Vera Timanova
Encyclopedia
Vera Timanova was born into a well-to-do family in Ufa
Ufa
-Demographics:Nationally, dominated by Russian , Bashkirs and Tatars . In addition, numerous are Ukrainians , Chuvash , Mari , Belarusians , Mordovians , Armenian , Germans , Jews , Azeris .-Government and administration:Local...
, Bashkortostan
Bashkortostan
The Republic of Bashkortostan , also known as Bashkiria is a federal subject of Russia . It is located between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains. Its capital is the city of Ufa...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, where she spent her childhood. She showed musical aptitude at an early age, and at age six began taking piano instruction from local teachers, with her first public performance at the age of only nine. About this concert she wrote in her autobiography "The announcement of the concert made a splash in the city. Tickets sold briskly and I earned my first thousand roubles. I performed Mozart's Concerto and several pieces. The success was complete" .
The child prodigy came to the attention of composer Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
who spoke highly of her potential. The two went on to become close friends. Rubinstein’s recommendation led to Timanova being sponsored to attend Carl Tausig
Carl Tausig
Carl Tausig was a Polish virtuoso pianist, arranger and composer.-Life:Tausig was born in Warsaw to Jewish parents and received his first piano lessons from his father, pianist and composer Aloys Tausig, a student of Sigismond Thalberg. His father introduced him to Franz Liszt in Weimar at the...
's School of Advanced Piano Playing in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
by a local merchant. Subsequently, Timanova studied with Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
and became a prominent performer in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, while periodically returning to Ufa to perform; the last such trip was in 1896.
Among Timanova’s other prominent admirers were Alexander Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
, who dedicated the Scherzo humoristique, part of his Six Pieces for Piano Solo, Op. 19 (1873) to her. In addition to her friendship with Rubinstein, Timanova was also very close to Czech conductor and composer Eduard Nápravník
Eduard Nápravník
Eduard Francevič Nápravník was a Czech conductor and composer, who settled in Russia and is best known for his leading role in Russian musical life as the principal conductor of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg for many decades...
. His Fantaisie (1881), written for Timanova, is a virtuosic 12-minute work based on three Russian folk songs including the omnipresent Song of the Volga Boatmen
The Volga Boatmen's Song
The "Song of the Volga Boatmen" is a well-known traditional Russian song collected by Mily Balakirev, and published in his book of folk songs in 1866. It is a genuine shanty sung by burlaks, or barge-haulers, on the Volga River. Balakirev published it with only one verse . The other two verses...
.
Timanova returned to Russia permanently in 1907, settling in St Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, giving concerts and piano tuition. In 1907 she recorded a number of pieces on piano rolls, including pieces by Liszt, Sergei Lyapunov
Sergei Lyapunov
Sergei Mikhailovich Lyapunov was a Russian composer and pianist.-Life:Lyapunov was born in Yaroslavl in 1859. After the death of his father, Mikhail Lyapunov, when he was about eight, Sergei, his mother, and his two brothers went to live in the larger town of Nizhny Novgorod...
, Moritz Moszkowski
Moritz Moszkowski
Moritz Moszkowski was a German Jewish composer, pianist, and teacher of Polish descent. Ignacy Paderewski said, "After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano"...
, and the extraordinarily difficult Étude in A flat, Op. 1, No. 2 attributed to Paul de Schlözer
Paul de Schlözer
Paul de Schlözer was an obscure Polish or Russian pianist and teacher of German descent. He was possibly also a composer, but the only two works attributed to him may have been written by Moritz Moszkowski....
.
After the 1917 revolution, Timanova’s wealthy background led to her being critical of the new Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
authorities, but she was nonetheless granted a VIP pension of 50 roubles, sufficient to finance the employment of a maid. Her last public performance was in 1937 when she was 82 years of age. Vera Timanova died of hunger during the Siege of Leningrad
Siege of Leningrad
The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last...
in February 1942.