Vasily Kalinnikov

Biography

Safonov, the son of a Cossack general, was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor. Born in the Caucasus but settled in Saint Petersburg in the early 1880s, Vasily (whose name is also sometimes transliterated Wassily Safonow) attended Lyceum and took piano lessons while beginning a career in the civil service. He graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with a gold medal in 1880 having studied music theory and piano. Five years later, on Tchaikovsky’s recommendation, Safonov became a professor of piano at the Moscow Conservatory in 1885. On Tchaikovsky’s death, Safonov conducted the first official performance in Moscow of the decedent’s Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, also known as the Pathetique. He was one of the first conductors to dispense with a baton, and although never a particularly successful composer in his own right, Safonov was a master music educator and wrote a guide to piano techniques, A New Formula.