Elena Gnesina

The Gnesin sisters c. 1904 (l. to r. Olga, Elena, Evgenia, Maria and Elizaveta)

Elena Fabianovna Gnesina (sometimes transcribed Gnessina) (Russian Елена Фабиановна Гнесина) (30 May 1874 – 4 June 1967) was a Soviet and Russian composer and music educator, a sister of the composer Mikhail Gnesin.

Gnesina was born in Rostov-on-Don to Rabbi Fabian Osipovich Gnesin (d. 1891) and his wife Bella Isaevna (née Fletzinger), who was a singer and pianist who had studied with Stanisław Moniuszko. She studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory under Vasily Safonov. She also had lessons from Ferruccio Busoni and Sergei Taneev. She graduated in 1893. In 1895 she established, with her sisters Evgenia and Maria, a private music school in Moscow, which became in 1926 the Gnesin State Musical College. Her students included the pianist Lev Oborin and the composer Aram Khachaturian. Amongst the teachers at the school were Mikhail Gnesin and Alexander Gretchaninov. She remained a senior administrator of the college until her death.

Amongst her compositions are piano etudes and works for children, and textbooks on music.

Gnesina's apartment, at ul. Povarskaya 30/36, Moscow, is maintained as a memorial museum to her.

Gnesina received numerous state awards, including two Orders of Lenin, and recognition as an Honoured Artist of the RSFSR (1935). She died in Moscow in 1967 and is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.

References

Sources

• Genova, Anna (2015). "Thee Sisters of the Great Gnessinka", on website of the Russkiy Mir Foundation, (accessed 30 June 2017).
• Zarubin, V. I.(1979). "Gnesina, Elena Fabianova", in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd edition. (accessed 30 June 2017).
• Kadja Grönke, Art. "Gnessina, Jewgenia, Maria, Elena und Jelisaweta", in: Lexikon "Europäische Instrumentalistinnen des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts", hrsg. von Freia Hoffmann, 2016.