Composer Alexander Tikhonovitch Gretchaninov was born on 25 OCT 1864 in Moscow and was the son of a small businessman. At 10 years of age Gretchaninov in a Moscow High School he became a skillfull choir solo singer. At 14 years he studies piano, with the support of his sister-in-law. At 17 years of age against the will of his father, he leaves high sschool to enter the Moscow conservatoire from 1881 to 1900. After his achievements as a pianist, he turns to composition. His first published composition is Cradle song after a text by Michael J. Lermontow (1814-1841) in 1889. Due to a controversy with one of his teachers, he leaves the Conservatoire and in September with a scholarship from a Russian music company attends the St. Petersburg conservatoire. He remains there until 1893 and then studies composition and instrumentation with Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov. In 1891 he marries and achieves his first success with a conzert overtuere in D-Moll, which wins a 1894 competition. That leads to further publications of his works. In 1914 and 1915 in the same competition his quartet wins again. In 1895 Rimsky Korsakov directs the premiere of his Sinfonie #1 in h-Moll in the original version with the Scherzo, however four years later it is revised. He also composed an opera, with libretto by Dobrinja Nikititsch. Nikititsch's story is about a famous Russian from the time of the Christianisierung of the Russians around the year 1000. The opera is composed in the years 1896-1901. It premiered on 27 OCT 1903 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow with Schaljapin in the title role. He earns living by teaching first in Petersburg and in 1896 in Moscow. He composed some Church music and receives an official acknowledgment for one of his works, in 1910 an annual pension of 2000 roubles. Besides the work on his own operas he writes Buehnenmusiken, to Tolstois Zar Fedor and death Ivans the Terrible.
Gretchaninov was religious, and held liberal View. This led to the separation in 1911 from his wife. He meets a Russian painter and they move in together. His second opera Beatrice ends after three performances because of religious problems. The revolution of 1917 brings loss the imperial pension.
In 1922, on the invitation of a wealthy American friend he is given the opportunity to visit Western Europe, London and Prague. In 1925 he settles in Paris, where he lives until 1939. He composes, publishes works composed in English developed between 1895 and 1924 and writes an autobiography in his native language. With the outbreak of war he flees to America, where he had been in 1929. He arrives in New York in 1940. Gretchaninov completes compositions in many different styles with influences of Tchaikowsky, Borodin and Rimsky Korsakov. He is best known by his compositions for children and his religious music. Childless, but extremely fond of children he composed at a school of music numerous compositions for children. d-1956.
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