Tatiana Nikolayeva

Tatiana Petrovna Nikolayeva (also known as Nikolayeva-Tarasevich; 1924–1993) was a Soviet Russian pianist, composer, teacher, and public figure. She became one of the most authoritative interpreters of J. S. Bach and a leading figure in the Russian piano tradition, receiving major state and international honors including the Stalin Prize (First Class, 1951) and the title People’s Artist of the USSR (1983).

She was born on 4 May 1924 in Bezhitsa (now part of Bryansk). She began playing the piano at the age of three. From 1937 to 1941 she studied at the Central Music School attached to the Moscow Conservatory under Alexander Goldenweiser, and during this period she also began composing. Because of the family’s difficult financial situation she worked as an accompanist, including at the Higher School of Military Bandmasters (1943–1945) and at the Central Music School (1945–1946).

Nikolayeva graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1947 in piano (again with Goldenweiser) and in 1950 in composition with Vissarion Shebalin (later also studying with Evgeny Golubev). She completed postgraduate studies in 1953. She gave her first solo concert in 1942, and from 1945 she was a soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic.

In 1950 she won the top prize at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, held for the 200th anniversary of Bach’s death; Dmitri Shostakovich served on the jury. She later became the first performer of Shostakovich’s cycle of “24 Preludes and Fugues,” and the pianist and composer maintained a deep lifelong friendship. Between 1942 and 1993 she gave around 3,000 concerts, performing about 1,000 works by 74 composers; her repertoire prominently included Bach’s major keyboard works, Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas and five piano concertos, and a broad spectrum from Scarlatti and Mozart to Bartók, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, and Golubev.

Numerous works were dedicated to her, including Boris Lyatoshynsky’s “Slavic Concerto,” Golubev’s Third Piano Concerto, Aram Khachaturian? (not stated) and others; the article specifically mentions a piano concerto by Andrei Eshpai and sonatas by Anatoly Alexandrov among additional dedications. She made more than 50 LP recordings and 20 CDs for Melodiya and foreign labels, including major Bach projects such as “The Art of Fugue,” and an album of all Beethoven piano sonatas. She received the Robert Schumann Prize in the GDR (Zwickau, 1971) for her performances of Schumann, while broader Western recognition came mainly late in her life through successful post-Soviet tours in Europe and America.

From 1959 she taught at the Moscow Conservatory in the special piano department, becoming professor in 1965 and head of the department in 1985. Her students included Alexei Batagov, Maria Evseeva, Tatiana Levitina, Nikolai Lugansky, Mikhail Petukhov, and others, and she served on juries of many international competitions (including the Paloma O’Shea Santander Piano Competition in 1990). She was also active in Soviet public life: a CPSU member from 1956, a deputy of the Moscow City Council, and involved in organizations such as the Soviet Committee for Peace Defense and the Association of Friendship with Latin American Countries; she was a member of the Union of Soviet Composers and the editorial board of the publishing house “Soviet Composer,” and published articles in the press.

Her third recording of Shostakovich’s “24 Preludes and Fugues” (1991) earned a Gramophone Award in the instrumental category. On 13 November 1993, while performing this work in San Francisco, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and had to stop playing; she died nine days later, on 22 November 1993. She was buried in Moscow at Novodevichy Cemetery. As a composer she wrote in a wide range of genres, including a cantata (“Song of Happiness,” 1950), a symphony (1955; revised 1958), concertante works such as two piano concertos (1950; 1966), a violin concerto (1972), chamber music, piano sonatas, sets of études, and songs, as well as music for drama productions and film and cadenzas for Haydn’s piano concertos.

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