1. Nikolai Medtner's works include 14 piano sonatas, three violin sonatas, three piano concerti, a piano quintet, two works for two pianos, many shorter piano pieces, a few shorter works for violin and piano, and 108 songs including two substantial works for vocalise.
Nikolai Medtner was the son of Karl Petrovich Medtner and Alexandra Karlovna Goedicke, and the fifth of their six children.
Nikolai Medtner had lessons from his mother's brother, Fyodor Goedicke.
Nikolai Medtner entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1891, and graduated nine years later in 1900, at the age of 20, receiving the Anton Rubinstein prize, having studied under Pavel Pabst, Wassily Sapellnikoff, Vasily Safonov and Sergei Taneyev among others.
Nikolai Medtner's composing career began professionally in 1903, when he started publishing his music, and it began to be performed.
Nikolai Medtner generously gave Anna the freedom to marry his brother, and Medtner and Anna were married in 1918.
Unlike Rachmaninoff, Nikolai Medtner did not leave Russia until well after the Revolution.
Rachmaninoff secured him a tour of the United States and Canada in 1924, and his recitals were often all-Nikolai Medtner evenings, consisting of sonatas interspersed with songs and shorter pieces.
Nikolai Medtner never adapted himself to the commercial aspects of touring and his concerts became infrequent.
Nikolai Medtner's devoted pupil, Edna Iles, gave him shelter in Warwickshire, where he completed his Third Piano Concerto, first performed in 1944.
In 1949, a Nikolai Medtner Society was founded in London by Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar Bahadur, the Maharajah of Mysore.
Nikolai Medtner founded the Medtner Society to record all of Medtner's works.
In gratitude to his patron, Nikolai Medtner dedicated his Third Piano Concerto to the Maharajah of Mysore.
Nikolai Medtner died at his home at Golders Green, London on 13 November 1951, and is buried alongside his brother Emil in Hendon Cemetery.
Nikolai Medtner's craft gained subtlety and complexity in later years, but this work is already evidence of his mastery of musical structure.
Under the title "Sonata" Nikolai Medtner added a note: "The whole piece is in an epic spirit".
Nikolai Medtner described it as "my most contemporary composition, for it reflects the threatening atmosphere of contemporary events".
Nikolai Medtner published over 100 songs for voice and piano, with words from texts by Pushkin, Goethe, Mikhail Lermontov, Fyodor Tyutchev, and Afanasy Fet, among others.
Edward Mitchell was an early champion of Nikolai Medtner, and gave the first complete performance of Nikolai Medtner's Sonata-Triad in the UK at the Aeolian Hall on 3 February 1922.
Nikolai Medtner himself recorded a selection with the sopranos Oda Slobodskaya, Tatiana Makushina, Margaret Ritchie and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.
Nikolai Medtner recorded piano rolls of some of his works for Welte-Mignon in 1923 and Duo-Art in 1925, before his later studio recordings for Capitol Records and other labels.
Nikolai Medtner's one book, The Muse and the Fashion, being a defence of the foundations of the Art of Music was a statement of his artistic credo and reaction to some of the trends of the time.
Nikolai Medtner believed strongly that there were immutable laws to music, whose essence was in song.