Aleksandr S. Famincyn

Alexander Sergeivich Famintsin (Russian: Александр Сергеевич Фаминцын) (also transliterated as Aleksandr S. Famincyn or Famintsyn)(1841-1896) was a Russian composer, critic, musicologist and scholar. He was one of the early faculty members of the renowned Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was a pupil of Ignaz Moscheles, Moritz Hauptmann and Ernst Richter and friend of Alexander Serov.

Life Alexander Sergeivich, of aristocratic descent, was born at Kaluga, Oct. 24 (O.S.), 1841. His mother Wilhelmina Mestmacher was of German descent. He was educated in St. Petersburg, where he studied with Jean Vogt, and on leaving the university spent two years in Leipzig, where he studied theory under Hauptmann, Richter, and Moscheles.

Apart from his musical and scholarly endeavors, Famintsin was one of the commission members in the declaration of independence of Ukrainian language in 1906.

Works

Operas Famitsin composed two operas: Sardanapalus , given in St. Petersburg in 1875, but with so little success that he made no effort to produce his second opera, Uriel Acosta. His instrumental works include three quartets, a pianoforte quintet, and a 'Russian Rhapsody' for violin and orchestra.

Books Two books of 'Songs for Russian Children' have outlived his more ambitious attempts. As a musical historian he did his best work in the following publications:

Russian Mummers and Gleemen (1889) The Ancient Indo-Chinese Scale in Europe and Asia (1889) Russian Folk-Songs (1890) The Gussies: a Russian National Instrument (1890) The Dombra and Kindred Instruments (1891) He also translated Adolf Bernhard Marx's Allgemeine Musiklehre and Richter's Harmonielehre into Russian.