Nikolai medtner biography channels

Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was born in January into a privileged and cultured Muscovite family, being the youngest of five siblings. His father was a merchant and factory manager; his mother, trained as a pianist and vocalist, began teaching the boy on the piano. In Nikolai enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory where he was educated primarily as a pianist. His professors were Paul Pabst, Vasily Sapelnikov, and Vasily Safonov under whose guidance he developed to a promising young virtuoso. He was taught in music theory by Anton Arensky, and later in the class of Sergey Taneyev which he attended only irregularly. Except for a series of private consultations with Taneyev, Medtner did not receive formal education as a composer. In he graduated from the Conservatory with a small gold medal in piano performance. A few months later he decided, to the dismay of his teachers and family, not to pursue a career as a pianist, but to devote himself to composing. First piano pieces appeared in print