The Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 46, by the renowned Armenian composer ARAM KHACHATURIAN (1903–1978), was inspired by his close friendship and creative collaboration with the celebrated Russian violinist David Oistrakh. Khachaturian composed the work in just two months during the summer of 1940 at the Composers’ Creative House in Stara Rusa. “I wrote the music as if I were riding the crest of a wave of happiness, completely filled with joy,” he recalled. “At that time, I was expecting the birth of my son. This state of excitement and intoxication with life turned into music. The themes came to me in such abundance that it was difficult to arrange them. I worked quickly and energetically, my imagination soaring. Oistrakh frequently visited Khachaturian in Moscow, and together they played through the completed musical fragments. The concerto was written with Oistrakh in mind — a responsibility Khachaturian took seriously. Upon completing the work, he dedicated it to the violinist. During rehearsals for the premiere, Khachaturian continued to revise the score, incorporating Oistrakh’s suggestions for new nuances and expressive details. He also composed a solo cadenza for the end of the first movement, which the composer admired so much that he jokingly “adopted” it as his own.
On November 16th, 1940, David Oistrakh gave his first performance of the Violin Concerto with the USSR State Orchestra, conducted by Alexander Gauk, at the opening of the prestigious Decade of New Soviet Music in Moscow. The concert immediately captivated the audience — among them Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Myaskovsky — and received enthusiastic reviews from critics. The concerto was performed again the following day to great acclaim, after which it was presented in Leningrad, Yerevan, Tbilisi, Kyiv, and Odessa. Following Oistrakh’s landmark recording, the work quickly gained international popularity. He later performed it around the world under the composer’s baton.
‘When I was composing this concerto, I wanted to create a virtuoso piece that would be accessible to a wide audience and based on the principles of symphonic development,’ explains Khachaturian. Composed in three movements, it is not a concerto of radical innovations. With a neo-Romantic emotional impact, the piece tells stories imbued with the colourful, cheerfully melancholic spirit of Armenia, his long-suffering homeland.
Even in the dramatic development of the first movement, shaped by two principal themes, the dichotomy between untamed energy and elusive lyrical beauty is firmly established. Masterfully crafted and richly ornamented melodies, a distinctive harmonic and modal language, and subtle instrumental colours and dialogues create a vivid interplay between the soloist and the orchestra.
In the second movement, the solo violin introduces an expressive, mournful theme over a captivating triple rhythm. Artfully enveloped in contrapuntal voices, the theme builds toward a dramatic and unexpected finale. In the colourful, whirlwind third movement, Khachaturian revisits the lyrical theme from the first, evoking a sense of reminiscence and reinforcing the work’s cyclical structure.
The concerto’s melodic material is closely related to Armenian folk songs and dances, which the composer knew intimately from childhood. However, he refrains from using direct quotations. A flute version of the concerto also exists: the renowned French flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal asked Khachaturian to write a concerto for him and proposed transcribing the original violin work. Rampal completed the adaptation in 1968, reworking the solo part while preserving the orchestration and replacing the original violin cadenza with his own.