This month CPO launch a new Khachaturian edition featuring his complete symphonies. Vol. 1 focuses on his magnificently dimensioned Symphony No. 2, which functions as a heroic, Soviet 'War Symphony.' though the work first and foremost is distinguished by pathos, it nevertheless displays a master's hand in its rhythmic and tonal design. The symphony owes its popular name, the 'Bell Symphony', to the forceful, dissonant opening measures recurring in some passages of the first movement and at the end of the last movement. The symphony is presented in combination with the three Concert Arias of 1946.