Dilijan (1930) - Bala Meliqyan, Sasha Oganezashvili // Դիլիջան - Բալա Մելքյան, Սաշա Օգանեզաշվիլի

Описание: Bala Grigori Meliqyan (1888–1935)

Bala Meliqyan was an Armenian tar player from Shushi, a city in Artsakh—the historically Armenian region now inside present-day Azerbaijan. Known for centuries as a center of Armenian culture and music, Shushi was particularly renowned for its mugham tradition, a classical musical form. The region has long been at the center of territorial disputes and upheavals, deeply affecting its people and cultural heritage.

Despite these challenges, Artsakh remained a vital part of the Caucasus’ musical landscape. Before the Russian Revolution, the region’s musicians were deeply interconnected. Tiflis, the cultural hub of the Caucasus, hosted artists from across the region. Recording engineers in Tiflis and Baku documented performers from diverse backgrounds, and musicians frequently collaborated regardless of nationality.

Born in 1888 in Shushi, Bala Meliqyan inherited the tar from his father, Grigor Meliqyan (1856–1929). In 1909, Grigor recorded four mughams in Tiflis for the Gramophone Company under the name Balitkha Grigor, further cementing his legacy. Bala, already an accomplished musician, followed in 1910, recording a solo performance of mugham Bayati Shiraz under the name Bala Grigorevich. Though no copies have survived, these recordings remain rare evidence of the deeply rooted musical tradition passed from father to son.

By nineteen, Bala was already known as a highly skilled tar player. In 1912, he was admitted to the St. Petersburg Institute of Economics, where he met Feodor Chaliapin, who introduced him to the city’s musical circles. However, the outbreak of World War I in 1914 forced him to interrupt his studies and return to Tiflis. This period also saw the collapse of the Caucasus’ recording industry, which had been run by Europe-based multinational corporations. By 1915, recording had nearly ceased, and the Gramophone Company’s final sessions were lost.

In 1922, Meliqyan founded the Eastern Instruments Ensemble in Tiflis, bringing together some of the Caucasus’ finest musicians, including kamancha players Sasha Oganezashvili and Levon Karakhan. In 1926, he joined Ioannes Ioannisyan’s Eastern State Orchestra as a leading soloist, performing in Moscow. In May 1928, he performed with H. Verdiyan’s Eastern Instruments Ensemble in Yerevan, Tiflis, and Leningrad.

After two years in Yerevan, he returned to Tiflis in 1930, forming a folk instrument trio and touring the Caucasus. At the height of his fame in 1931, he returned to Shushi and performed for his fellow townspeople. In 1932, he formed another Eastern Instruments Ensemble, featuring his brother, Ashot Meliqyan, also a tar player.

According to Anzor Erkomaishvili, no recordings were made in the Caucasus between the Russian Revolution and 1930. One of the earliest post-revolution recordings was a tar improvisation by Meliqyan in the segah mode of the mugham repertoire, likely made in Tiflis, as its flip side features a kamancha solo by Sasha Oganezashvili (1889–1932). Oganezashvili, a Georgian-Armenian musician also known as Alexander Arshaki Ohanyan, had previously recorded with Bala’s father in 1909.

Meliqyan’s post-revolution recording was first issued on the MuzTrust label and later reissued on SovSong, pressed by the Aprelevka plant, predecessor of the Aprelevsky Zavod imprint.

From 1914 to 1934, Bala Meliqyan was recognized as one of the foremost authorities on tar music. Four recordings of his performances survive:
1. Mahur-Hindi (mugham) – featured in Hayfilm studio’s movie Fishermen of Sevan
2. Harich-Segah (mugham)
3. Dilijan (with Sasha Oganezashvili, Eastern trio)
4. Harich-Segah sung by Sara Khanum, accompanied by Bala Meliqyan and Sasha Oganezashvili

In 1934, Meliqyan performed at a concert dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of Persian poet Ferdowsi, organized by the Leningrad Academy of Oriental Studies and the State Hermitage Museum. That same year, he also gave concerts at the Armenian House of Culture in Moscow and in Kislovodsk.

Bala Meliqyan passed away on January 15, 1935, in Tiflis.

His legacy is a testament to the interconnected musical culture of the Caucasus. His career bridged the multinational recording industry of the early 1900s with the state-controlled music production of the USSR. A master of the tar and the mugham tradition, he played a key role in the revival of recordings in the Caucasus following the Russian Revolution. His surviving recordings remain invaluable cultural artifacts, reflecting the deep musical ties between modern-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Iran.