Alexander Ilyich Siloti (also Ziloti, russian: Алекса́ндр Ильи́ч Зило́ти, ''Aleksandr Iljič Ziloti'', uk, Олександр Ілліч Зілоті; 9 October 1863 – 8 December 1945) was a Russian virtuoso

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

, conductor and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

Biography

Alexander Siloti was born on his father's estate near Kharkiv,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...

(then part of Imperial Russia). He studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory with

Nikolai Zverev Nikolai Sergeyevich Zverev (russian: Николай Серге́евич Зве́рев, sometimes transliterated Nikolai Zveref; ) was a Russian pianist and teacher known for his pupils Alexander Siloti, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, ...

from 1871, then from 1875 under Nikolai Rubinstein, brother of the more famous Anton Rubinstein; from that year he also studied counterpoint under Sergei Taneyev, harmony under

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...

, and theory under Nikolai Hubert.Barber (2002), p. 5. He graduated with the Gold Medal in Piano in 1881. He received some lessons from Anton Rubinstein after the death of Rubinstein's brother, Nikolai. After Siloti's graduation it was decided that he would be sent to

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

on scholarship to further his studies with

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

, co-founding the Liszt-Verein in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, and making his professional debut on 19 November 1883. Returning to Russia in 1887, Siloti taught at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Alexander Goldenweiser, Konstantin Igumnov, Leonid Maximov, and his first

cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...

Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...

. During this period he also began work as editor for Tchaikovsky, particularly on the First and

Second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ea ...

piano concertos.Kutateladze & Raaben Siloti married Vera Tretyakova, herself a pianist and the daughter of the wealthy industrialist and art collector Pavel Tretyakov. He left his post at the Conservatory in May 1891, and from 1892-1900 lived and toured in Europe with his wife and young children. He also toured

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1898. As a conductor Siloti gave the world premiere of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the composer as soloist in 1901. From 1901–1903, he led the Moscow Philharmonic; from 1903–1917, he organized, financed, and conducted the influential Siloti Concerts in St Petersburg, collaborating with the critic and musicologist

Alexander Ossovsky Alexander Vyacheslavovich Ossovsky (russian: link=no, Александр Вячеславович Оссовский, July 31, 1957) was a renowned Russian musical writer, critic and musicologist, professor at Saint Petersburg Conservatory, pupi ...

. He presented Leopold Auer,

Pablo Casals Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: ; 29 December 187622 October 1973), usually known in English by his Castilian Spanish name Pablo Casals,

, Feodor Chaliapin, George Enescu,

Josef Hofmann Josef Casimir Hofmann (originally Józef Kazimierz Hofmann; January 20, 1876February 16, 1957) was a Polish-American pianist, composer, music teacher, and inventor. Biography Josef Hofmann was born in Podgórze (a district of Kraków), in Au ...

Wanda Landowska Wanda Aleksandra Landowska (5 July 1879 – 16 August 1959) was a Polish harpsichordist and pianist whose performances, teaching, writings and especially her many recordings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in ...

, Willem Mengelberg,

Felix Mottl right Felix Josef von Mottl (between 29 July/29 August 1856 – 2 July 1911) was an Austrian conductor and composer. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant conductors of his day. He composed three operas, of which ''Agnes Bernauer'' (Weima ...

, Arthur Nikisch,

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

and Felix Weingartner, and local and world premieres by

Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...

, Elgar, Glazunov, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin, Sibelius, Stravinsky and others. Ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev first heard Stravinsky's music at one of the Siloti Concerts. In the generation prior to 1917, Siloti was one of Russia's most important artists, with music by

Arensky Anton Stepanovich Arensky (russian: Анто́н Степа́нович Аре́нский; – ) was a Russian composer of Romantic classical music, a pianist and a professor of music. Biography Arensky was born into an affluent, music-loving ...

, Lyadov, Blumenfeld, Szymanowski, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Taneyev and Tchaikovsky dedicated to him. In 1918, Siloti was appointed Intendant of the Mariinsky Theatre, but late the following year fled what had become Soviet Russia for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, finally settling in

in December 1921. From 1925-1942 he taught at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely ...

