The authoritative BBC has published an extensive article about Komitas Vardapet. The article also touched upon the video of cellist Sevak Avanesyan playing a work by Komitas in the bombed church of Shushi during the 44-day Artsakh War.
In the «BBC Classical Music» magazine, it is noted that Komitas became a victim of the Genocide that took place in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. «For Armenians, music is memory. And every time, on April 24 — the day of remembrance of the extermination of Armenians — they gather from all over the world to honor the memory of the departed. Komitas’s songs are also heard,» wrote the author of the article.
The author is confident that if one were to ask anywhere who is Armenia’s greatest composer, everyone would speak of Aram Khachatryan, but Armenians would mention the name of Komitas. «As confessed by one of his most famous compatriots, Aram Khachatryan, he alone laid the foundation of the traditions of Armenia’s classical music,» he wrote.
The author noted that Komitas’s legacy is modest — about 80 choral works and songs, arrangements of Armenian national songs, and solos with piano accompaniment.
