Arensky (1861-1906) was a Russian composer of Romantic classical music, a pianist and a professor of music.
Arensky was born in a music-loving, affluent family in Novgorod, Russia. 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, after which 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.
While very little is known about his private life, Rimsky-Korsakov alleges that drinking and gambling undermined his health.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 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."
Arensky was, perhaps, at his best in chamber music, in which genre he wrote two string quartets, two piano trios, and a piano quintet.
3 окт 2024
