EVERY GENRE PROJECT — March 3 — Armenian Church Music
Genre of the Day — Armenian Church Music
Album of the Day — Armenian Medieval Spiritual Music by Լուսինե Զաքարյան (Lusine Zakarian) (2014)
March 3, 2024
If you need proof of Armenians being some of the most devout Christians on earth, just look at the effect on one of the most publicly religious musical figures in recent American music and who he had been married to. That’s right, I’m referring to Kanye West, who was famously married to Armenian Church-christened/reality TV star and mogul on the side Kim Kardashian. Okay, maybe Kanye’s religious turn has a little more to do with his bipolar disorder intensifying his religious fanaticism than any potential Kim-induced latent ancient Armenian mystical Christian effect.
Armenia has one of the longest Christian histories on earth, as the traditional telling goes that the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholemew traveled over to the Armenian nation and proselytized clearly successfully. The Armenian Apostolic Church became the religious body spiritually leading the first Christian nation in the world. It has always been a church of its own, insular and separate from Catholic and Eastern Orthodox oversight. Despite attempted incursions from Zoroastrian, Catholic, and Muslim rulers, Armenia has stayed staunchly Christian, demonstrating the nation’s devotion and contributing to its strong sense of national identity in general. Hence why they import street names to Los Angeles and remain incredibly politically active in the diaspora.
Given this lengthy history and the thousands of years that allow new musical influences to mingle, there are many forms of Armenian church music. These include melismatic and intricate tunes called sharakans, monophonic and polyphonic chants, and more folk-leaning tunes. Just like the often embattled nation of Armenia, hardworking and passionate religious clergy have worked for centuries to preserve, revitalize, and pass forward time-honored religious hymns and chants.
Lusine Zakarian, for all those who can’t read Armenian — one of the most beautiful alphabets in the world, honestly — came from a musical family in Soviet Armenia and became one of the defining Armenian singers of church music for the recording era. A classically trained soprano, the songs on this album lean towards the Western operatic tradition, thus departing from what one might hear in an actual Armenian church. The music is relatively straightforward, with the first half of the album covering songs with a simple but effectively transcendent and reverberating organ thes second half of the album featuring the addition of violins. With lyrical context, the album’s significance increases: these arrangements feature the lyrics based on sacred ancient poems. The passion in her voice is astounding: “Bats Mes Ter” is especially heavenly, her voice soaring with the reverence of two thousand years behind it. That a single singer can crystallize such a deep and winding history is a monument to Armenian piety. No wonder Kim Kardashian came all that way.
