Anton Arensky
Encyclopedia
Anton Stepanovich Arensky , was a Russia
n composer
of Romantic classical music
, a pianist
and a professor of music.
. He was musically precocious and had composed a number of songs and piano pieces by the age of nine. With his mother and father, he moved to Saint Petersburg
in 1879, where he studied composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory
with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
.
After graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1882, Arensky became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory
. Among his students there were Alexander Scriabin
, Sergei Rachmaninoff
and Alexander Gretchaninov
.
In 1895 Arensky returned to Saint Petersburg as the director of the Imperial Choir, a post for which he had been recommended by Mily Balakirev
. Arensky retired from this position in 1901, spending his remaining time as a pianist, conductor, and composer.
Arensky died of tuberculosis
in a sanatorium in Perkjärvi, Finland
. It is alleged that drinking and gambling undermined his health. The Antarctic Arensky Glacier
was named after him.
was the greatest influence on Arensky's musical compositions. Indeed, Rimsky-Korsakov
said, "In his youth Arensky did not escape some influence from me; later the influence came from Tchaikovsky. He will quickly be forgotten." The perception that he lacked a distinctive personal style contributed to long-term neglect of his music, though in recent years a large number of his compositions have been recorded. Especially popular are the Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky
for string orchestra, Op. 35a, based on one of Tchaikovsky's Songs for Children, Op. 54.
Arensky was perhaps at his best in chamber music
, in which he wrote two string quartet
s, two piano trio
s, and a piano quintet
.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
of Romantic classical music
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
, a pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
and a professor of music.
Biography
Arensky was born in Novgorod, RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. He was musically precocious and had composed a number of songs and piano pieces by the age of nine. With his mother and father, he moved to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
in 1879, where he studied composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory
Saint Petersburg Conservatory
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory is a music school in Saint Petersburg. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members and 1,400 students.-History:...
with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
.
After graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1882, Arensky became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...
. Among his students there were Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...
, Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
and Alexander Gretchaninov
Alexander Gretchaninov
Alexander Tikhonovich Gretchaninov was a Russian Romantic composer.-His life:Gretchaninov started his musical studies rather late because his father, a businessman, had expected the boy to take over the family firm...
.
In 1895 Arensky returned to Saint Petersburg as the director of the Imperial Choir, a post for which he had been recommended by Mily Balakirev
Mily Balakirev
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source and therefore are in the same style as the source...
. Arensky retired from this position in 1901, spending his remaining time as a pianist, conductor, and composer.
Arensky died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in a sanatorium in Perkjärvi, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. It is alleged that drinking and gambling undermined his health. The Antarctic Arensky Glacier
Arensky Glacier
Arensky Glacier is an Antarctic glacier, flowing south from Beethoven Peninsula, Alexander Island, into the north end of Boccherini Inlet. The glacier was named by the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1987, after Anton Arensky, the Russian composer....
was named after him.
Music
Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
was the greatest influence on Arensky's musical compositions. Indeed, Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
said, "In his youth Arensky did not escape some influence from me; later the influence came from Tchaikovsky. He will quickly be forgotten." The perception that he lacked a distinctive personal style contributed to long-term neglect of his music, though in recent years a large number of his compositions have been recorded. Especially popular are the Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky
Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky (Arensky)
Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a, a piece for string orchestra by Anton Arensky, started out as the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35. It was written in 1894, the year after the death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in a tribute to that composer...
for string orchestra, Op. 35a, based on one of Tchaikovsky's Songs for Children, Op. 54.
Arensky was perhaps at his best in chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
, in which he wrote two string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s, two piano trio
Piano trio
A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music...
s, and a piano quintet
Piano quintet
In European classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly piano, two violins, viola, and cello . Among the most frequently performed piano quintets are those by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák...
.
