Musicologist, PhD in Arts, Assistant Professor, Head of the Chair of Music History of the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan. L. Sahakyan undertook graduate and postgraduate studies at the Komitas state Conservatory. She defended her dissertation thesis at the Institute of Arts of the National Academy of Sciences of RA in 2007. Sahakyan is the author of a monograph Komitas Studies in Armenian Musicology (Yerevan, 2010), as well as a number of articles published in Armenia and abroad. The scope of her research includes Komitas studies, Armenian music and issues on the interconnections between Armenian and World music.

RICHARD WAGNER AND KOMITAS VARDAPET

It is known that the great German composer Richard Wagner’s (1813-1883) creative biography interested both his contemporaries and the representatives of the next generations: composers – Hector Berlioz, Piotr Tchaikovsky, Franz Liszt, philosophers and writers – Thomas Mann, Charles Baudelaire, Friedrich Nietzsche and others. For the first time in the Armenian reality, the classic of Armenian national music Komitas Vardapet turned to R. Wagner’s style. Like Wagner, Komitas was a universal genius – a composer, musicologist, folklorist, singer, poet and teacher. He was educated in Germany studying music at the Berlin R. Schmidt’s private Conservatory, and philosophy at the Friedrich Wilhelm University. Komitas was familiar with the creative work of Wagner, and knowledge of German enabled him to delve deeper into the features of the musical language of the composer. Basic thoughts on national origins brought Komitas and Wagner close. Vardapet’s article Richard Wagner affected on the facts of ‟the Bayreuth Master’s” life and also featured the musical language of the great German composer.