Symphonie n° 1 & n° 3 "Symphonie-Poème" / Orchestre Philharmonique Arménien, dir. Loris Tjeknavorian Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) wrote a kind of music that was, for the most part, approved of by the Soviet Union. Most of the time. But he was never a shill for the aparatchiks running the art ministry. We see this in his symphonies, especially the Symphony 1 (1934) where the folk melodies--or refrains of them--can be heard. But these elements aren't Soviet: they are Georgian, Khazar, and Mongolian. Khachaturian's appeal, even to this day, is in his ability to make modern many of the ethnic strains he had heard when he was a boy. And catch the brass-laiden Symphony 3. It's a gas.