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Of Armenian descent, he was born in Georgia and moved to Russia. Aram Khachaturyan, a contemporary of Shostakovich, was clearly a child of the Soviet Union and excelled quasi throughout his life as an exemplary Soviet composer. He wrote the wide-ranging ballet Gayaneh in 1942 as an Armenian profile piece with several faces: the difference between the turbulent Sabre Dance and the equally famous Adagio is great. The Russian (musical) landscape also inspired Ravel to orchestrate Mussorgsky’s piano work Pictures at an exhibition. Yet the orchestral sauce around the Russian theme is as French as it gets. An alto saxophone as a solo voice Mussorgsky could not even imagine. The young conductor Emmanuel Tjeknavorian guides the experienced Gürzenich Orchester Köln from one painting to the next.