1867–1938 · Russia
Samuel Maykapar (1867–1938) was a Russian and Soviet pianist, composer, teacher and writer on music, a professor at the Leningrad Conservatoire. He is known for piano pieces written for children and young people, among them the cycle Biriulki. Teachers still use some of his pieces, such as Skazochka, today, and the site carries his Miniatures.
Samuel Maykapar was born on 18 December 1867 in Kherson, into a Karaite family. Soon after his birth the family moved to Taganrog, where his childhood was spent. His father, Moisei Samuilovich Maykapar, traded in grain, sat on the city council and was a well-known Taganrog merchant and manufacturer. His mother was Ester Solomonovna, born Isakovich.
The boy began music lessons at the age of six, taking them from G. Molla. Maykapar studied at the Taganrog gymnasium.
In 1885 Maykapar moved to Saint Petersburg and entered the conservatoire. As a pianist he studied with Beniamino Cesi, Vladimir Demyansky and Iosif Weiss, and he studied composition in the class of Nikolai Soloviev. At the same time he attended the law faculty of Saint Petersburg University, finishing there in 1891. He received his conservatoire diploma in 1893.
After the conservatoire, until 1898, Maykapar went on perfecting his piano playing in Vienna under Theodor Leschetizky. He gave concerts in Berlin, Leipzig, Saint Petersburg, Moscow and other cities. From 1898 to 1901 he performed together with Leopold Auer and Ivan Grzhimali.
In 1901 Maykapar founded a music school in Tver. From 1903 to 1910 he was busy with concert work. He was secretary of the scientific and musical circle in Moscow led by Sergei Taneyev, and took an active part in its work.
From 1910 to 1930 Maykapar taught piano at the Petersburg, later Leningrad, Conservatoire and became a professor there. His well-known pupils include S. S. Lyakhovitskaya and Isaiah Braudo. He was the initiator of performing the cycle of 32 Beethoven sonatas in concert; in 1927 he played them himself in the Small Hall of the conservatoire over seven consecutive evenings. After leaving the conservatoire he gave concerts of his own works in Leningrad and Kyiv.
Maykapar's first wife was Sofia Emmanuilovna Maykapar, born Isakovich, a singer and teacher. His second wife was the violinist Elizaveta Aronovna, born Totesh, who died in besieged Leningrad in 1942. His son Yevgeny was a mechanical engineer, and his grandson Alexander Yevgenyevich Maykapar became a musician and was named an Honoured Artist of Russia. His daughter Nadezhda died at the age of eight in the early 1930s.
Samuel Maykapar died on 8 May 1938 in Leningrad and was buried at the Literatorskie Mostki section of the Volkovo cemetery. That same year his autobiographical book was published in Moscow, in which he looks back on his childhood and schooling in Taganrog. In 1977 his niece Yevgeniya Semyonovna Beim handed the composer's personal archive over to the manuscripts department of the Saltykov-Shchedrin library for safekeeping.
Maykapar composed more than three hundred pieces and wrote several scholarly works. He was known as the author of piano pieces for children and young people. The cycle of miniatures Biriulki, made up of 26 pieces, won great popularity. His romances and Muzykalny sluh (Moscow, 1900) also became well known.
Among his compositions are Novelettes mignonnes, 24 Miniatures, a seven-piece album called The Marionette Theatre, a pair of sonatas, piano studies and dedicated pedalling exercises. The piece Skazochka (Op. 28 No. 10) is among those that teachers still use today.
The site has his Miniatures (Op. 33) for solo piano, at the Intermediate+ level. It is a place to start getting to know the composer.