Sergei Bortkiewicz was a Russian Romantic composer and pianist (February 16, 1877 - October 25, 1952)
Born in Kharkov, he studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Later, from 1900 to 1902, he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory under Alfred Reisenauer and Salomon Jadassohn .
He made several European tours, but he was not suficiently gifted as a pianist to make a career as a soloist, unlike some of his contemporaries (Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner). He eventually decided his strengths were teaching and composition, and taught at the Klindworth-Scarwenka Conservatory in Berlin from 1904 to 1914. He returned to Russia with the outbreak of the First World War, but left again after the Russian Revolution. After a two year stay in Constantinople, he finally settled in Vienna in 1922, dying there in 1952.
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Last updated: 05-25-2005 20:36:25
