Tcherepnin (or Cherepnin), Nikolai (Nikolaievich) (1873–1945)

Russian composer and conductor. He studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and wrote ballets for Diaghilev, including Armida's Pavilion (1908). In 1921 he settled in Paris. He was the father of Alexander Tcherepnin.

He gave up a legal career at the age of 22 and studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory with Rimsky-Korsakov and others. Having appeared as a pianist, in 1901 he became conductor of the Belaiev Symphony Concerts (established in 1885 by music publisher Mitrofan Petrovich Belaiev, 1836–1904), and then began conducting operas at the Mariinsky Theatre. In 1908 he joined Diaghilev and conducted Russian opera and ballet in Paris and elsewhere, remaining with the Ballets Russes until 1914, when he returned to Petrograd, to become director of the Conservatory at Tiflis in 1918.

Works Opera and stage operas Vanka the Chancellor (after Sologub, 1935) and Poverty no Crime (after Ostrovsky); ballets Armida's Pavilion (1908), Narcissus (1911), A Russian Fairy-Tale, The Romance of a Mummy (after Gautier), The Masque of the Red Death (after Poe, 1916), The Tale of the Princess Ulyba, Dionysius.

Orchestral and chamber symphony, sinfonietta, symphonic poems Narcissus and Echo and The Enchanted Kingdom; witches' scene from Macbeth, suite The Enchanted Garden (1904), overture to Rostand's La princesse lointaine (1903), six pieces on Pushkin's ‘The Golden Fish’ for orchestra; piano concerto in C♯ minor (1907), lyric poem for violin and orchestra; string quartet in A minor; piano pieces on Benois's picture-book The Russian Alphabet and other piano works; songs.