Opera
- Сон на Волге (Son na Volge / Dream on the VolgaDream on the VolgaDream on the Volga is an opera in four acts composed by Anton Arensky. The libretto was adapted by Arensky from Alexander Ostrovsky's melodrama Voyevoda. The opera premiered on January 2, 1891 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow with Arensky conducting.-Background:Dream on the Volga was Arensky's...
), Op. 16 (1888), libretto by Anton Arensky after Alexander Ostrovsky's play Voyevoda, premiere: January 2, 1891 [OS December 21, 1890], MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Bolshoy Theatre - Рафаэль (Rafael / RaphaelRaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
), Op. 37 (1894), libretto by A. Kryukov, premiere: May 6 [OS April 24], 1894, MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Conservatory - Наль и Дамаянти (Nal' i Damayanti / Nal and Damayanti), Op. 47 (1903), after IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n epos "MahabharataMahabharataThe Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
", libretto by Modest Ilyich TchaikovskyModest Ilyich TchaikovskyModest Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian dramatist, opera librettist and translator.-Early life:Modest Ilyich was born in Alapayevsk, the younger brother of the future composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He graduated from the School of Jurisprudence with a degree in law...
after the novel by Vasily ZhukovskyVasily ZhukovskyVasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century...
, premiere: January 22, [OS January 9], 1904, MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Bolshoy Theatre)
Ballet
- Ночь в Египте, or Египетские ночи (Noch v Egipte, or Egipetskiye nochi / Egyptian Nights), Op. 50 (1900), also orchestral suite
Orchestral
- Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in F minor, Op. 2 (1881)
- Symphony No. 1 in B minor, Op. 4 (1883)
- Intermezzo in G minor, Op. 13 (1882)
- Symphony No. 2 in A major, Op. 22 (1889)
- Variations on a Theme of TchaikovskyVariations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky (Arensky)Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a, a piece for string orchestra by Anton Arensky, started out as the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35. It was written in 1894, the year after the death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in a tribute to that composer...
, Op. 35a, for string orchestra (1894) - Fantasia on Themes of Ryabinin, Op. 48, for piano and orchestra (1899), also known as Fantasia on Russian Folksongs
- Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 54 (1891)
- Pamyati Suvorova (To the Memory of SuvorovAlexander SuvorovAlexander Vasilyevich Suvorov , Count Suvorov of Rymnik, Prince in Italy, Count of the Holy Roman Empire , was the fourth and last generalissimo of the Russian Empire.One of the few great generals in history who never lost a battle along with the likes of Alexander...
, 1900)
Chamber
- String Quartet No. 1 in G major, Op. 11
- Serenade, Op. 30, No. 2, for violin and piano
- Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 32Piano Trio No. 1 (Arensky)Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 32, for violin, cello and piano is a Romantic chamber composition by Russian composer Anton Arensky. It was written in 1894 and is in four movements:#Allegro moderato #Scherzo - Allegro molto...
(1894) - String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35 (1894), for violin, viola and two cellos
- Piano Quintet in D major, Op. 51
- Four Pieces, Op. 56, for cello and piano
- Piano Trio No. 2 in F minor, Op. 73 (1905)
Piano
(for solo piano unless otherwise specified)- Suite for Two Pianos No. 1 in F major, Op. 15
- Suite for Two Pianos No. 2, Op. 23, "Silhouettes" (1892), also orchestral version
- Impromptu No. 1, Op. 25
- Suite for Two Pianos No. 3 in C major, Op. 33, "Variations", also orchestral version
- Four Etudes, Op. 41
- Suite for Two Pianos No. 4, Op. 62
- Twelve Preludes, Op. 63
- Twelve Pieces for Two Pianos, Op. 66
Choral
- Cantata for the Tenth Anniversary of the Sacred Coronation of Their Imperial Highnesses, Op. 25 (1893)
- The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, Op. 46, cantata
- The Diver, Op. 61, cantata
Arrangements of Arensky's Music
- Tempo di Valse from the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A minor, Op.54, arranged for violin and piano by Jascha HeifetzJascha HeifetzJascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...
performed in this video by violinist Nate Robinson