Nikolai Lopatnikoff (1903-1976) was a Russian-American composer, music teacher and university lecturer. He composed some works of neoclassical music. These pieces featured fast, furious Allegro molto that included in some cases snare drumming and also soft cello music. These style alternate fast and furious with quiet and solemn, legato strings giving way to a quiet passage that ends with a loud drum.
Lopatnikoff studied music theory and piano at the Conservatory of St. Petersburg, until he fled the Russian Revolution with his family in 1917, landing in Helsinki, Finland. He continued his studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki until 1920.
By 1921 his family had settled in Heidelberg, Germany where he began studying engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, graduating in 1927. At the same time he was studying composition with Ernst Toch, Hermann Grabner and Willi Rehberg at the conservatory in Mannheim and also in Berlin.
During this time, he composed the Piano Concerto No. 1 Op. 5, the 2nd Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 15 and Symphony No. 1, Op. 12. This symphony was performed by many orchestras in Europe and the USA and in 1932 by the Philadelphia Orchestra played it on tour. For the "German Chamber Music Baden-Baden 1927", a follow-up event of the Donaueschingen Music Days 1926, he composed as well as George Antheil pieces for mechanical piano "Welte-Mignon".
Aaron Copland, who heard this performance on 16 July 1927, acquainted Sergei Koussevitzky aware of it and so initiated a contact that would be decisive for Lopatnikoff's future and most likely led to the strong of 13 MacDowell residencies he held. Koussevitzky engaged Lopatnikoff to orchestrate the pieces and offered cooperation. As a result, a long-standing connection between the two came about, which led to the premier of numerous Lopatnikoff works by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
After working in the 1930s in Berlin, and beginning 1936 in London, mainly as a composer, he emigrated to the United States in 1939. He served as a professor of composition at the Hartt School of Music, the Westchester Conservatory of Music, and ultimately at Carnegie Mellon University. In 1944 he became an American citizen. He taught music theory and composition at Carnegie Mellon until his retirement in 1969.
His archive is located in the Library of Congress.
