Lullaby from the ballet Gayaneh

In Gayaneh, a ballet composed in the 1930’s, Aram Khachaturian portrays the story of the heroine in the title: a woman fighting mightily between romantic love on one hand and nationalistic zeal on the other. At the climax of the ballet, the plot comes to a halt, and Gayaneh, deploring her husband's cruelty and abusive behavior, begins to sing her child to sleep with a haunting lullaby of mysterious beauty. Transcribing and publishing it for the first time ever for viola and piano facilitates the inclusion of this musical gem into the viola-piano duo repertoire.