Nikolai Soloviev

Nikolai Feopemptovich Soloviev was a Russian composer, music critic, and teacher born in Petrozavodsk. He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1870 from the composition class of Nikolai Zaremba. His early orchestral works included an Overture (1869) and the dramatic cantata "The Death of Samson" (1870). Soloviev became close friends with Alexander Serov and, following Serov's death, completed his opera "The Power of the Fiend" in collaboration with Serov's widow, orchestrating parts of the first act and composing music for the fifth.

As a composer, Soloviev is noted for his operas, including "Vakula the Smith" (based on Gogol), which won second place in a competition where Tchaikovsky took first prize. His other operas include "Cordelia" (staged as "Vengeance" in 1885) and "The Little House in Kolomna". His symphonic output features the symphonic picture "Rus and Mongols" and the "Petrovskaya Cantata". He also composed vocal works, such as "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" for voice and piano, and collected approximately 300 Russian folk songs, contributing to the Academy of Sciences' publications.

Soloviev was a prolific music critic and scholar who held conservative views, often opposing the aesthetic principles of "The Five" (The Mighty Handful). He contributed over 1,000 articles on music to the "Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary". From 1874 to 1909, he taught composition and music theory at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, becoming a professor in 1885; his students included Samuil Maykapar. He later served as the assistant manager of the Court Singing Chapel before his death in Petrograd in 1916.

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