What is there about Alexander Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto that makes it seem like an old friend even on first hearing? Clearly its pictorial dynamism strikes a strong note of recognition even though the composer’s name does not. Its familiarity may be due to the fact that the piece owes a large debt to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and more than a small token to Bloch’s Schelomo, as well as to music by Khachaturian and Shostakovich. Yet, Arutiunian has his own purely Armenian point of view (the musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky spoke of his authentic folk-song inflections of Armenian popular music) and expresses it with dash and style, orchestral brilliance and a virtuosic part for the trumpet.

Alexander Arutiunian was born in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, and studied music first at the local conservatory, later in Moscow. Back in Armenia, he became musical director of the Armenian Philharmonic Society. According to an interview with the composer that appeared in the magazine Brass Bulletin in 1989, the Trumpet Concerto was in a sense a memorial to a young trumpeter friend who died in World War II. It seems that the friend had encouraged Arutiunian to compose a trumpet concerto for him, which he agreed to do. Fate intervened, and the promised concerto was not written until 1950.  

The work, in one continuous movement having distinct sections, is rhapsodic and dramatic in character, beginning with the opening statement by the trumpet. This stentorian, incantational theme becomes something of a motto through later, varied appearances, as does another, animated theme. Tempo and mood shifts are frequent throughout the piece; rhythmic animation and meditative expressiveness vie with one another repeatedly. In a nocturnal section occurring a little past midpoint in the concerto, the latter subdues the former as the trumpet, muted, sings tenderly and woodwinds provide a colorful interplay. This mood is interrupted by a bit of Shostakovichiana, after which the animated theme is revived, to be followed by a cadenza and a brief, smashing close. —Orrin Howard