Margar Margaryan

Margar (Avetisi) Margaryan (Մարգար Ավետիսի Մարգարյան) was born on October 4, 1894, in Vagharshapat, in the Erivan Governorate, then part of the Russian Empire, and died on November 20, 1941, in Yerevan, in the Armenian SSR. Known as "Usta Margar," he is regarded as one of the greatest Armenian Duduk players of his time, as well as the founding figure in the professionalization of the instrument in Armenia.

Originally from Etchmiadzin, Margar Margaryan enjoyed deep esteem both among those close to him and within his neighborhood, as well as among the musicians, composers, and artistic circles of his time. Kamo Mkrtchyan reports that he was "known and appreciated both by Charents and by the water seller of his neighborhood," a phrase that powerfully conveys both the extent of his renown and his popular roots. In this quotation, "Charents" refers to Yeghishe Charents.

Testimonies describe him as a man of medium stature, broad and imposing in build, but also as a warm, honest, attentive, and deeply humane personality. Varpet Khachik, teacher of the great musician Gevorg Dabaghyan and himself a student of Margar Margaryan, spoke of him as a kind man, always ready to listen and to help others. [1][2][3][4]

Margar Margaryan

II. Initiation and Early Years

Margar Margaryan learned the Duduk from masters such as Harout and Karo Sargsyan, through direct transmission, at a time when no Duduk school yet existed in the proper sense. Like many musicians of his era, he was trained through practice, in contact with masters and within the living musical environments of Armenian society.

He began playing in the traditional settings of his time, notably at weddings, as well as in religious and funeral rituals, before gradually establishing himself as one of the first great professional Duduk musicians.

His musical path developed within an especially dense and diverse soundscape. In Armenia in the 1930s, several musical worlds coexisted. The descendants of the genocide survivors remained deeply attached to the music of the Ergir, meaning "the country," the name given to the lost land of Western Armenia, whose sounds largely extended the musical traditions of the eastern Ottoman Empire. Other circles remained closer to artists such as Mahbubi Gevorg, representative of a world more deeply rooted in Eastern Armenia under Perso-Russian domination. At the same time, composers and conductors such as Vardan Buni were shaping a language that blended Eastern and European influences, while mugham continued to reach a high degree of refinement on the tar. To this already vast horizon were added regional popular musics, as well as the interpretations of Shara Talyan, an essential transmitter of the repertoire of Sayat-Nova and other gusans.

It was within this multiple musical universe, nourished at once by popular tradition, collective memory, and modern artistic recompositions, that Margar Margaryan was formed and developed his sensibility, with a deep attachment to the Duduk and the Shvi.

III. Artistic Career

Margar Margaryan’s career gradually led him from traditional settings to the most recognized musical institutions of his time. As early as 1926, he became a soloist in the Armenian Folk Instruments Ensemble directed by Aram Merangulyan, marking a decisive stage in the Duduk’s entry onto institutional and professional stages. He later performed within Vardan Buni’s Oriental Symphony Orchestra, confirming the growing place of his instrument in the learned musical life of his time.

Margar’s repertoire was distinguished by its great richness. It included dance melodies, instrumental transcriptions of Armenian folk songs, ashough and gusan songs, as well as mugham.

In 1939, he took part in the Decade of Armenian Art organized in Moscow. On that occasion, J. Stalin presented him with a gold watch, a distinction that constituted not only a symbolic tribute but also an exceptional mark of recognition. During the all-Soviet competitive examination for performers of folk instruments, he was awarded third prize.

Affiliated with the national radio, Aram Merangulyan’s orchestra played a major role in disseminating Margar Margaryan’s art. Records featuring his performances were released, and his Duduk was also heard in several Armenian-Soviet films, including Pepo, Zangezur, The Fishers of Sevan, and Mountain Torrent. Margar Margaryan thus appears as one of the first great instrumentalists to have durably established the Duduk within the most recognized channels of dissemination of his time. [5]

Margar Margaryan - Shustar 1935 - ///DUDUK/// © GEVUSH ARAQELYAN

IV. Style, Playing, and Innovations

Margar Margaryan’s playing was marked by characteristics that were particularly innovative for his time. His tone, of great warmth, his art of phrasing, and his elaborate ornaments, made possible in particular by a highly advanced technical use of the lips, deeply impressed those who knew him. The fact that he performed both popular and folk music, as well as more demanding and varied styles such as mugham, allowed him to develop an especially broad technical and expressive palette. His recordings still bear witness today to the finesse, precision, and originality of his interpretation.

Margar Margaryan was also one of the first to take a concrete interest in improving the Duduk. Concerned with enhancing both the playability and the sonority of the instrument, he slightly reduced its dimensions and brought the finger holes closer together.

