Tchaikovsky
www.tchaikovsky-research.net

Anton Arenskii

Anton Stepanovich Arenskii (Антон Степанович Аренский), or Arensky, was a Russian composer, conductor, and pianist, born at Novgorod on 30 June/12 July 1861.

In 1882 he graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he had studied composition under Nikolai Rimskii-Korsakov, and until 1894 he was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Sergei Rakhmaninov and Aleksandr Skriabin, amongst others. From 1895 to 1901 Arenskii was director of the Imperial Chapel Choir in Saint Petersburg.

One of Arenskii's best-known compositions is his Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a, which uses the melody of the Legend from Tchaikovsky's Sixteen Songs for Children, Op. 54.

Anton Arenskii died at Perkijarvi, near Terjoki, Finland (now Zelenogorsk, Russia), on 12/25 February 1906, aged 44.