Nicolas Slonimsky

Nicolas Slonimsky (Russian: Николай Леонидович Слонимский, Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimsky; * 15 Apriljul / April 27 1894greg in Saint Petersburg, .. † December 25, 1995 in San Francisco) was an American composer, conductor, musicologist and music critic. He came from a Russian- Jewish family that had converted to the Russian Orthodox faith.

Life

Slonimsky's first teacher was his aunt, the pianist Isabelle Vengerova. From 1921 to 1923 he lived in Paris, where he met the conductor and double bassist Sergei Koussevitzky.

In 1923, Slonimsky as a piano accompanist to the newly founded opera department of Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he could study in composition and Dirigentur. Two years later he came as an assistant to Sergei Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston.

In 1927, Slonimsky, the Boston Chamber Orchestra, which was devoted to contemporary music. There, he conducted the first performances of Edgar Varèse's " Ionisation" and Charles Ives ' "Three Places in New England ".

1958 took over the editorship of Slonimsky Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians and edited it until 1992.

Bibliography (selection)

• Perfect Pitch. A life story. University Press, Oxford, 1988, ISBN 0-19-315155-3 ( autobiography ).
• Music Since 1900. Neuausg. Schirmer, New York 1994, ISBN 0-02-872418-6.
• Music of Latin America. Crowell Press, New York 1972, ISBN 0-306-711885 ( Nachdr d ed New York 1945).
• Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. Amsco Publ, New York 1997, ISBN 0-8256-1449- X ( Nachdr d ed New York 1947).
• Lexicon of Musical Invective. Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven 's Time. 2nd edition, University Press, Seattle 1978, ISBN 0-295-78579-9.

• Theodore Baker ( Lim. ): Baker's biographical dictionary of musicians. Schirmer, New York from 1958 to 1992.