Visualization of Musical Composition Principles inAshot Asaturyan’s Ballets: Dedicated to the Choreographer’s 85TH Birthday

Abstract

In 2022, we are celebrating the 85th birthday of outstanding choreographer Ashot Asaturyan. The choreographer died as many as 23 years ago, but judging from the videos of his ballets, we can say that his creative mentality and methods of musical and literary interpretation are still progressive and timely. One more peculiarity of Asaturyan’s method is visualization of polyphonic principles. While in Theme and Variation, a ballet created to the music of the Finale of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s 3rd Orchestral Suite, those principles have an immanently choreographic function, in some other ballets, they are of dramaturgical significance. The common feature of the three ballets analyzed in this article is the polyphonic nature of their scenarios. Those ballets are Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, Igor Stravinsky’s Orpheus and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances.