Nikolai medtner biography templates

Many of them are cast in one movement, and some are embedded in cycles of character pieces. There is also a large number of piano miniatures, named Forgotten Melodies or Improvisations , and a collection of 38 skazki tales. Furthermore, Medtner composed more than songs and a number of large-scale chamber works, such as three violin sonatas and a piano quintet.

Particularly interesting are the frequent subtitles which add an intertextual or hermeneutic layer to the corresponding works as seen for instance in the Sonata-Elegy , Sonata-Ballade , Sonata romantica or Sonata tragica. Some compositions relate to a spiritual or literary inspiration, such as piano sonatas preceded by a motto from Goethe or Tyutchev.

Wendelin Bitzan. Festival-Tag EN Medtner. However, he came into the world fully-armed as a composer and, as this chronological selection of his works demonstrates, his style developed remarkably little throughout his career. Thus it became his fate, as time passed, to be marooned in a backwater by the maelstrom of twentieth-century musical history.

Medtner's musical personality was the product of two cultures: his profoundly Russian character and Moscow musical upbringing were tempered by the Teutonic intellectual inheritance of his family, immigrants from northern Europe several generations before him. If in spirit and not infrequently in idiom his music proclaims his Russian nationality, in matters of craftsmanship and musical design his roots can be traced back to the Austro-German classical masters.

As with Chopin and Alkan, the piano was the focus of Medtner's musical activity. All of his compositions not for piano solo- three concertos, a quintet, works for violin, and published songs- nonetheless contain a part for the instrument. The fourteen piano sonatas, notwith standing the claims of the better-known cycles by Scriabin eight years Medtner's senior and Prokofiev eleven years his junior , are certainly numerically the largest and arguably the most interesting and musically satisfying contribution to the genre by any Russian.

Extraordinarily varied in scale and mood, they reveal in their remarkable structural integrity a grasp of large-scale musical architecture possessed by few of the composer's compatriots. In this connection, a characteristically Medtnerian device is to demonstrate at the end of a sonata that all its themes, though apparently widely different, have a common origin.

Taneyev was astonished by Medtner's intuitive grasp of counterpoint and famously described him as being 'born with sonata form'. Both of these talents naturally find their fullest expression in the sonatas. This single movement is one of Medtner's most poetic creations; as the title indicates, its character is nostalgic and wistful. Other pieces in opus 38 contain variants of the Sonata's opening theme, such as the concluding "Alla Reminiscenza".

This sonata is nowadays the most often performed. There is some repetition of themes in this set as well—the piece which precedes the Sonata, "Canzona Matinata", contains a theme which recurs in the Sonata, and according to Medtner's wishes both pieces are to be played attacca —without pause. This is also a single movement sonata-allegro form, but Allegro, dramatic and ferocious, with three themes of which one the reminiscence from "Canzona Matinata" does not return.

A violent coda concludes. This sonata is well served by recordings, including one by Medtner in The ending quotes his Sonata-Skazka, Op. It is highly chromatic, and contains a fugue. Medtner described it as "my most contemporary composition, for it reflects the threatening atmosphere of contemporary events". The last of the sonatas, "Sonata-Idyll" in G major, Op.

It consists of two movements: a short Allegretto cantabile Pastorale and a sonata allegro Allegro moderato e cantabile sempre al rigore di tempo. Medtner's chamber music includes three violin sonatas and a piano quintet :. Medtner published over songs for voice and piano, with words from texts by Pushkin , Goethe , Mikhail Lermontov , Fyodor Tyutchev , and Afanasy Fet , among others.

Hamish Milne has recorded most of the solo piano works, while Geoffrey Douglas Madge , Konstantin Scherbakov and Yevgeny Sudbin have recorded the three piano concertos. Far fewer singers have tackled the songs. A handful of other singers have included Medtner songs in compilations; particularly notable are historic recordings by Zara Dolukhanova and Irina Arkhipova.

However, many songs are not available on CD, and some await their first recording. A substantial two-CD set, presenting fifty-four Medtner songs, accompanied by Iain Burnside , has appeared in Medtner recorded piano rolls of some of his works for Welte-Mignon in and Duo-Art in , before his later studio recordings for Capitol Records and other labels.

