David Sakoyan was first of all a symphonist and polyphonist. Most of his compositions were created for chamber or big symphony orchestra. He preferred purely instrumental music. Although among his pieces there are those for vocal performance (such as romances, operas, psalms), as well as programme music, still a larger part of his compositions are instrumental and non-programme, that is only relying on musical means of expression.
It is best to listen to his music slowly. Slowly here means a gradual approach to this music. Since it is rather complex and sophisticated, in order to fully apprehend and enjoy it, it is necessary to memorise and recognise its recurring themes, moves and intonations. Once they appear, they may be repeated again in various combinations or modified in the course of development or in a quite emotionally different version. This is why it is so important to be able to recognize details. One way to achieve it is to listen to the same piece multiple times. Another and probably a more efficient way is to listen to certain parts or smaller fragments, and then listen to the whole piece.
David Sakoyan's music presented in this project heavily relies on the classical music tradition that stems from Bach and Beethoven. In his own words, this music can be described as converging epochs. "The forms, in which I wrap my music content, are antique - passacaglia, chaconne, sonata, opera, symphony, etc. It is the Old Time. My rhythms and intonations, harmony, polyphony, instrumentation are the New Time. In my compositions they co-exist simultaneously".
In the past, David Sakoyan was a passionate protagonist of the avant-garde music. For 20 years he was composing music within this paradigm. In fact, his biography as a composer is divided into two large parts with a threshhold in 1990. In 1990 he abandoned his avant-garde approach as well as the most part of the pieces he created during that period. This project only presents the music of the new period.
One of the few features Sakoyan's current music inherited from the avant-garde era is atonality.
David Sakoyan got interested in music very early: as a child, he already started composing songs and tunes. But he never attended a basic music school (for children) because his parents found it unnecessary to support his enthusiasm about music.
As a person without basic musical education, he was not eligible to enter the State Conservatory (higher music academy), which is why after finishing high school he chose Music Department at the Faculty of Art Education, Armenian State Pedagogical University, where he specialized in conducting. Meanwhile, he kept composing music.
Having graduated from the university in 1970, he intended to enter the Faculty of Conducting at the State Conservatory of Yerevan, but his friends insisted that he should try and apply for the Faculty of Music Theory and Composition instead. By the time, he had already become an author of quite a number of pieces, including an opera Ara the Beautiful and Shamiram and a Liturgy for a choir, soloists and symphony orchestra. So he successfully entered the composition faculty.
Because of his rebellious temper, he had regular confrontations with all kinds of management, which started happening at school and later grew harsher. Being a university and conservatory student, he took interest in Armenian medieval philosophy and poetry, read Armenian historians of the 5th century and other literature that was frowned upon in the USSR. Professors nicknamed him 'nihilist' for his uncompromising attitudes, still he was seen as a good student. In 1977, he graduated from the Conservatory, Composition Class of Grigor Yeghiazaryan.
He took interest in avant-garde music at university, under the impression from the pieces by Igor Stravinsky. In this he had the full support of Yury Gevorkyan, a composer and one of his university professors. At the Conservatory, he was fascinated by the works of an avant-garde composer Avet Terterian who was also a professor. Nevertheless, he stayed in Yeghiazaryan's class, although Yeghiazaryan strongly disapproved of such music trends.
Here is how David Sakoyan describes one of his pieces written during that period: "I posed for myself a rather serious and difficult challenge: all inside out, people and all the rest. To see and to hear blood flowing along arteries; brain, heart, lungs working. A disease eroding a body. First it occurs unnoticed; then it turns into a small, subtle, very unimportant discomfort; then it grows bigger and bigger; then gradual degeneration comes, all black, death".
The transition to the new stage began in 1986, when David Sakoyan was hospitalized with a heart attack. After that, there was a long period of medical treatment and recovery, during which he started developing a new vision of music, quite opposite to his previous negativist approach.
In 1988 there was a deadly earthquake in Spitak, David Sakoyan witnessed its consequences. These impressions contributed a lot to his changing views. In particular, his urge to turn everything inside out transformed into an understanding that there are things that should not be exposed, but instead need protection, that is a cover, like vital human organs are protected (covered) by bones and muscles.
By 1990, the formation of the new vision was completed. It implied not just a transition from avant-guarde to traditionalism, but also the rejection of all avant-guarde pieces created on the previous stage. Of all the previously written works David Sakoyan preserved only two: a children's opera "Kikos and Kirakos" (1981) and Concerto No. 1 for piano and chamber orchestra (1985) in memoriam of his mother Anahit.