Sayat nova
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Komitas
For other uses, see Komitas (disambiguation).
Armenian composer and religious figure
Soghomon Soghomonian,[A]ordained and commonly known as Komitas[B] (Armenian: Կոմիտաս; 8 October [O.S. 26 September] 1869 – 22 October 1935), was an Ottoman-Armenian priest, musicologist, composer, arranger, singer, and choirmaster, who is considered the founder of the Armenian national school of music.[4][7] He is recognized as one of the pioneers of ethnomusicology.[9]
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".[10] 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
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Gomidas Vartabed: The Most Distinguished Armenian Musicologist (1869-1935)
I wish to bring up an important case for consideration. Gomidas’ music is and has been all along so authentic that his music excels over and beyond the text and its significance, especially when soloists sing without paying attention to the words and phrases inherited from the past. This means that when they sing from Gomidas, they are always overwhelmed by the music, overlooking the words and the meanings. They concentrate on the music passionately, leaving the words in jeopardy, thus creating incorrect translation of the text, a case that has happened unfortunately.
One example is Gomidas’ famous song Andouni (Homeless) with its unmatched music, one in its kind, melancholic and sensational, expressed with variable half and quarter musical notes. The soloist no doubt sings correctly. However, when reciting the words in their local dialect of archaic villagers, one can easily miss a word or replace another unknowingly, paying attention only to the overwhelming music. Especially when we try to translate
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Why we should read... `Komitas' by S Gasparyan (240pp, 1961) `Komitas' by Cecelia Broutian (224pp, 1969) `Komitas As He Was' by Khachig Patigian (432pp, 2002) One Nation, One Music! The uniqueness of Komitas Komitas (1869-1935) was a unique musical genius, a scholar with unrivalled mastery of the history and art of Armenian music, a composer, conductor, pianist, singer and poet, and with formidable mathematical skills, an acute, almost invincible backgammon playing priest to boot! It was a beautiful voice in fact that in youth had opened for him the doors of then venerated educational establishments. Among Armenians Komitas has enjoyed unparalleled, even iconic status. No other name in Armenian life has received the same unqualified acclaim. No other commands the same awe or authority. None is so universally cherished, even idolised; aside perhaps from Antranig, the foremost guerrilla commander of the Armenian national liberation movement. As if in recognition, the National Pantheon in Yerevan, burial site for the braves of modern Armenian culture, is named after Komitas. These t
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