THE MELODY OF AMIROV

The true nature of folk music surrounded Amirov since he was a child. His father, Masadi Camil Amirov, was a well-known tar player and exponent of mughams and later also a teacher who was the first to organize a music school in his home town. Like many other noted musicians, his father came from Susa [Shusha; Karabakh]. "This town, where my father came from, is rightly considered the conservatoire of Transcaucasia," Fikrat Amirov recalled. "…It was my father who introduced to me the world of sounds and the secret of the mugams, and when I was still a child I tried to copy his playing on the tar. Sometimes I succeeded and this gave me great joy."

Folk music accompanied Amirov from childhood and throughout his life. After leaving the conservatoire he studied ethnic melodies through the theory of academic music.

A pupil of the great Hacibayov 

This was wartime, and when he came back from the front Amirov found himself in Baku. He was able to catch Uzeyir Hacibayov's last years and the great man, who worked with folk music material, had a significant influence on the young composer.

"They say I was one of those who carried on the work of Uzeyir Hacibayov, and I am proud of that," Amirov wrote.  As if to confirm this, in 1949, a year after his mentor's death, Amirov wrote a musical poem devoted to Uzeyir. It was a delicate blend of strings and piano. Besides this, in 1943 when the great man was still alive, and influenced by Uzeyir's beloved folk operas, Amirov had the idea of creating his own musical comedy. It was called "The Stealer of Hearts". Uzeyir himself kept an eye on the making of this operetta and gave valuable advice. These were the hard days of the war and producing anything - an opera or a play - was very difficult. There was a shortage of actors and ordinary workers, and there were no proper conditions for working. Nevertheless, Uzeyir managed to organize a production in the recently opened State Theatre of Musical Comedy.

The comedy was well received by the audience and so Amirov wrote a second one - "Happy Tale", more polished, on which he worked for ages and completed only in 1946. Then came the operas "Ulduz", the symphonic poem "In memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War", and the "Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra". But the biggest event of that time was his symphony "Nizami", the first symphony for a string orchestra in Azerbaijan.

Finally, and arguably the main event for the composer was his symphonic mugams "Sur"  and "Kurd-Ovsari", the first in our history. In them he combined his main achievements and knowledge - the Karabakh mugam, which he had loved since childhood, and European symphonic music. "The creation of the symphonic mugams 'Sur' and 'Kurd-Ovsari' were the initiative of Bulbul [Azeri singer]," Amirov recalled. "Bulbul has been the closest confidant, advisor and helper in the works I have written to date." These two works are self-contained, but at the same time they form a kind of diptych, combining furtive common musical themes and a musical idea. They were also a true musical event outside Azerbaijan, winning a number of prestigious prizes and virtually laying the foundations for the genre of symphonic mugams. This tradition was carried on in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Symphonic mugams started to be played by celebrated symphony orchestras. One of the world's best known conductors, Leopold Stokowski, wrote this to Fikrat Amirov in those far off 1950s: "Dear Mr Amirov! When we played your symphonic mugams in Houston, Texas, both orchestra and audience were delighted. We thank you for the immense pleasure you gave us."

The ability to combine old and new 

In subsequent years Amirov did not give up his innovative work; on the contrary, he made it the basic idea of his work. Working in several genres, he would experiment, always finding a space in his work for the basics of folk music. In 1953 he wrote and produced his celebrated opera "Sevil" (based on the drama by C. Cabbarli of the same name). "I was familiar with Cabbarli's work since my school days," Amirov wrote. "In the early 1930s in the drama theatre in Ganca, I had occasion to play the role of Sevil's son, the little Gunduz…I tried to preserve in my opera the basic idea of drama - the idea of the struggle of the woman of the East for her human rights, the pathos of the struggle between the new proletarian culture and the petty bourgeoisie. In the process of my work on the composition I always had this idea of the similarity between the characters of the heroes of Cabbarli's drama and Chaykovskiy's operas. Sevil and Tatyana, Balas and German were close to one another in their inner make-up."

In the 1950s and 1960s Amirov worked closely with the symphonic orchestra and, finally, in 1968 he once again returned to the symphonic mugam, creating the legendary "Gulustan Bayati-Siraz", based on the poems of Hafiz and Saadi.

Then, over the course of ten years, Fikrat Amirov was busy re-working and perfecting his old works until, finally, he rose to "new heights", creating the ballet "A Thousand and One Nights". This was not simply a ballet, but a colourful show with amazing choreography. Since then the ballet has been very popular with audiences and has been performed every year. The author had this to say about the source of his inspiration: "I visited Iraq at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture, along with N. Nazarova (ballet-master and producer of the ballet). I tried to delve deeply into the musical culture of the Arab people, their sense of rhythm and the beauty of their musical ceremonies, and I studied their historical and architectural monuments. My task was to synthesize the ethnic and the human."

"Fikrat Amirov was a worthy pupil of Hacibayov, and, of course, I am proud to have known him. I was fortunate to be the artistic director of the production in the new musical edition of his opera "Sevil", which is still being staged here," the well-known pianist and outstanding tutor, Farhad Badalbayli, says in an interview for R+. "Of course, his music is unique and it is based both on folk music and the best European traditions." As the pianist noted, Amirov succeeded in harmoniously combining folk music, the mugam, ethnic improvisation and ordinary musical instruments used worldwide.

"Fikrat Amirov's music has immense lure and fascination," the great Dmitriy Shostakovich said in his letters. "The creative heritage of the composer, which is organically linked with folk music and ethnic culture, is both extensive and multi-faceted. One of the most attractive features of Amirov's musical language is its melody: Fikrat Amirov has a rich gift of melody. Melody is the soul of his work." 

Amirov would have been 91 on 22 November. He passed away when he was only 62 - how much more this celebrated Azerbaijani composer could have done, but fate decided otherwise.