Adagio from “Spartacus”

Aram Khachaturian (1903 - 1978)

Adagio from “Spartacus”

As far as the composer was aware, Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus has nothing to do with tall ships or even the sea. Written in 1956, it predates The Onedin Line by several decades. As the producers of the TV series were aware, however, the Adagio does at its climax have a splendid full-sail quality about it, even though this is the climax not of a great voyage but of an amorous scene between the freedom-fighter Spartacus and his beloved Phrygia. Set in ancient Rome and based on much the same story as Kubrick’s film of the same name, Spartacus was clearly not a subject suitable for the Armenian idiom Khachaturian usually favoured. As this piece shows, however, he had no shortage of melodic inspiration of a different, perhaps even Hollywood kind.