Nikolai Medtner

Nikolai Medtner was a Russian virtuoso pianist and composer whose career is often seen as a parallel to that of his more celebrated friend Rachmaninoff, although his music – poetic, rhapsodic and deeply grounded in the ideals and idiom of Romanticism – has a voice that is entirely its own. Born into an affluent family, Medtner trained at the Moscow Conservatoire and initially composed piano miniatures in the Chopin-like style favoured by many of his Moscow contemporaries. With his Piano Sonata No.1 (1903) he established himself as a distinctive new voice. He would go on to compose a further eleven piano sonatas between 1903 and 1937, often integrating elements of other Romantic piano forms (Sonata-Ballada, 1914) or programmatic ideas (Night Wind Sonata, 1911). He also continued to compose highly distinctive miniatures, including over thirty that he called Skazki (Fairy Tales). Revolution and war led him to depend increasingly upon his skills as a recitalist and as soloist in his own three piano concertos (1918, 1927, and 1943) – his only orchestral works. He composed his Third Concerto in England, having left Russia in 1936, but by then he was struggling to make ends meet. His music has been rediscovered, recorded and widely performed since his death: transforming Medtner from a cult figure to a real presence in the modern concert hall.