He also played an important role in the development of the short variants of the instrument, which would later be referred to as soprano Duduks, especially in C and D. These models, which he developed in order to respond more effectively to the growing demands of orchestral playing, made it possible to approach higher tonalities than A or B, which then dominated the practice. By pushing beyond the limits imposed by traditional tonalities, he opened up a new field of technical, sonic, and organological possibilities, whose influence would continue durably in the generations that followed.

V. Legacy, Posterity, and Transmission

Through his role as a precursor, pioneer, and exceptional musician, Margar Margaryan left a major mark on the history of the Armenian Duduk. His playing, his sound, his sense of ornamentation, and his contribution to the evolution of the instrument profoundly influenced the generations that followed.

His legacy goes beyond the interpretative dimension alone. By bringing the Duduk onto institutional stages, by integrating it into recognized ensembles, by making it heard in the worlds of recording and cinema, and by contributing to its technical improvement, Margar Margaryan helped to durably transform the place of the instrument in Armenian musical culture.

A testimony by Arno Babajanyan strikingly illuminates the place Margar Margaryan occupied in Armenian musical life. He recounts that in 1938, while passing through Yerevan, he learned that Aram Khachaturian was staying in the city and working on a newly commissioned national ballet. Arriving at the home of Tushik Khachaturian, the composer’s sister, he discovered Aram Khachaturian seated there, listening with fascinated attention to Margar Margaryan, already then known as "Usta Margar." Babajanyan remembered immediately thinking: what possible connection could there be between the Duduk and ballet? The full force of the scene lies there. It shows that Margar Margaryan’s playing, through its depth and evocative power, had already gone beyond the ordinary frameworks of its use and reached the highest spheres of musical creation. [1]

This scene takes on its full meaning in light of Aram Khachaturian’s own thinking, for whom all creation had to draw its source from folk song, then pass through the heart of its creator, and finally be recreated by his talent. In this perspective, the attention he gave to Margar Margaryan’s Duduk was in no way a mere anecdotal taste for local color, but rather the expression of a profound conviction: that of a learned art nourished by the living substance of popular tradition. In keeping with this conception, Aram Khachaturian incorporated certain traditional melodies into his compositions. He notably used the theme of "Vorskan axper" in his Symphony No. 2, as well as motifs from "Kalosi prke" in the ballet Gayane. [5]

Margar Margaryan’s legacy also continued through the great masters of the following generation. Djivan Gasparyan himself recalled how deeply Margar Margaryan had influenced him. At the opening of the Moskva Cinema on Abovyan Street in Yerevan, musicians would come and perform there live. Djivan, then about nine years old, went there regularly, fascinated by this world, until he asked the master for a Duduk, which he is said to have eventually given him. Djivan also reports that Margar Margaryan, after hearing him play again with already advanced ornaments, sensed that he would later become a great Duduk player. This memory highlights the artistic and human authority that Margar Margaryan already embodied in the eyes of the generations that followed. [6]

The musicians who succeeded him drew extensively from his art in continuing the construction of what would become the Armenian Duduk school, whose performers still keep its legacy alive today. Through his playing, his musical rigor, his sense of tone, and his expansion of the instrument’s possibilities, Margar Margaryan thus appears as one of the founding figures of this tradition. His influence is measured not only through his contemporaries, but through the continuity of a language and an aesthetic transmitted from generation to generation down to the present day. [2]

...

Margar Margaryan - Dunen Glxen - ///DUDUK/// © GEVUSH ARAQELYAN

ԴՈՒԴՈՒԿԻ ԼԵԳԵՆԴԸ DUDUKI LEGENDY/ MARGAR MARGARYAN /Легенда Дудука  © 
Romb Studio

Sources

[1] Մկրտչյան Կամո, "Հայ դուդուկահարներ", Սովետական գրող, 1988
[2] Oral testimonies collected by Gusan Instruments from family members and Duduk enthusiasts
[3] «Zarkfoundation - Մարգար Մարգարյան», zarkfoundation.com
[4] Հայկական սովետական հանրագիտարան (հայ.) — Երևան: 1981. — հատոր 7. — էջ 302.
[5] Romb Studio ԴՈՒԴՈՒԿԻ ԼԵԳԵՆԴԸ DUDUKI LEGENDY/ MARGAR MARGARYAN /Легенда Дудука
[6] Interview with Djivan Gasparyan in the documentary "ԴՈՒԴՈՒԿԻ ԼԵԳԵՆԴԸ DUDUKI LEGENDY/ MARGAR MARGARYAN /Легенда Дудука par Romb Studio