Anton Arensky arr. Siloti: By the Fountain op46 no1

Anton Arensky/Alexander Siloti: By the Fountain (An der Quelle) op46 no1 Антон Аренский/Александр Зилоти: У Фонтана Thomas Ang, piano ------------------------------------------------ Arensky&output has been overshadowed by the two giants of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, though all three knew each other as a matter of course; Arensky studied under Tchaikovsky and in turn taught Rachmaninoff (who was also his first cousin). There is a sort of sweetness to a lot of Russian music from this part of the Romantic era, and this generation of composers blurs together because of that (Medtner aside). Low dissonance and pleasant harmonies does not equate to bad composition, however, and Arensky&song output is especially fine in this respect, standing up to the best of his teacher& Siloti was one of the last pupils of Liszt, having headed to Weimar in the 1880s after his Moscow studies. His transcriptions used to be much more well-known (especially his version of the Bach Prelude), and he was one of the great Russian pianists and conductors of his generation. He taught at the Juilliard for many years after fleeing Soviet Russia and died in New York.