Nikolai Findeizen

Born July 11 (23), 1868, in St. Petersburg; died Sept. 20, 1928, in Leningrad. Soviet musical historian.

From 1890 to 1892, Findeizen studied music theory with N. A. Sokolov. The direction that his scientific work took in 1891 was influenced greatly by his friendship with V. V. Stasov. In 1894, Findeizen founded the journal Russkaia muzykal’naia gazeta (Russian Music Gazette), which he edited and which became the most important Russian music journal before the Revolution. He also founded the periodical Muzykal’naia starina (Musical Antiquity), published between 1903 and 1911, and organized the St. Petersburg Society for Friends of Music with A. I. Siloti in 1909.

In 1920, Findeizen became director of the State Museum of Music History, and from 1919 to 1925 he taught courses on musical archaeology and paleography at the archaeological institute. Findeizen was the founder and chairman of the commission for the study of folk music at the Russian Geographical Society. He was the author of the fundamental work Essays on the History of Music in Russia From Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century (vols. 1–2, fascs. 1–7, 1928–29), the first systematic review of the history of Russian music, as well as more than 30 books and brochures on Russian and foreign composers and music societies and organizations. Findeizen was the editor of the collection Musical Ethnography (1926). He was also a lecturer.