Shteinberg, Lev Petrovich

Shteinberg, Lev Petrovich 

Born Sept. 3 (15), 1870, in Ekaterinoslav, now Dnepropetrovsk; died Jan. 16, 1945, in Moscow. Soviet conductor and composer. People’s Artist of the USSR (1937).

Shteinberg graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1893 and pursued further study of the piano with A. G. Ruben-stein. He conducted opera in St. Petersburg and Saratov. In 1914, at the invitation of S. Diaghilev, he took part in the Russian Seasons Abroad in Paris and London. Actively involved in building a Soviet musical culture, he was in Kiev from 1917 to 1924 and Kharkov from 1924 to 1926; in both cities he helped organize philharmonic societies and music theaters.

In 1928, Shteinberg became a conductor at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. In 1937 and 1938 he was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his compositions are the opera Ten Days That Shook the World, the ballet Mirra, three symphonies, the cantata October, and the symphonic poem Red Square.

Shteinberg was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and various medals.