(Novgorod, 12 July 1861 - Perkjärvi, February 25, 1906)
"He will soon be forgotten ": this is the lapidary judgment of Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov against Anton Stepanovich Arensky, one of his many students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Born in 1861 in Russia, in Novgorod, Arensky, already at the age of nine, shows with his small songs for voice and piano musicals attitudes. Once his piano and composition studies in 1882 were completed, he became a teacher of harmony and counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory, having names such as Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Alexander Grechchanginov among his students. Director between 1888 and 1895 of the Russian choral company, Arensky in 1895, returning to St. Petersburg obtained - on the recommendation of Mili Balakirev - the position of director of the imperial choir, a position that he will abandon in 1901 on the push of his multiple compositional commitments and above all concerts, as a pianist and director.
In his "memories," Rimsky-Korsakov talks about it again: "For the nature of his talent and his tastes as a composer, he was close to Anton Rubinstein, but he was inferior to him for quality and talent, albeit in the orchestration ability. In his youth, Arensky did not escape a certain influence; later, the influence came from Ciajkovskij." What Rimsky criticized most in the student was his "habit and non-necessarity," even if the teacher's judgment was (Capitoso in turn) more than anything else of a moral nature towards that student with life "dissipated between wine and cards"; Moreover, we know that Arensky led a somewhat unruly life (he died of tuberculosis in 1906 in a Finnish sanatorium).
Despite the enormous teacher, they seem to be Arensky from Ciaikovsky, and Prokofiev wrote to his father in 1906: "The composer Arensky died a few days ago, it was a desperate case since last autumn ... he wrote (three) works and various other things, many of which are beautiful".
Another illustrious pupil of Rimsky Korsakov, Stravinsky, does not share his cruel judgments towards Arensky: "Arensky was friendly, interested and generous with me ... Despite Rimsky, I have always loved him and at least one of his compositions - the famous (first) trio with piano ... He meant something for me, even just for the fact that he was in direct communication with Ciajkovsky".
At the invitation of Milij Balakirev, he left teaching in 1895 to become director of the singing chapel of the Imperial Court, a position that he maintained until 1901, when he resigned to devote himself to the direction of choirs and orchestras to private teaching and concertism, decreasing his activity as a composer and letting himself go to an unhealthy and dissolved life. He died of tuberculosis in Perkjärvi, a town in the then Grand Duchy of Finland], not far from St. Petersburg.
His role in the Russian music scene, therefore, was not mainly due to the influence he had on the future compositions of his famous students. His works were, in fact, characterized by great effectiveness if made up of small songs of short duration or for small staff, especially in chamber music. Instead, they were weak and flavor without modeling the symphonic orchestra or opera. Massimo Mila defined his style as a "picturesque salottiero mannerism." Arensky is particularly known for its variations on a theme of Čajkovskij for Archi orchestra (1894) and the piano trio n. 1 in and minor (1894). Among his other works, recorded only recently, there are a piano concert (1881), two symphonies (1883 and 1889), a concert for violin (1891), two string quartets, and several suites for piano only or for two piano. Particularly appreciated is suite n. 2, Silhouettes (1892), in five movements, which was much loved by Lev Tolstoy and reminiscent of Carnaval, op. 9 by Robert Schumann
