Nikolai Tcherepnin 1873-1945

Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin (b. May 15 [O. S., May 3] 1873; St. Petersburg, Russia; d. 26 June 1945; Paris, France) — originally steered by his father to the study of law, T. graduated in 1895 from the University of St. Petersburg, but subsequently, in 1898, earned a music degree from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, specializing in composition under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and piano under K. K. Fan-Arkh.
Upon graduating, T. received a post as a choral conductor at St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater, and also worked for six years as an orchestra conductor at the Imperial Court Chapel. While pursuing a flourishing career as a symphonic conductor, he returned to the St. Petersburg Conservatory to teach composition and conducting; his students included Sergei Prokofiev, Aleksandr Gauk, Yuri Shaporin, and Lazare Saminsky. In addition to sacred music, he composed and conducted ballets in Russia and in Europe, collaborating actively with Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russe..
In 1918 he assumed the position of director of the National Conservatory in Tbilisi, Georgia, but after the Communist takeover of Georgia, in 1921 he fled to Paris, France, where he lived until his death in 1945. In Paris, he was among the founders of the Russian Conservatory, where he served as director for a number of years, also serving as board member of the Beliajeff Publishing House. In 1932, he served as guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led at the time by Serge Koussevitzky.
Tcherepnin’s sacred choral music, crafted in the rich, quasi-symphonic idiom of the ”new Russian choral school,” reminiscent of Rachmaninoff and Gretchaninoff, has yet to be duly discovered. Two settings of the Divine Liturgy, Opus 32, and a second setting of unknown opus number, were published by P. Jurgenson of Moscow prior to the Revolution of 1917, along with two sacred choruses, Opus 28, from the Divine Liturgy, and four additional works with no opus number, from the All-Night Vigil. Later, in France, he composed six other hymns from the All-Night Vigil, for mixed chorus, published by W. Bessel & Col, three chant arrangements for men’s chorus, and another setting of the Divine Liturgy, which remains unpublished. At least seven English anthem-like adaptations were published in the 1920s and 30s by E. C. Schirmer Music Company, suggesting the possible existence of other sacred choral works in the composer’s archive. All these works, however, continue to languish in obscurity, having no known performances or recordings. An oratorio entitled Hozhdenie Bogoroditse po mukam [La descente de la Sainte Vierge à l’Enfer], for soloists, chorus and orchestra, considered by some to be Tcherepnin’s finest choral-orchestral work, was published in 1938 by Universal, was revived in 1992 and 2009 in Russia, but no commercial recording is available.
Nikolai Tcherepnin’s son, Alexander (1899–1977), and grandsons, Serge (b. 1941) and Ivan (1943–1998), continued the family’s musical legacy, becoming composers in their own right.
(Source: The website of The Tcherepnin Society:http://www.tcherepnin.com/nikolai/comps_nik.htm)