Nikolai Kashkin
Nikolai Dmitrievich Kashkin (9 December 1839 – 15 March 1920) was a Russian musicologist, music critic, teacher, writer, and composer. One of the earliest theorists and historians of music education, he became a professor of compulsory theory classes at the Moscow Conservatory.
Kashkin was born in Voronezh into the family of the bookseller Dmitry Kashkin. He received his education at home and first studied music with his father, an enthusiastic amateur who played the gusli and piano. From the age of thirteen, Kashkin appeared as a pianist and gave private piano lessons; by the end of the 1850s he had earned a reputation in Voronezh as an authoritative teacher. Although he had intended to enter the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, his interest in music led him to settle in Moscow in 1860, where he studied for a time with Alexander Dubuque.
From October 1863 he taught in classes established by the Imperial Russian Musical Society. In 1866 he began teaching music theory, music history, and piano at the Moscow Conservatory, and he was appointed professor in 1875. His pupils included Arnold Alshvang, Rosina Bessie (Levina), Elena Gnesina, Alexander Gretchaninov, Alexander Siloti, Lev and Georgy Conus, Arseny Koreshchenko, Nikolai Ladukhin, Nikolai and Alexander Medtner, Konstantin Saradzhev, Vladimir Tsybin, and David Shor.
Close to many musicians and writers, Kashkin was among Pyotr Tchaikovsky's closest friends. They worked together on the initial scenario for Eugene Onegin, and Tchaikovsky dedicated the romance “Not a Word, My Friend” to him. Kashkin was also the first historiographer of the Moscow Conservatory and the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society.
He contributed as a music writer to Russian News, Moscow News, the Russian Musical Gazette, and numerous other periodicals. His principal works included a widely used Russian textbook of elementary music theory, first published in 1875 and repeatedly reissued; An Outline of the History of Russian Music; and The Opera Stage of the Moscow Imperial Theatre, published in 1897 under the pseudonym N. Dmitriev. He translated Ludwig Bussler's textbook on counterpoint and wrote memoirs of Tchaikovsky and Nikolai Rubinstein.
Kashkin served as inspector of music classes at the Mariinsky School from 1876 to 1891, helped organize the People's Conservatory in 1906, and took part in several musical and scholarly associations. He was secretary of the Moscow Conservatory's artistic council in 1878–1883, 1884–1896, and 1905–1906, and briefly performed the duties of inspector in 1883–1884. In 1918 he moved with his family to Kazan, where he taught at the Artistic-Pedagogical College of the State Second-Level Music School, lectured on the methodology of music history at Kazan University and music-pedagogical courses, and helped transform the Kazan school into a music and arts research institute. He was buried in the Arsk Cemetery in Kazan.