Alexei Stanchinsky

Alexei Vladimirovich Stanchinsky, born 1888, died 1914, was a Russian composer.

He was a student at the Moscow Conservatory, where his teachers included Nicolas Zhilaiev and Sergei Taneyev. He was recognized as an outstanding talent but suffered from mental problems and was several times confined in a psychiatric clinic. He was drowned under mysterious circumstances, perhaps suicide, on 25 September/6 October 1914. Almost all Stanchinsky's surviving works are for piano; they include two Sonatas, Sketches, and several preludes. He attempted to combine modality, complex polyphony, and post-Romantic chromatic harmony in the manner of Scriabin. Despite his short life he made a considerable impression on his contemporaries, and though for a long time almost none of his music was published, his pieces circulated in manuscript. Among significant Russian piano composers Prokofiev (who wrote an article about Stanchinsky in 1913), Arthur Lourié, Anatoli Alexandrov, and Samuel Feinberg all acknowledged his influence.