All my life I’ve been looking for this musician…
Leonid Kogan
Unfortunately, this name is little known in Armenia. By the will of fate, Samvel Alumyan’s life lay between Yerevan and Moscow. He was born in Yerevan and grew up in a friendly and intelligent family. His father was an engineer, and his mother was a teacher. Living in Moscow, he came to Yerevan with concerts, which were attended by true admirers of his talent.
Samvel Alumyan began to study music at the age of six, enrolling in The Tchaikovsky Secondary Music School. Shushanik Apoyan was his first teacher for five years. After the teacher left for Leningrad, the boy continued his studies with Aida Melik-Haykazyan and brilliantly graduated from school.
Among the works performed at the final exam, was also Aram Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto in D-flat major, Op. 38. Later, Professor Yakov Flier will highly appreciate the professional base of his Yerevan students.
Even in school competitions, Samvel Alumyan always came out as the winner. Two memorable events come to mind in particular. One is related to the concerts of the students of two 10-class music schools of Yerevan and Tbilisi, which took place in these cities in turn. The first were Samvel Alumyan and Eliso Virsaladze. Later, she, a People’s Artist of Georgia and a professor at the Moscow Conservatory recalled: «The performance of Samvel Alumyan did not raise any doubts that he would become a concert musician.» Another event is connected with the performance of fifteen-year-old Samvel, who had the honor to play in the «Pillar Hall» of «The House of the Unions» during the Decade of Armenian Art in Moscow. The press noted the talent of the young pianist.
The general talent of Samvel Alumyan was such that everyone who knew him believed that if he were not a musician, he could become an excellent mathematician and physicist.
After graduating from school, he entered the Moscow State Conservatory in the class of Professor Yakov Flier. His studies at the conservatory and postgraduate studies, brilliant victories at international and all-Union competitions, and tours with concerts around the country and abroad are connected with Moscow. But before moving on to the Moscow period of life, let’s slightly open one remarkable page of his biography.
After graduating from graduate school, Samvel Alumyan moved to Yerevan and began teaching at the conservatory. Few people know that teaching at the Yerevan State Conservatory was combined with work in the city of Kapan (the provincial capital of Syunik Province, Armenia), far from the capital.
Samvel Alumyan’s student years in Moscow coincided with a significant period in the development of Soviet art. After decades of isolation and isolation of Soviet culture from the
whole world, the time has come for extensive communication with the best examples of world art, in particular, music. First-class symphony orchestras from the USA, France, and Germany, world-famous conductors Leonard Bernstein, George Szell, Charles Munch, and others, pianists Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Annie Fischer came on tour. Naturally, Samvel Alumyan attended all these concerts. They had a strong influence on the formation of a musician.
At the conservatory, he also found the luminaries of the Soviet pianistic school, such as Heinrich Neuhaus, Alexander Goldenweiser, and Samuil Feinberg. The famous Igumnov school was represented, first of all, by Lev Oborin and Yakov Flier. The latter became Samvel Alumyan’s teacher — beloved and revered, who played a big role in the development of his professional and personal qualities.
In 1963, while still a fourth-year student, he became a laureate of the International Smetana Piano Competition in the Czech Republic.
The people from the conservatory said, «Looking at Samvel, you can fall in love with the entire Armenian people.» Probably, it was of such high human qualities, for his bright talent that the young musician was honored to work at the famous Moscow State Conservatory. In his piano class studied Armenian pianists:- Vladimir Khachaturian, Ara Petrosian, Sergey Musaelyan, and others.
The following episode, told by his former student, testifies to his unusually deep understanding of the role of music. “On a warm spring day, one of Samvel Alumyan’s graduate students was supposed to give a concert in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. On this day, the clock was set to springtime, but the graduate student forgot about it. The audience waited impatiently, and the excited Samvel Alumyan measured his steps at the entrance. After waiting for him a little more, with the words “How can we disappoint the people who came to listen to music”, he went out to the stage and resolutely went to the piano. He played the works of Frédéric Chopin, but not those that were part of the graduate program. Another, apologizing, might have canceled the concert. But Samvel was not like that. An hour later, the pianist finally came up and continued the concert. It is difficult to convey that impression, that overflowing feeling of gratitude that the listeners of this unusual concert in three parts experienced.»
It will probably be interesting to know that Samvel Alumyan’s house was jokingly called «Academy Music House», because everyone here was a musician, from the owner and his wife to two sons and a daughter. There was music all the time, they were constantly playing music.
The titles of the laureate of several international competitions, and recognized pedagogical work, of course, gave Samvel Alumyan the right to become a professor, but remained an associate professor (docent), not having high honorary titles. Fate, in the face of faceless officials of concert organizations, ordered that while touring a lot around the Soviet Union, he performed little in Moscow. In addition, having won the right to be the first to compete in the prestigious competitions in the USA and France qualifying competitions, Samvel Alumyan, due to the fault of his administrative organizers, could not participate in them, since another
was appointed in his place. This unfortunate injustice was also the share of Armenia, which did not appreciate Samvel Alumyan’s well-deserved contribution to culture.
