Samuil Feinberg: Composer's Profile

Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962) was a major Russian pianist-composer in the early 20th-century. He was an acclaimed virtuoso with an eclectic repertoire and an esteemed teacher at the Moscow Conservatory. Today, he is mostly remembered for his Bach transcriptions and various recordings. However, his compositional output is substantial and his piano works, despite influences from Scriabin, are original, intense, and extremely virtuosic. Unlike Scriabin, he preferred a sound world of angst and pessimism. By 1934, Feinberg ceased playing his darker works in public. He also stopped composing in his early style and instead created simpler pieces according to Socialist Realism