Gàãà
Garayev
2
In Ìàó 7, 1945, two days before the world war ended,
the hero-patriotic opera "Native
land", which he wrote together
with Jovdàt
Hajiyev, was performed at the Azerbaijan
State Opera and Ballet Theater named after Ì.F. Akhundov. The authors were awarded state honors
for this opera in 1946.
But the first main success of G.Garayev was the
symphonic
poem "Leyli and Ìåjnun". This symphonic work was written on bases of
motives of Nizami Gànjåvi poem, who was à great Azerbaijani poet and thinker îf the 12 century. It is
impossible to listen without excite to the
music narration àbout dramatist of luckless
love of the East's version of Romeo
and Juliet— Leyli and Mejnun. Íåãå Garayev expressed the
opposition of merciless fate and high love,
sorrow and hope, believe to disappointment
and happiness, darkness and light could
end tragically. But the calm, clear and
beautiful theme sounded at the end express
the endless and eternity of Leyli’s love1.
The two ballets written by Garayev in his 50 years
are the climax of his creative activity.
Íåãå the composer skillfully benefited form heritage
of Tchaikovsky, Prokofyev, keeping with the traditions of classical
ballet, and Azerbaijani music-choreography
art, created innovative works characterized
by wide symphonic soul. Garayev widened
the opinion about possibilities of this
genre expressing complicated philosophic,
public themes.
While writing "Seven
Beauties" Garayev again turns to
the full usage of deep philosophic, high
moral, bright images of the Nizami world.
Garayev created the musical-choreographic
poem about people' s fate and wishes, the
beauty of human being, and high ethic means.
The act of "Seven Beauties" in ballet
is the best example of Garayev's activity.
There are dances of representatives of seven
being in contradiction with each other —
Indian,
Byzantine,
Khorezm,
Slavic,
Magribian,
Chinese
and Iranian
beauties. The orchestra at the end of act
astonishes with its brilliant colors. Íåãå Garayev combines with high inventiveness the
Azeri mugam-chahargah
intonations with features the waltz
genre.
Iï 1958 Garayev successfully put on the stage the
ballet "In storm roads" in the
Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theatre. The
subject of the ballet has been taken from
a novel of the same name by South African
writer, Peter Abrahams. Òhå first scene expressed one of the actual themes
of that time — the torment and fight against
colonialism, but in spite of all social-political
contexts, the main idea of the scene is
love, which can pass àall barriers, and win at
the end.
"The sons of the universe, sing à song of time, don’t sing
about à
war, hate, or hostility; sing about love" - sounded at the beginning of the ballet by P. Abrahams'
words express very well the Garayev's position.
Garayev created adagios, temperamental dances,
very emotional music, astonishing landscapes,
strength dramatic episodes combining the
unusual Youth African folklore and wide
possibilities of modern music.
One of the most poetic scenes of the ballet —
"Layla"
is an example of noble, sincere and calm
lyric. In this music characterized by its
fragile harmonic features, precise and clear
form exist sadness and endless sorrow and
hidden tension.
In 1967 Garayev, characterized by dramatic mastership,
big symphonic scope, and choreographic forms
the highest reward of the USSR was awarded
to Garayev, thanks to ballet of "In storm roads".
In all mentioned works the composer extended the
ways of expressing Azeri music and tried
to bring to our art new type of images.
Íå
named the famous Azeri writer Anar Garayev
"the ambassador of future". The
search of the composer, which always was
ahead of time, directed to future, wasn’t
always understood. Sometimes his contemporaries
weren’t able to release the symphonic poem
"Leyli and Mejnun", ballet "Seven
beauties", symphonies, and an innovator
sense of Violin concert and blamed the composer in non-obeying
the làd-inflexion
norms of Azeri music.
1. The
ballet "Leyli and Mejnun"
created on the basis of symphonic poem of
the same name was performed at Azerbaijan
State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater
on 2001. Choreographer was G.Aleksidze.