The concert activity of Samvel Alumyan, as mentioned, which began with the student’s bench, continued until the last years of his life. Even in his student years, Professor Yakov Flier gives a brilliant characterization to his student: “Alumyan is a talented and serious musician, possessing virtuoso skills, he is especially good at large-scale works with deep philosophical content. Alumyan’s hallmark is continuous growth, so his future is brilliant.” The subsequent years of Samvel Alumyan’s concert activity justified the professor’s prophecy.
In 1967, Samvel Alumyan for the second time won a brilliant victory (First place) at the prestigious The George Enescu International Competition in Bucharest. The Romanian press noted «exceptional musicality, genuineness of creative performance, lack of stamping.» He was ranked among the pianists of classical romanticism.
In 1970, at the All-Union competition in Kyiv, he again won the first prize. His concert repertoire covered a huge number of compositions, from the piano works by Johann Sebastian Bach to the music of the 20th century. Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Maurice Ravel, and Frédéric Chopin occupied a special place in his programs. He loved to perform the works of Russian composers — Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Prokofiev, and Igor Stravinsky.
In 1973 — 1974 As part of the concerts of the Moscow State Conservatory, Samvel Alumyan played a cycle of three concerts in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. They were devoted to the genre of «piano fantasies», covering the development of this genre over three centuries — from Johann Sebastian Bach to contemporary composers. Thus, the development of the genre was shown. These concerts in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory gathered a full audience and left an indelible impression on the listeners.
Among the merits of the performer of the fantasy cycle, Professor Mikhail Voskresensky noted «A deep mind, a serious attitude to everything that is happening», calling him reverently a professor.
Concerts in the period from 1973 to 1978 became a special stage in his creative life. in different countries of the world with Leonid Kogan, one of the most prominent Soviet violinists. Sunwell held Leonid Kogan in high esteem. In a letter to his mother, he called him «a great violinist, infinitely intelligent and modest.» Samvel Alumyan was his worthy partner. Their sonata evenings were especially impressive. They performed such large-scale canvases as the sonatas of César Franck, Johannes Brahms, and Franz Schubert’s Fantasy in C major for violin and piano, D 934.
Our statements about the art of Samvel Alumyan may seem exaggerated, but let us quote the words of Leonid Kogan himself: “All my life I have been looking for this musician.” Samvel Alumyan performed with other talented musicians, such as Anatoli Melnikov (violin), Oleh Krysa (violin), Igor Gavrish (cello), Vahram Sarajyan (cello), and Lev Mikhailov (clarinet).
The last concert performance was in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, with the Johannes Brahms program.
Samvel Alumyan gave a lot of strength, talent, and knowledge to the pedagogical activity. They said about Samvel Alumyan that he was a teacher by vocation and talent, and that «there are not so many of them.» His work was considered «upper class». This was the opinion of his colleagues — professors Dmitri Bashkirov, Yevgeny Malinin, Lev Vlassenko, and others.
Samvel Alumyan’s style of pedagogy is summarized by Professor Vera Gornostayeva. She called him “A traditional pianist of the highest nobility, taste, and class. Such were both Neuhaus and Igumnov. Traditionalists-artists make real educators.”
Talented pianist, winner of the 5th International Tchaikovsky Competition, and now a widely concerted pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev wrote that in Samvel Alumyan he felt «The spirit of a true musician.» He admitted: “When, during a tour of the cities of the Soviet Union, they asked who to enter the Moscow State Conservatory, I spoke primarily about Samvel Alumyan, although I understood that his class was not dimensionless.”
Not without interest is the fact that after the death of Yakov Flier, Mikhail Pletnev was prepared for the competition by Samvel Alumyan. Among the pupils of Samvel Alumyan, there are many laureates of international and all-Union competitions, now professors, and associate professors of various conservatories. Already being an assistant to Yakov Flier, he put a lot of effort into teaching Armenian pianists, such as Marina Abrahamyan, Nune Hayrapetyan, and others.
Samvel died young, he was only 46 years old.
He died in Bucharest in 1987, on the Days of Soviet Culture. He was solemnly buried in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. The grief was deep and sincere. It was said that the Moscow Conservatory had lost a lot. In 1991, a concert dedicated to his fiftieth birthday was held in the same hall. Colleagues, professors, and former students spoke. An evening of remembrance was also held at the Yerevan State Conservatory. A tribute to the memory of a talented musician was the book «Samvel Alumyan: The Life and Fate of a Musician» (M., «Composer», 1997), which contains the memories of his colleagues, famous musicians, friends, and relatives. The book, a hymn to a wonderful person and a great musician, opens with the following words: “This bright, talented life ended suddenly — on the rise. It ended artistically in the deepest sense — in pre-concert tension, in full devotion to one’s vocation.
And it didn’t end.»