Anton Arensky

Anton Arensky was a highly skilled late 19th-century Russian composer, pianist and conductor. Born in 1861, he began studies with Rimsky-Korsakov at the St Petersburg Conservatory at the age of 18. After graduating with a gold medal in 1882, he moved to the Moscow Conservatory, teaching Rachmaninoff—whose compositional talent he recognised and encouraged—as well as Scriabin and Glière. Under the influence of Tchaikovsky, who in turn admired Arensky’s talent, he developed a more eclectic Western-orientated stylistic outlook, and subsequently occupied several prestigious musical positions in Russia. Unfortunately, his final years were blighted by excessive drinking and gambling. He died of tuberculosis in 1906. Although Arensky secured considerable success during his lifetime with his first opera, Son na Volge (A Dream on the Volga) (1891), his most frequently performed works are the highly expressive Piano Trio No. 1 (1894), and the equally evocative Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky for string orchestra (1894), which originally formed the slow movement to his exceptionally fine String Quartet No. 2, scored for the unusual instrumentation of violin, viola and two cellos.