Born in Moscow, Jan 5, 1880
Died in London, Nov 13, 1951
- Nikolai Medtner (pronounced MET-ner) was a Russian pianist and composer, and a contemporary of Rachmaninov and Scriabin.
- Medtner began learning the piano at a young age and became a highly skilled pianist, eventually graduating from Moscow Conservatory at age 20. However, rather than pursue a career as a concert pianist, Medtner chose to devote himself fully to composition. Unsurprisingly, his most revered works are those written for piano.
- Like many Russian artists, Medtner fled Russia during the Revolution, never to return, first settling in Paris and then London.
- Medtner’s Russian colleagues respected and supported the composer’s work, particularly Rachmaninov. However, French audiences found Medtner’s music to be too conservative. Audiences across the channel in England held the composer in extremely high regard, ultimately leading the composer to relocate to London.
- As a composer, Medtner’s music is characterized by “rich and dark harmonies in the lower part of the keyboard are frequently adorned by melodic and harmonic inflections borrowed from Russian folk music. However, what truly distinguishes Medtner’s music is ‘a strong vein of classicism apparent in its tightly controlled structures and its contrapuntal textures.'”
- Fun/ scandalous fact: Medtner fell in love with his brother, Emil’s, wife, violinist Anna Mikhaylovna Bratenskaya. While Emil was studying in Germany, he was subsequently interned after the breakout of WWI. With Emil out of the picture (for lack of a better phrase), Nikolai and Anna married… Emil must not have held a grudge, however–after their deaths, the two brothers were buried next to each other in London.1
Sources
- Georg Predota, “Nikolai Karlovich Medtner,” Interlude (2012), accessed September 26, 2024, https://interlude.hk/nikolai-karlovich-medtner/.