The Private Canon: "Lezghinka"

This post is part of a series.
Though it's best known for the jabbing jollity of its "Sabre Dance" or the plaintive wandering of its "Adagio," Khachaturian's vivid Soviet propaganda ballet Gayane lives in my imagination almost entirely based on Kostelanetz Conducts Great Romantic Ballets, an LP in my parents' collection I wore out (and which, though not available officially, someone has helpfully uploaded in its entirety here). Side one was Tchaikovsky greatest hits from Swan Lake, Nutcracker, and Sleeping Beauty; side two was all "Gayne Ballet (Excerpts)." And while it built to the inevitable orgasmic release of "Sabre Dance," it was great fun throughout (I especially liked "Dance of the Rose Maidens" and "Dance of the Young Kurds"). My favorite of the bunch, though, has always been the badass opener "Lezghinka," a folkloric hoedown based on a fast 6/8 dance of the Lezgin, a North Caucusus people (an amazing sampler of the dance and its offshoots here).

I can't believe no one has built a song on a sample of the opening tattoo—an irresistible martial clatter of snare and the doli, the crisp Georgian cousin of the nagara—which underpins a cross-stitched crazy quilt of folk tunes: first a piercing dance by a flute, then a soaring brass theme, then a kind of brass/wind arabesque. Really, I can't decide which I love more here, the backbeat or the brash tunes Khatchaturian weaves together over it. For an excellent savoring of the latter, this folk-band deconstruction slows it all down and literally picks apart the piece's four or five distinct themes:

This clip gives some idea of how the piece is danced to, though it's not how I danced to it in my living room—it was a lot closer to head-banging, truth be told.