, performing occasionally in recital, and in November 1930 gave a legendary all-Liszt concert with

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orch ...

. His many students included Ilmari Hannikainen, Bertha Melnik,

Marc Blitzstein Marcus Samuel Blitzstein (March 2, 1905January 22, 1964), was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro- union musical ''The Cradle Will Rock'', directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the W ...

, Gladys Ewart, and Eugene Istomin. Siloti, who was one of the great practitioners of the art of transcription, wrote over 200 of these arrangements, as well as orchestral editions of the music of Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi. Possibly his most famous transcription is the Prelude in B minor, based on a keyboard prelude by J. S. Bach. As a pianist Siloti made 8 piano rolls and 26 minutes of home-recorded discs. Carl Fischer has published a large anthology of his piano transcriptions, and Rowman and Littlefield has published the first full-scale Alexander Siloti biography. In 2014, the Alexander Siloti Archive at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

was donated by author and alumnus Charles Barber. In six linear feet, it contains all of the correspondence, documentation, music and manuscripts acquired for the writing of the Siloti biography called ''Lost in the Stars'', and for publication of the 'Alexander Siloti Collection' of piano music. His daughter, Kyriena Siloti, was a noted pianist and teacher in New York and Boston until her death in 1989, aged 94. Alexander Siloti is buried at the Russian Orthodox Convent Novo-Diveevo Cemetery, Nanuet, New York.

References

Sources

* C. Barber. ''Lost in the Stars: The Forgotten Musical Life of Alexander Siloti''. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2002. * C. Barber, editor. "The Alexander Siloti Collection". New York, New York: Carl Fischer, 2003. * S. Bertensson. "Knight of Music." ''Etude'' 64:369, July 1946. * B. Dexter. "Remembering Siloti, A Russian Star." ''American Music Teacher'', April/May 1989. * J. Gottlieb. "Remembering Alexander Siloti." ''Juilliard Journal,'' November 1990. * L.M. Kutateladze and L.N. Raaben, eds., ''Alexander Il'yich Ziloti, 1863-1945: vospominaniya i pis'ma'' (Leningrad, 1963) * R.-A. Mooser. "The Siloti Concerts" in ''The Russian Life of R.-Aloys Mooser, Music Critic to the Tsars: Memoirs and Selected Writings'' (Edwin Mellen Press: Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter, 2008), pp. 149–172. * Moscow Conservatory of Music. "Alexander Ilich Ziloti (1863-1945)". Moscow, 2016. Published in commemoration of Ziloti and his career at the Conservatory. n Russian * A. Ziloti. ''Moi vospominaniya o F. Liste'' (St Petersburg, 1911; ''My Memories of Liszt'', Eng. trl. Edinburgh, 1913 and New York, 1986). ;Documents * Alexander Siloti Archive at Stanford: letters, photographs, diaries, memorabilia, music, research documents, Siloti Concert programmes, translations, family and professional documents. Deposited by author Charles Barber in 2014 * Alexander Siloti Collection at Univ of Maryland, College Park: music, scores, performance files, correspondence, books/notebooks, and miscellaneous documents. Deposited for daughter Kyriena Siloti after her death in 1989 * Letters by Alexander Siloti held by the State Archives in Leipzig, company archives of the Music Publishing House C.F.Peters (Leipzig).

External links

* *
Alexander Siloti Collection
at the University of Maryland Libraries {{DEFAULTSORT:Siloti, Alexander 1863 births 1945 deaths Russian composers Russian male composers Russian conductors (music) Russian male conductors (music) Russian classical pianists Male classical pianists Piano pedagogues Soviet emigrants to Germany Naturalized citizens of Germany People from Luhansk Oblast People from Kharkov Governorate Burials at Novo-Diveevo Russian Cemetery Pupils of Franz Liszt Pupils of Nikolai Zverev