1863–1931 · Russia
Felix Blumenfeld (1863–1931) was a pianist, composer and teacher, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov. He accompanied Chaliapin, conducted at the Mariinsky Theatre and taught in St Petersburg, Kiev and Moscow; Vladimir Horowitz and Maria Yudina studied with him. The site has two of his piano studies at the Middle+ level.
Felix Blumenfeld was born in April 1863 in Kovalyovka in the Kherson Governorate, a place that now lies within Kropyvnytskyi in Ukraine. His father, Mikhail Frantsevich, taught music and French; his mother was Maria Sigizmundovna, born Szymanowska. Felix's brother Sigizmund Blumenfeld was also a composer.
His teacher Gustav Neuhaus had married Felix's elder sister, which made Blumenfeld the uncle of Heinrich Neuhaus. Karol Szymanowski was a relative too: Blumenfeld's first cousin once removed.
He entered the St Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied piano with Fyodor Stein and composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. While still a student he gained a reputation as a virtuoso performer who could read new music at sight brilliantly.
Thanks to this skill he was the first to perform many piano works by Tchaikovsky, Balakirev, Glazunov and other composers of his day. They were played at semi-private musical evenings in St Petersburg.
In 1883 Rimsky-Korsakov presented his completed edition of Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina to the theatre committee of the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres, with Blumenfeld at the piano. In 1885 he graduated from the conservatory with a gold medal.
Right after graduating Blumenfeld was invited to teach at the conservatory, and from 1897 he was a professor there. At the same time he was very active as a pianist and conductor.
A close creative partnership linked him with Fyodor Chaliapin, whom he accompanied often. In 1908 the Paris premiere of Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov was given under Blumenfeld's baton, with Chaliapin in the title role, and the French press received it with enthusiasm.
Blumenfeld conducted at the Mariinsky Theatre, where the operas of his mentor Rimsky-Korsakov were first staged. On the podium for the Russian first night of Tristan und Isolde, Wagner's opera, was also Blumenfeld.
In 1918 Blumenfeld moved to Kiev and became a professor at the Kiev Conservatory. In Kiev Vladimir Horowitz studied with him, in Blumenfeld's masterclasses.
From 1922 he was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and taught there until the end of his life. In 1927 he was given the title of Honoured Art Worker of the Republic. Blumenfeld died in Moscow on 21 January 1931.
Among his pupils of the St Petersburg period was Simon Barere; of the Kiev period, Vladimir Horowitz, Nathan Perelman, Gleb Taranov and Alexander Gauk; of the Moscow period, Alexander Tsfasman. Maria Yudina took private lessons from Blumenfeld.
Maria Grinberg and Vladimir Belov were among Blumenfeld's later pupils. In the last years of Blumenfeld's life Belov worked as his assistant.
Blumenfeld wrote more than a hundred piano works and fifty romances. Among his larger pieces are the Allegro de concert, Op. 7, for piano and orchestra, and the Symphony in C minor, Op. 39.
His étude for the left hand alone, in A-flat major, Op. 36, is widely known. Blumenfeld's own works show the influence of Chopin and Tchaikovsky.
The site has two of his studies for solo piano: Etude nº1, Op. 29, and etude -3, Op. 44. Both are marked at the Middle+ level; Op. 29 is a place to begin.