Vladimir Pukhalsky

Vladimir Pukhalsky was a Russian and Soviet pianist, composer, and teacher. He was born in Minsk in the Russian Empire on April 2, 1848, and from childhood studied both violin and piano. During a visit to the city by Stanisław Moniuszko, the young musician played for him and received praise; Pukhalsky later recalled in his memoirs, preserved in the Pyotr Tchaikovsky House-Museum, that the Polish composer predicted a great musical future for him.

He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he took piano with Theodor Leschetizky and studied music theory and composition with Johannsen and Nikolai Zaremba. After graduating in 1874, he taught there for two years. From 1876 until 1933 he worked at the Kyiv Music School, which, with his active participation, was transformed into a conservatory in 1913. In its first year he served as director, and afterward headed the department of special piano.

From 1877 to 1888 Pukhalsky was a member of the directorate of the Kyiv Music Society, where he was responsible for the musical programs of symphonic and chamber evenings. On May 18, 1909, he was elected an Honorary Member of the Kyiv branch of the Imperial Russian Musical Society. As a public musical figure, he did much for the formation and development of Kyiv's musical life; in essence, only after his arrival did the city's concert life gain stability and regularity. During his years of leadership, from 1876 to 1913, the Kyiv Music School became one of the leading professional musical educational institutions.

Pukhalsky appeared as a pianist for more than thirty years. He also tried his hand at composition. He wrote a Piano Concerto in D minor in 1883, which he performed many times, the last time in Rostov-on-Don under the direction of Reinhold Glière. He also composed a Hymn to Music, performed during the celebrations marking the opening of the Kyiv Conservatory.

His compositional legacy includes the opera Valeria, études and other instructional works for piano, and romances. Piano works by many composers were also published under his editorship. In his teaching, he developed the traditions of Theodor Leschetizky and trained a number of major pianists, among them Vladimir Horowitz, Horowitz's sister Regina Horowitz, Grigory Kogan, Leonid Nikolaev, Alexander Brailowsky, Konstantin Mikhailov, Julius Isserlis, Anna Artobolevskaya, Neonila Skorobagatko, Avraam Satanovsky, Boleslav Yavorsky, Arnold Alshvang, Sigismund Lisitsky, and Nikolai Tutkovsky. He is regarded as the creator of the Kyiv piano school.

Pukhalsky died in Kyiv on February 23, 1933.

Connections

This figure has 11 connections in the Music Lineage catalog.