Felix Blumenfeld

Who was Felix Blumenfeld?

Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld was a Russian composer, conductor, pianist, and teacher.

He was born in Kovalevka, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire, the son of Austrian Mikhail Frantsevich Blumenfeld and the Polish Marie Szymanowska, and studied composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and piano under Fedor Stein between 1881 and 1885. He then taught piano there himself from 1885 until 1918, whilst also serving as conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre until 1911.

This theatre saw the premieres of the operas composed by his teacher and mentor Rimsky-Korsakov, and he was also the conductor at the Russian premiere of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde.

In 1908, he conducted the Paris premiere of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov.

From 1918 to 1922, he was the director of the Music-drama school of Mykola Lysenko in Kiev, where, amongst others, Vladimir Horowitz was a pupil in his masterclasses. He returned to the Moscow Conservatory in 1922, teaching there until his death. Other famous pupils of his include Simon Barere, Maria Yudina and Maria Grinberg. He died in Moscow.