Avet Terterian

Listed in the New Groves as Avet Terteryan, with a 'y', rather than the 'Terterian' with an 'i' that appears most commonly on all the CDs of his music I've ever seen. Wikipedia lists both variants, but appears to suggest the 'i' version is preferred. They also put 'Avet' in double quotes, as if it's not a real name and give “Alfred Roubenovich” as his two proper names. For the lack of any meaningful information about him that isn't lifted from CD booklets, I'm running with 'Avet Terterian' as the 'authorised' version of his name for this site!

He was born in 1929, in Baku -which is interesting, as Baku is the capital of today's Republic of Azerbaijan, yet he is commonly described as an Armenian composer. Azerbaijan and Armenia routinely being at each other's throats over Nagorno-Karabakh, the mix-up of an Armenian in Baku would seem somewhat curious… except that there was indeed a large Armenian population in Baku, ballooning in the 19th Century and making its cultural presence felt right up until 1990. The renowned world champion chess player Gary Kasparov is another born-in-Baku-but-of-Armenian-descent celebrity. Of course, back in 1929 all these nationalities were subsumed within the Soviet Union, so getting hung up on the specifics is probably counter-productive. His music uses all sorts of diverse materials, including Armenian sharakan or hymns, so it's worth knowing his background in that respect, though. It is also infused with 12-tone techniques, aleatory devices and parts for non-well-tempered folk instruments -meaning, from my own perspective, that his music is always interesting to listen to and full of imaginitive textures… but it's also not exactly… er, “tuneful”, shall we say. Wonderfully percussive at times, always engaging in small doses, would be my verdict, though Dmitri Shostakovich once described the composer as “very talented” and “with a great future” ahead of him. I guess it's safe to say that considering his current obscurity, Terterian didn't exactly live up to that early promise Shostakovich saw in him, but he's a worthwhile listen even so

His output is not huge, but includes 8 completed symphonies (and a 9th that was incomplete at the time of his death in 1994. There are also two string quartets.

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