Alexander Winkler (composer)

Alexander (Gustav) Adolfovich Winkler, also Alexandre Adolfovitch Winkler (Russian: Александр Адольфович (Густав) Винклер; 3 March 1865 in Kharkiv – 6 August 1935 in Besançon), was a Russian pianist, composer and music educator of German descent.

Winkler completed his studies in law at the University of Kharkiv in 1887 and also studied piano at the Kharkiv Music School of the Russian Musical Society, graduating in 1889. He continued to study piano with Alphonse Duvernoy in Paris, and in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky, where he was also a composition student of Karel Navrátil.

Winkler returned to the music school in Kharkiv as Professor of Piano from 1890 to 1896. On the recommendation of Leschetizky, Winkler was invited to Saint Petersburg to teach at the Conservatory, where he had piano classes from 1896 to 1924, becoming Professor of Piano in 1909. The young Sergei Prokofiev was one of his pupils from 1905. From 1907, Winkler was music critic for the German-language newspaper St. Petersburgische Zeitung. Like many professors of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, he was a member of the Belyayev circle, a creative group of musicians led by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which certainly affected his compositional work.

In 1924, Winkler emigrated to France, where from 1925 he taught at the University of Franche-Comté in Besançon.

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