Samuil Feinberg

Samuil Yevgenyevich Feinberg (Russian: Самуи́л Евге́ньевич Фе́йнберг, also Samuel; 26 May 1890, Odessa – 22 October 1962, Moscow) was a Russian and Soviet composer and pianist.

Born in Odessa, Feinberg lived in Moscow from 1894 and studied with Alexander Goldenweiser at the Moscow Conservatory. He also studied composition privately under Nikolai Zhilyayev. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1911, after which he embarked upon a career as a solo pianist, while composing on the side. However, he was soon sent to fight in the First World War for Russia until he became ill and was discharged. In 1922, he joined the faculty at the Moscow Conservatory, relaunching his pianistic career. By 1930, due to the political repressions in Stalin's Russia, Feinberg's concert activities became limited. He made only two foreign trips in the 1930s: Vienna in 1936 and Brussels in 1938; hence he is generally not well known outside Russia. In 1946, he was awarded the Stalin Prize.

Feinberg was the first pianist to perform the complete The Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach in concert in the USSR. He is most remembered today for his complete recording of it, and many other works from the classical and romantic eras. He also composed three piano concertos, a dozen piano sonatas (private recordings exist of him playing his piano Sonatas 1, 2, 9 and 12), as well as fantasias and other works for the instrument. Pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva said that each of his sonatas was a "poem of life". Feinberg has been called "A musical heir to Scriabin", who heard the young pianist play his fourth sonata and praised it highly.

He was a life-long bachelor. He lived with his brother Leonid, who was a poet and painter. He died in 1962, aged 72.