In the Ukrainian pianist Darya Dadykina and the Russian pianist Vasily Gvozdetsky founded the International Nikolai Medtner Society in Berlin to popularize his work and to advance cultural exchange in and around Europe. An asteroid called Nikolaimedtner is named after the composer. Medtner's one book, The Muse and the Fashion, being a defence of the foundations of the Art of Music [ 20 ] , reprinted and was a statement of his artistic credo and reaction to some of the trends of the time.

He believed strongly that there were immutable laws to music, whose essence was in song. An English translation of the book was published in by Alfred Swan. Medtner also wrote a memoir titled "With S. Rachmaninoff" in , in which he writes admiringly about his friend as a composer and as a pianist.

Nikolai medtner biography templates

It contains photographs and essays from his widow, friends, critics, musicians, composers, and admirers. The editor of the volume was Richard Holt. The book is available in a German translation by Christoph Flamm and is notable for the two CDs it contains with original recordings of a variety of Medtner's works. There have been numerous dissertations on Medtner's music.

Originally presented as the author's Ph. It includes letters, reviews and other documents in German, Russian, English and French, a bibliography and partial discography. Under the title "Sonata" Medtner added a note: "The whole piece is in an epic spirit". As Geoffrey Tozer put it, this work "has the reputation of being a fearsomely difficult work of extraordinary length, exhausting to play and to hear, but of magnificent quality and marvelous invention.

It comprises a Ballade, Introduction and Finale. The tonality and some of the material make passing reference to Chopin's Barcarole. The first movement opens with one of Medtner's lovely pastoral melodies. Medtner himself recorded this work. The one-movement Ninth Sonata in A minor, Op. It is a dark, terse and harmonically exploratory work of considerable power.

The Tenth "Sonata-reminiscenza" in A minor, Op. Two further cycles followed, published as Opp. Both this and the following sonata were completed in , the year before Medtner emigrated. This single movement is one of Medtner's most poetic creations; as the title indicates, its character is nostalgic and wistful. Other pieces in opus 38 contain variants of the Sonata's opening theme, such as the concluding "Alla Reminiscenza".

This sonata is nowadays the most often performed. There is some repetition of themes in this set as well— the piece which precedes the Sonata, "Canzona Matinata", contains a theme which recurs in the Sonata, and according to Medtner's wishes both pieces are to be played attacca — without pause. This is also a single movement sonata-form, but Allegro, dramatic and ferocious, with three themes of which one the reminiscence from "Canzona Matinata" fails to return.

A violent coda concludes. This sonata is well served by recordings, including one by Medtner in The ending quotes his Sonata-Skazka, Op. It lives up to the "menacing" character of the title and is highly chromatic, with an impressive fugue. Medtner described it as "my most contemporary composition, for it reflects the threatening atmosphere of contemporary events".

The last of the sonatas, "Sonata-Idyll" in G major, Op. This is a gentle, two-movement work — a short Allegretto cantabile Pastorale and a rondo Allegro moderato e cantabile sempre al rigore di tempo with delicate harmonic colorings, in which the "cantabile" indications in both movements reflect the overall mood. Piano Concerto, No. Dedicated to the composer's mother, this one-movement work opens with an exposition section setting out the material for the work, the opening pages of which erupt with fireworks from the piano against a memorable, surging orchestral statement of the subject.

A set of variations make up the central development before the opening returns two thirds of the way through the piece. Eventually the coda sets out the romantic "big tune" before the final pages lead to an unexpectedly bittersweet ending. Dedicated to Rachmaninoff, who dedicated his own Fourth Concerto to Medtner. In three movements: Toccata , and a Romanza from which follows a Divertimento.

The first movement is propulsive with kinetic energy, and there is much dialogue between piano and orchestra a subsidiary theme resembles the Fairy Tale from the Op. The Romanza and Divertimento are each in their own way varied in character, the Divertimento particularly rich in inspiration. The factors which led to the creation of this work are closely connected to the circumstances of his final years.