Anton Arensky

Anton Stepanovich Arensky (Russian: Анто́н Степа́нович Аре́нский; 12 July [O.S. 30 June] 1861 – 25 February [O.S. 12 February] 1906), was a Russian composer of Romantic classical music, a pianist and a professor of music.

Arensky was born in a music-loving, affluent family in Novgorod, Russia. He was musically precocious and had composed a number of songs and piano pieces by the age of nine. With his mother and father, he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1879, after which he studied composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

After graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1882, Arensky became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his students there were Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Gretchaninov.

In 1895 Arensky returned to Saint Petersburg as the director of the Imperial Choir, a post for which he had been recommended by Mily Balakirev. He retired from this position in 1901, living off a comfortable pension and spending his remaining time as a pianist, conductor, and composer.

Arensky died of tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Perkjärvi, Finland at the age of 44. While very little is known about his private life, Rimsky-Korsakov alleges that drinking and gambling undermined his health.

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