Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolayev was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n/
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
pianistThe piano is a musical instrument which is played by means of a keyboard. Widely used in Western music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
,
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
and pedagogue.
Nikolayev was born in
KievKiev or Kyiv , is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300...
in 1878. He studied at the
Moscow ConservatoryThe 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...
with
Sergei TaneyevSergei Ivanovich Taneyev , a pupil of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author...
and
Mikhail Ippolitov-IvanovMikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov was a Russian composer, conductor and teacher.- Biography :...
. For many years Nikolayev was a professor of piano at the
Leningrad ConservatoireThe 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 :...
, and was for a short and unsuccessful period director of the institution.
His students at the Conservatory included
Vladimir SofronitskyVladimir Vladimirovich Sofronitsky was a Russian pianist, best known as an interpreter of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, whose daughter he married.-Biography:Vladimir Sofronitsky was born to a physics teacher father and a mother from an artistic family...
,
Maria YudinaMaria Veniaminovna Yudina or Mariya Yudina was an influential Russian pianist....
, and
Dmitri ShostakovichDmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Russian composer of the Soviet period and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
.
He became close friends with Shostakovich — Shostakovich "admired him as a first-class musician and a man of great wisdom and learning" and also said of him: "He trained not simply pianists, but in the first place thinking musicians.
Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolayev was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n/
SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
pianistThe piano is a musical instrument which is played by means of a keyboard. Widely used in Western music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
,
composerA composer is a person who creates music, usually by musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of...
and pedagogue.
Nikolayev was born in
KievKiev or Kyiv , is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300...
in 1878. He studied at the
Moscow ConservatoryThe 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...
with
Sergei TaneyevSergei Ivanovich Taneyev , a pupil of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author...
and
Mikhail Ippolitov-IvanovMikhail Mikhailovich Ippolitov-Ivanov was a Russian composer, conductor and teacher.- Biography :...
. For many years Nikolayev was a professor of piano at the
Leningrad ConservatoireThe 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 :...
, and was for a short and unsuccessful period director of the institution.
His students at the Conservatory included
Vladimir SofronitskyVladimir Vladimirovich Sofronitsky was a Russian pianist, best known as an interpreter of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, whose daughter he married.-Biography:Vladimir Sofronitsky was born to a physics teacher father and a mother from an artistic family...
,
Maria YudinaMaria Veniaminovna Yudina or Mariya Yudina was an influential Russian pianist....
, and
Dmitri ShostakovichDmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Russian composer of the Soviet period and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
.
He became close friends with Shostakovich — Shostakovich "admired him as a first-class musician and a man of great wisdom and learning" and also said of him: "He trained not simply pianists, but in the first place thinking musicians. He didn't create a school in the specific sense of some single narrow professional direction. He shaped and nurtured a broad aesthetic trend in the sphere of pianistic art." Shostakovich's 1943 Piano Sonata no. 2 was dedicated to his former teacher.
Nikolayev was evacuated to
TashkentTashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and also of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was 2.18 million. According to unofficial data, the population is more than 3 million.- History :...
along with other musicians, after
Germany invaded Russia in 1941Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km front...
, and died there in 1942.
His compositional output includes
symphonicA symphony is an extended musical composition, scored almost always for orchestra. "Symphony" does not necessarily imply a specific form though most are composed according to the sonata principle...
works, choral works, string quartets, and solo works for
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
,
celloThe cello is a bowed string instrument. The word derives from the Italian violoncello. A person who plays a cello is called a cellist. The cello is used as a solo instrument, in chamber music, and as a member of the string section of an orchestra...
, and piano.