Soundtrack of the movie Pepo (1935)
Label Association: Rec-Art Recordings

Our primary focus has been on commercially-released recordings, lacquer/home recordings, and re-issued records. While we’ve discussed Armenian films previously, with this article we shift our attention to an experimental recording: not quite a soundtrack but a medley of film music from the 1935 movie Pepo, the first Armenian language sound film produced in Soviet Armenia. 

The discs presented today are bootleg recordings from the music for Pepo. While it remains unknown how the film music and audio track were extracted from the original film or how the source material was acquired from the film reels, this remarkably experimental act provided a unique way to preserve the music from a very important work of cinema.

Setrak Sourabian, the producer of these discs, was an important and seminal figure in the Armenian theater community in America. Born in Tiflis on March 6, 1894, he first appeared on stage in 1915; by the 1940s, Setrak Sourabian had been recorded as a singer (Sokhag/Sohag record label), acted, directed, wrote, and performed in countless stage productions. Coinciding with the pressings of these records and in celebration of playwright Gabriel Sundukian’s career, Sourabian staged a production of Pepo on May 7, 1950 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.

The playwright Gabriel Sundukian (b. July 11, 1825, Tiflis) is considered the founder of modern Armenian drama. In 1870, he published Pepo as a three-act comedy. The story takes place in Tiflis (modern day Tbilisi) and tells the story of a clash between the two main characters, Pepo, the honest fisherman, and the greedy moneylender Zimzimov. The first performance took place in 1871 in Tiflis and became a great success.

In 1935, work began on an adaptation of Pepo, by the film director Hamo Bek-Nazarian. Bek-Nazarian (b. May 19, 1891, Yerevan) was a leading director of Soviet Armenia, having already made the first film produced in Armenia, Namus (1925). For the adaptation of Pepo, Bek-Nazarian worked with the young musician Aram Khachaturian (b. June 6, 1903, Tiflis), the writer and poet Yeghishe Charents (b. Mar. 13, 1897, Kars), and Hrachya Nersisyan (b. Nov. 24, 1895, Izmit), the actor who played the lead role of Pepo. 

By late 1935, the movie premiered in the United States. The headline in the October 10 New York Evening Post read, “Armenian Film “Pepo” Has Cameo Theatre Premiere.” And soon the film began travelling North America with screenings in Providence (Nov. 22, Modern Theatre), Worcester (Nov. 30, Regent Theatre), and elsewhere. By 1937 the film traveled to the West Coast with screenings in both Fresno (March 2, Fulton Theatre) and Los Angeles (March 22, Roosevelt Theatre). In 1952, at the Fulton Theatre in Fresno, the film was screened as a double feature along with Arshin Mal Alan. The film continues to be screened in art houses and film festivals throughout the world.

For these unorthodox recordings, Sourabian partnered with Nazareth Arzoumanian (b. May 3, 1890, Yozgat), the owner of Rec-Art Recordings. Established in the mid-1930s, the studio specialized in radio transcriptions and personal recordings, becoming a key spot for Armenian artists in Los Angeles. Arzoumanian also produced "The Armenian Hour" and "Oriental Moods" radio programs. The pressing process resulted in a disjointed listening experience, with abrupt scene cuts, fragments of dialogue, and incomplete songs as they appeared in the film.

The content on these records consists of a medley of songs taken from various scenes in the movie. The Song of Pepo (also known as Fisherman’s Song) & Gagooli’s Feast are taken from the opening scene of the film, while Keor Oghli is the closing sequence of the film. The other recordings include a vocal solo by Hasmik (Tagouhi Hakopyan), who played the role of Shushan. The fourth disc includes a portion of Sayat Nova’s Dun En Gelkhen and an up-tempo version of the dance Gindavouri.

The great filmmaker Rouben Mamoulian (b. October 8, 1897, Tiflis) had the following to say after a screening of the movie: “My ideas on the role of sound film were strengthened when one day, sitting at a corner of the movie theater, I watched the Armenian talking movie, Pepo… Glory to the miracle of film, because here, in the heart of Hollywood, I was able to see the face of my country and hear its voice... It was incredible to see on the screen the scenes of my hometown Tiflis, to watch live and colorful characters skillfully composed by Sundukian, and to hear the soft music of the Armenian language.” (Mshag Newspaper, 1936).

A special thanks to the SJS Charitable Trust for their generous support of our work to digitize and share our collection of 78 rpm records.