tape playback) are also used.

All in all, Terterjan's music met with little approval in the Soviet era. The premiere of his 3rd symphony caused a scandal. Lately the symphonies in particular have received increased interest, also in Germany. The (posthumous) world premiere of the opera “Das Beben”, composed in German in 1984, conducted by Ekkehard Klemm in 2003 at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich was a sensational success . The libretto by Gerta Stecher , greatly simplified and reduced by the composer, is based on the story “ The earthquake in Chili ” by Heinrich von Kleist . The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote: "With the 'quake', Terterjan struck a stake in the current debate about the viability of contemporary music theater." In the FAZ it was said: "Heinrich von Kleist's dramatic prose has not been sacrificed - it has to be expressed in music."

literature

• Ekkehard Klemm: Avet Terterjan: musician, seismograph, prophet . Pfau, Saarbrücken 2003, ISBN 3-89727-223-7 .
• Boris Yoffe : In the flow of the symphonic . Wolke, Hofheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-95593-059-2 , pp. 558-564 .

Web links

• Representations of life and work
• Biography and list of works by Sikorski
• Awet Terterjan in the Internet Movie Database (English)