This Week in Classical Music: May 3, 2021.Tatiana Nikolayeva.This is the week we always feel stumped: two very different but supremely talented composers were born on the same day, May 7th, Peter Tchaikovsky in 1840 and Johannes Brahms in 1833 and we’re never sure how to approach this dual anniversary.We’ve tried everything: to compared them on some formal parameter, such as their piano or violin concertos, or their symphonies, as dissimilar as they are, or emphasize incongruities, which are numerous.Nothing really ever worked.Some years we’ve written about one or another; that always felt incomplete.This year we’ll just acknowledge them and move on.Several interesting composers were also born this week, for example Stanisław Moniuszko, the author of many songs and the father of the Polish national opera (Halka, The Haunted Manor and several other operas are still being staged, more often in Poland and Belarus, where Moniuszko is also considered a national composer).Moniuszko was born on May 5th of 1805.The French organist and composer Marcel Dupré (born on this day in 1886), Carl Stamitz, the German composer of Czech descent and one of the more interesting representatives of the Mannheim school (b. May 8th of 1745), the American pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (b. May 8th of 1829) – all have their anniversaries this week.
The person we would like to remember today is Tatiana Nikolayeva, a Soviet pianist not well known in the West.She was born on May 5th of 1924 in Bezhitsa, a small town near the city of Bryansk.She started playing piano at the age of three, then moved to Moscow where she studied with Alexander Goldenweiser.Very poor, she earned a bit of money working as an accompanist. She graduated the Moscow Conservatory in 1947 majoring in piano and three years later received a diploma in composition, both cum laude.In 1950 Nikolayeva won a Bach International Competition in Leipzig.Dmitry Shostakovich was the Chairman of the jury and they became good friends.It was Nikolayeva who two years later premiered Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues.Nikolayeva’s repertoire was enormous: her page on the site of the Moscow Conservatory states that from 1942 to 1993 she played 3,000 concerts, performing 1,000 different composition by 74 composers.She recorded more than 50 LPs and 20 CDs.Nikolayeva played all clavier compositions by Bach, all piano sonatas and concertos by Beethoven, piano music by Scarlatti, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and on to the 20th century.She performed the composers that were either not popular or semi-banned in the Soviet Union, such as Stravinsky and Hindemith.For more than thirty years Nikolayeva was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory; among her students were Nikolai Lugansky and Oxana Yablonskaya. On November 13, 1993 Nikolayeva was playing a concert in San Francisco when she had a stroke.She died nine days later, on November 22nd of that year.
It’s hard to select a representative sample from such a rich legacy but playing a Prelude and Fugue by Shostakovich seems appropriate.Here is no. 22, in G minor.The recording was made in 1962.
Tatiana Nikolayeva, 2021
This Week in Classical Music: May 3, 2021. Tatiana Nikolayeva. This is the week we always feel stumped: two very different but supremely talented composers were born on the same day, May 7th, Peter Tchaikovsky in 1840 and Johannes Brahms in 1833 and we’re never sure how to
approach this dual anniversary. We’ve tried everything: to compared them on some formal parameter, such as their piano or violin concertos, or their symphonies, as dissimilar as they are, or emphasize incongruities, which are numerous. Nothing really ever worked. Some years we’ve written about one or another; that always felt incomplete. This year we’ll just acknowledge them and move on. Several interesting composers were also born this week, for example Stanisław Moniuszko, the author of many songs and the father of the Polish national opera (Halka, The Haunted Manor and several other operas are still being staged, more often in Poland and Belarus, where Moniuszko is also considered a national composer). Moniuszko was born on May 5th of 1805. The French organist and composer Marcel Dupré (born on this day in 1886), Carl Stamitz, the German composer of Czech descent and one of the more interesting representatives of the Mannheim school (b. May 8th of 1745), the American pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (b. May 8th of 1829) – all have their anniversaries this week.
The person we would like to remember today is Tatiana Nikolayeva, a Soviet pianist not well known in the West. She was born on May 5th of 1924 in Bezhitsa, a small town near the city of Bryansk. She started playing piano at the age of three, then moved to Moscow where she studied with Alexander Goldenweiser. Very poor, she earned a bit of money working as an accompanist. She graduated the Moscow Conservatory in 1947 majoring in piano and three years later received a diploma in composition, both cum laude. In 1950 Nikolayeva won a Bach International Competition in Leipzig. Dmitry Shostakovich was the Chairman of the jury and they became good friends. It was Nikolayeva who two years later premiered Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues. Nikolayeva’s repertoire was enormous: her page on the site of the Moscow Conservatory states that from 1942 to 1993 she played 3,000 concerts, performing 1,000 different composition by 74 composers. She recorded more than 50 LPs and 20 CDs. Nikolayeva played all clavier compositions by Bach, all piano sonatas and concertos by Beethoven, piano music by Scarlatti, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and on to the 20th century. She performed the composers that were either not popular or semi-banned in the Soviet Union, such as Stravinsky and Hindemith. For more than thirty years Nikolayeva was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory; among her students were Nikolai Lugansky and Oxana Yablonskaya. On November 13, 1993 Nikolayeva was playing a concert in San Francisco when she had a stroke. She died nine days later, on November 22nd of that year.
It’s hard to select a representative sample from such a rich legacy but playing a Prelude and Fugue by Shostakovich seems appropriate. Here is no. 22, in G minor. The recording was made in 1962.