Twelve Duos for Tubas based on Armenian Folk Songs

Petros Shoujounian, Armenian/Canadian composer has written Twelve Duos for Tubas based on the folksong collection of the Armenian priest Komitas, known as the founder of the Armenian national school of music and one of the pioneers of ethnomusicology. Below are comments from the composer about his inspiration in writing these Twelve Duos for Tubas.


My interest in the collected works of Komitas's ethnographical songs was aroused when I was introduced to Bela Bartok's similar works followed by Alan Hovhaness's huge creative world. Bartok completed his project having at his disposal a large collection of ethnographic music, while Hovhannes studied the wealth of Komitas's music with great interest. It is difficult to say to what extent the Armenian underpinning of Hovhannes's works are nurtured by Komitas's musical world, but his classical interpretation of the Armenian ethnographical music created a huge interest in the listener. Needless to say, there is also Aram Katchaturian's legacy, which at its core has the ardent presence of the Armenian spirit, nurtured by Komitas's very existence.


Komitas has left a collection of about 3,000 cleaned versions of ethnographic song and dance pieces, of which 1,700 has reaches us, about 400 of which have been activated. I believe that in those beautiful musical fragments reside the power to be revived, once we enrich them with colorful musical instruments and unbounded polyphonic imagination.


This is the motivation behind my own work and these Twelve Duos for Tubas: to make the essence of our ethnographic music accessible through Komitas.


These Twelve Duos are appropriate for advanced performers and may be performed on C Tuba, F Tuba and the larger B-flat Bass Tubas.