Yevgeny Gunst
Yevgeny Ottovich Gunst / June 7 was a Russian composer, pianist, music essayist, and pedagogue. He was the brother of architect Anatoly Gunst.
Biography
Gunst was born in Moscow to Otto Karlovich Gunst, a member of the State Council of Imperial Russia, who had German ancestors. He studied law as well as composition, music theory, and piano at the State Conservatory, as well as having private lessons with renowned composers like Reinhold Glière and Alexander Goldenweiser. In 1909, he co-founded the Moscow Chamber Music Theatre with Sergei Rachmaninoff, among others.In 1920, Gunst had to emigrate to Tallinn before later settling down in Paris. There, he co-founded the Conservatoire Rachmaninoff in 1924 but had to leave in 1931 due to political differences. He founded his own conservatory but soon had to close it as the Great Depression was still ongoing. He worked as an arranger and copyist in Paris and became a close friend of Francis Poulenc. In 1949, Gunst was about to migrate to the United States, but he died in 1950 in Paris at the age of 72.
His estate was found in 2009 in the basement of the University of Basel's Musicological Institute. Apparently, it was left undiscovered for many decades, as Gunst's widow had bestowed her husband's estate on the institute's director, at that time Jacques Handschin, in the 1950s.
Free scores
Category:1950 deaths
Category:Composers from the Russian Empire
Category:Moscow Conservatory alumni
Category:Russian Romantic composers
Category:Pianists from the Russian Empire
Category:Russian male classical pianists
Category:Russian male classical composers
Category:Emigrants from the [Russian Empire to France]
Category:Naturalized citizens of France
Category:Russian pianists
Category:Composers for piano
Category:Russian people of German descent
Category:Conductors from the Russian Empire
Category:Russian male conductors
Category:20th-century Russian male musicians
Category:19th-century male musicians from the Russian Empire