Russian pianist and composer
Samuil Yevgenyevich Feinberg (Russian: Самуи́л Евге́ньевич Фе́йнберг, also Samuel; 26 May 1890, Odessa – 22 October 1962, Moscow) was a Russian and Soviet composer and pianist.
Biography
Born in Odessa, Feinberg lived in Moscow from 1894 and studied with Alexander Goldenweiser at the Moscow Conservatory.[1] He also studied composition privately under Nikolai Zhilyayev.[2] He graduated from the Conservatory in 1911, after which he embarked upon a career as a solo pianist, while composing on the side. However, he was soon sent to fight in the First World War for Russia until he became ill and was discharged.[3] In 1922, he joined the faculty at the Moscow Conservatory, relaunching his pianistic career.[4] By 1930, due to the political repressions in Stalin's Russia, Feinberg's concert activities became limited. He made only two foreign trips in the 1930s: Vienna in 1936 and Brussels in 1938; hence he is generally not well known outside Russia. In 1946, he was awarded the Stalin Prize.[5]
Feinberg was the first pianist to perform the complete The Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach in concert in the USSR.[6] He is most remembered today for his complete recording of it, and many other works from the classical and romantic eras. He also composed three piano concertos, a dozen piano sonatas (private recordings exist of him playing his piano Sonatas 1, 2, 9 and 12[7]), as well as fantasias and other works for the instrument. Pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva said that each of his sonatas was a "poem of life".[citation needed] Feinberg has been called "A musical heir to Scriabin",[8] who heard the young pianist play his fourth sonata and praised it highly.[9]
He was a life-long bachelor. He lived with his brother Leonid, who was a poet and painter. He died in 1962, aged 72.
