The rain had stopped, but the evening Moscow sky was still breathing with moist fresh coolness. On the frontal glass of machine which slowed down at the corner, without slipping down, without leaving the tearfully washed away track, slightly shook clean rain drops; and only on the approaches to the concert hall "Zaryade" they again started to behave outrageously, without infringing - only touching the strictly adjusted by barbers' curls and the bangs of gathered ladies. Jubilee concert dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the three People's Artists of the USSR. Edvard Mirzoyan, Alexander Arutyunyan, Arno Babajanyan. They now appear on the photograph — young, two of them are in gracefully turned down hats, one is in the moved to the back of the head cap, that are smiling, reckless, crazy in love with life and already marked by it (I understand the sheer impossibility of comparison, but I cannot help it). Like a freeze-frame from the film "Once Upon a Time in Armenia", Noodles Trio. United under the winds, mountains, melodious sky and spicy earth, united by childhood, by school and by Moscow Conservatory, selected and blessed by Khachaturyan, engaged with music and doomed to the talent. I confess, I didn't know. I found out and now I share.

Alexander Arutyunyan. Great-grandson of the Feodosiyskoy secondary school graduate, headed by Gabriel Ayvazyan, the brother of Ayvazovskiy, the grandson of the leader of church chorus, the son of regular officer and female graduate of Mashkovskoy studio of painting. For "Cantata About the Motherland" (29 years old) he was awarded the Stalin Prize. His Concert for Trumpet and Orchestra (30 years old) gained worldwide fame, was published in all countries of the world and is included in the compulsory program of many conservatories. Opera "Sayat Nova", 14 concerts for almost all instruments of the symphony orchestra, church music, Violin Concert "Armenia 88" – a weeping for the victims of Spitak. Years later, during three days, this concert will be performed at the Kennedy Center by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich. Prizes, titles, rewards, the Gold medal of Aleksandrov (concerts in the military parts), "prize Orpheus", for presenting of which he was invited to the USA (for the popularity of its music), "Armenian rhapsody" as the story of friendship. On the proposal to write a piece for a choir and orchestra for the government concert, he and Babajanyan agreed, but on one condition. Only for two! Piano. Noodles!

Edvard Mirzoyan. His music can be heard all over the world today. After the premiere of his Symphony for Strings and Timpani in Moscow, D. Shostakovich called it an achievement of not only Soviet, but also the global music. "This is a masterpiece" - these are the first words of Khachaturian about his Sonata for cello. "There is a lot of heart in it. I play it with pleasure and include it in my repertoire" - Rostropovich said. His "String Quartet" performed by the author together with the Komitas quartet sounded at the White House followed by the invitation of Kennedy himself. The subtle lyric "Album for the granddaughter" filled with love touches the mother's heart painfully. The small masterpieces of the great composer, who taught in the Yerevan state conservatory his entire life, but, because of whom, Armenia in those years became the center of force on the musical map of the entire country.

Arno Babajanyan. Great Arno. So much has been said, written, read, but as always, I did not know that ... "Arno Babajanyan is a great pianist, a performer of a large scale. One cannot help but regret that he does not appear in concerts" (Shostakovich). "To the great happiness of pianists, Arno Babajanyan, dedicated himself to composition… Removed the threat of competition emanating from the best pianists in the world" (Gilels). "He has a uniquely talented musical nature, with the presence of composer endowment the exceptional physical structure of hands which promises the achievement of the apexes of piano technics" (Nikolayevich). I didn't know that his piano Poem had become obligatory for pianists, participants of the III International Tchaikovsky Competition ...

Those are the Noodles from the photo, the great Armenian trio on the program of the Jubilee Concert.

It would be stupid of me to write about music being impermissibly ignorant and also completely deaf. Therefore, let us talk about only the sensual, almost haptic. The doors of the hall have not been open for a long time ,"The maestro must achieve absolute tone." And then finally ... One of the best orchestras in the world - the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra – is on the stage. Another moment, the door from another world opened, and he entered the stage. No, rather, he flew out. Sculpturally statuesque, fast, free, wearing something black and flying, like a cloak of the Master. He was all movement. Valery Abisalovich Gergiev. Its name is graphic like mountain ledges and the rocky fractures of Osetia, is musical as noise of the cascade water-rich Terek in spring, is twitchy-rebellious like the spouting relic natural spring, is solemn like the silence above Tsada lake, it is forbidden like the high flight of golden eagle, almost invisible from the earth. This is him, a bearded Ossetian in a hood coming from the rock, the Guardian who shot down the golden-horned wild ox, according to an old legend. But as a contrary to the legend, he presented these horns to Saint George, the patron saint of his land, receiving as a blessing a sacred talent as a reward. His trembling fingers are like the still folded wings of an eagle fluttering in the wind on a rock ledge before the takeoff. And the conductor's baton, tracing the space, seems to be cutting the air for flight. He stands now in a pencil of light, slightly bowing his head over the score, as if over an old recipe; and the great music fills the hall conjuring, bewitching and rising. It laughs, dances, cries, whispers about love, and sings, sings its eternal, ancient, great Armenian song inscribed in the common genome. The Master, the Guide, the spiritual ecologist is irreconcilably, like with a false note, is fighting the pandemic of deafness with the only curative vaccine of music. Only a little bit he bared fingers, like wires, to ground, to make it possible for us to hear what he hears from above. The festivals of Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Rimsky-Korsakov, timed to coincide with the anniversaries of the great, St. Petersburg "Stars of the White Nights", Moscow Easter, Munich. It is not the geography of the Conductor, but the biography of the Man. It was at the bidding of his heart that Chaconne Bach sounded in the amphitheater of the Syrian Palmyra in the memory of the executed by the militants and the deceased Russian officer. And today's only anniversary Moscow evening also happens at the bidding of his heart. Dedicated to the three Armenian composers, those whom he knew, respected infinitely, whom he was friends with. As a tribute to the memory, as a wreath on their graves. It was as if his brilliant hands had carefully strung another priceless pearl on a torn, woven ancient thread stretched through a century by the three great composers. Thank you for this evening. And... Bravo, maestro!