Alexander Maykapar

Alexander Yevgenyevich Maykapar (December 4, 1946 – June 1, 2021) was a Soviet and Russian pianist, harpsichordist, organist, musicologist, art historian, and translator. He was a professor at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music and was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the Russian Federation in 1999. He was the grandson of the composer Samuil Maykapar.

Born in Moscow on December 4, 1946, Maykapar came from a family with deep cultural and historical roots. His father, Evgeny Alexandrovich Maykapar, was a mechanical engineer and an expert at the State Committee for Inventions and Discoveries. His mother, Natalia Lvovna Maykapar, worked as a secretary for the editorial board of the "Novy Mir" magazine. Maykapar graduated from the Gnessin State Musical-Pedagogical Institute, where he studied piano with Teodor Gutman, and later from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied organ with Leonid Roizman.

Beginning in 1970, Maykapar embarked on a concert career that took him across Russia and to other countries. He was particularly renowned for his interpretations of early music. His ambitious programs included performances of the complete harpsichord works of Johann Sebastian Bach and François Couperin, as well as all the keyboard sonatas of Joseph Haydn. He also dedicated himself to recording and popularizing the works of 18th-century Russian composers.

As a musicologist, Maykapar made significant contributions through his editorial work and publications. He edited and created arrangements for several of Bach's works. He was a regular contributor of popular articles on music to the teachers' newspaper "Pervoye Sentyabrya" ("The First of September"). Starting in 1998, he also served as a commentator for programs on BBC radio, sharing his expertise with a wide audience.

Maykapar was a prolific translator, making several seminal works on music accessible to Russian-speaking readers. His translations include Wanda Landowska's "On Music," Erwin Bodky's "The Interpretation of Bach's Keyboard Works," and Walter Emery's "Bach's Ornaments." He also translated Henry William Simon's popular reference book "100 Great Operas," to which he added a valuable appendix titled "Masterpieces of Russian Opera."

Beyond music, his scholarly interests extended to art history. He translated James Hall's "Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art" into Russian. This work inspired him to write his own popular compendium on Christian iconography, "The New Testament in Art" (1997). He continued this line of work by co-authoring the album "The Life of Christ in Works of Painting" (2001) with N. A. Borisovskaya.

In his later years, Maykapar was a dedicated educator. From September 2010, he taught a harpsichord class at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music and also taught at the music college of the Schnittke Moscow State Institute of Music. From 2019, he conducted seminars and masterclasses as part of the "Culture" National Project. In 2020, he recorded a series of 20 remote lectures titled "A History of Ideas in European Art." He also authored an autobiographical novel, "42,048,000" (2017), and a book reflecting on the pandemic, "My Life (and Death) in Art: A Diary of the Coronavirus Era" (2020).

Alexander Maykapar passed away on June 1, 2021, due to complications from COVID-19. He was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. In addition to his artistic and academic pursuits, he was active in public life, serving as the chairman of the Moscow Cultural and Educational Society of Karaites from 2006 to 2012 and as chairman of the board of the "National-Cultural Autonomy of Karaites of the City of Moscow" from 2012 until his death.

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