Biography

Biography courtesy New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 2000)

Ziloti, Alexander Il'yich (b nr. Kharkov, 9 Oct 1863; d New York, 8 Dec 1945). Ukrainian pianist and conductor.

In the generation prior to 1917, Ziloti was one of Russia's most important artists, with music by Arensky, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky dedicated to him. At the Moscow Conservatory he studied piano with Zverev from 1871, and under Nikolai Rubinstein, Taneyev, Tchaikovsky, and Hubert from 1875. He graduated with the Gold Medal in Piano in 1881.

He worked with Liszt in Weimar (1883-6), co-founded the Liszt-Verein in Leipzig, and there made his professional debut on 19 November 1883. Returning in 1887 Ziloti taught at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Goldenweiser, Maximov, and first-cousin Rachmaninoff. In this period he began work as editor for Tchaikovsky, particularly on the First and Second piano concerti.

He quit the Conservatory in May 1891, and from 1892-1900 lived and toured in Europe. He also toured New York, Boston, Cincinnati and Chicago in 1898.

From 1901-3 Ziloti led the Moscow Philharmonic; from 1903-17 he organized, financed, and conducted the supremely influential Ziloti Concerts in St Petersburg. He presented Auer, Casals, Chaliapin, Enesco, Hofmann, Landowska, Mengelberg, Mottl, Nikisch, Schoenberg and Weingartner, and local and world premieres by Debussy, Elgar, Glazunov, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin, Sibelius, Stravinsky and others. Diaghilev first heard Stravinsky at a Ziloti Concert.

In 1918 Ziloti was appointed Intendant of the Mariinsky Theatre, but late the following year fled Soviet Russia for England, finally settling in New York in December 1921. From 1925-42 he taught at the Juilliard Graduate School, performing occasionally in recital, and in November 1930 gave a legendary all-Liszt concert with Toscanini. Ziloti's private students included Marc Blitzstein and Eugene Istomin.

He wrote over 200 piano arrangements and transcriptions, and orchestral editions of Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi. Ziloti also made 8 piano rolls and 26 minutes of home-cut discs.

-- Charles Barber

BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Barber. Lost in the Stars -- The Forgotten Career of Alexander Siloti (New York, 2002)
S. Bertensson. Knight of Music. Etude 64:369, July 1946
B. Dexter. Remembering Siloti, A Russian Star. American Music Teacher, April/May 1989
J. Gottlieb. Remembering Alexander Siloti. Juilliard Journal, Nov 1990
L.M. Kutateladze and L.N. Raaben, eds., Alexander Il'yich Ziloti, 1863-1945: vospominaniya i pis'ma (Leningrad, 1963)
A. Ziloti. Moy vospominaniya o. F. Liste (St Petersburg, 1911; My Memories of Liszt, Eng. trl. Edinburgh, 1913 and New York, 1986)