Nicolai Soloviev

Who was Nicolai Soloviev?

Nicolai Feopemptovich Soloviev, sometimes Solovyov, was a Russian music critic, composer, and teacher at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. His notable composition students include Samuel Maykapar, Mihkel Lüdig, and Artur Lemba. Soloviev composed several operas, an overture, the symphonic poem Russians and Mongols, and assisted in the completion of Alexander Serov's opera, The Power of the Fiend.

As a music critic, Soloviev supported the works of composers such as Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, while trouncing the work of other composers. Of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto he wrote, "Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, like the first pancake, is a flop."

His composition students included Peeter Süda.