Wassily Sapellnikoff

Wassily Sapellnikoff (Russian: Василий Львович Сапельников; tr. Vasily Lvovich Sapelnikov) (2 November [O.S. 21 October] 1867 – 17 March 1941), was a Russian pianist.

Sapellnikoff was born in Odessa. He studied at the Odessa Conservatory under Louis Brassin and Sophie Menter, and became professor of piano at Moscow Conservatory in 1897. He eventually moved to Leipzig and finally settled in Munich.

He toured with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Germany, France and England. At his debut in Hamburg in 1888, he played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor with the composer conducting. This concert was a great success and a catalyst for his budding career as a concert pianist in Western Europe. He was the first to play this concerto in England. He was the dedicatee of a piano piece by Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky wrote about him affectionately in his letters to his brother Modest, in terms such as: Since the time of Kotek I have never loved anyone so warmly as him. Because they spent so much time together on these tours, it is often asserted that he and Tchaikovsky were lovers. However, Alexander Poznansky, in Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, writes: As in the case of Brandukov, it seems likely that an erotic element was present in Tchaikovsky's friendship with Sapelnikov and that he recognised it as such. Both men were quite young and good-looking. Almost certainly, however, their relations remained chaste.

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