Isaac Mikhnovsky was a Soviet pianist, composer, and music educator, born in Smolensk on April 17, 1914. He showed exceptional musical ability by the age of four and began formal lessons with Evgenia Gurevich-Eiges around that time. He made his first public appearances in Smolensk at nine, then moved to Moscow and continued his studies at the Mussorgsky Technical School and the Gnessin School. In 1930, he entered the Moscow Conservatory, studying first with Lev Oborin and later with Konstantin Igumnov. His graduation recital included the first performance in the Soviet Union of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
In 1938, Mikhnovsky won first prize at the First All-Union Piano Competition in Moscow. The following year, he took part in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels as a member of a group of young Soviet musicians that included Emil Gilels, Yakov Flier, and Pavel Serebryakov. Western critics and audiences praised his playing; pianist Arthur Rubinstein and French music critic Émile Vuillermoz also spoke warmly of it. Mikhnovsky gave solo and orchestral concerts in major Soviet cities, performing with conductors including Yevgeny Mravinsky, Kurt Sanderling, Nikolai Rabinovich, and Nathan Rakhlin. He also began teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, where he became an associate professor.
From 1946 to 1948, Mikhnovsky wrote piano transcriptions of romances by Russian composers and fantasies based on operas by Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Anton Rubinstein, Dargomyzhsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Mstislav Rostropovich, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Lev Oborin, and Reinhold Glière praised this work. From 1960, he taught at the Gnessin Music Pedagogical Institute, where he became a professor and taught piano and chamber ensemble. His compositions include sonatas for piano, cello, and bassoon; twelve preludes; and piano ballads and sketches. He also wrote cadenzas for concertos by Mozart and Beethoven. Mikhnovsky died in Moscow on February 18, 1978.