Jurgenson Charity Foundation
Peter Jurgenson
The founder of the major music publishing house in Pre-Revolutionary Russia, Peter Ivanovich Jurgenson was born on 18 July, 1836 in Tallinn (Revel) into a poor Estonian family. The early death of his father caused the fourteen year old boy to go to St. Petersburg to search for a living, where he began to work for the music trading company of F.Stellovsky. Here his outstanding talents were revealed, and in 1859 Piotr Ivanovich was appointed as the director of the music section of the Schildbach firm in Moscow, well-known at that time. In 1861 the “P.Jurgenson” music store was opened on the corner of Bolvshaya Dmitrovka Street and Stoleshnikov pereulok (lane). From that time, P.I.Jurgenson dedicated his life to the foundation and development of the endeavor, to which he was fully devoted, which he directed for forty-two years until his decease (on 2 January, 1904).
During the time of its existence P.I.Jurgenson’s musical publishing house had published compositions of more than 500 Russian composers, including those by Aliabiev, Arensky, Balakirev, Borodin, Chesnokov, Cui, Dargomyzhsky, Gliere, Glinka, Gnessin, Gretchaninoff, Liadov, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Rebikov, Rimsky-Korsakov, A. and N. Rubinstein, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Taneyev and many, many others.
In 1868 P.I.Jurgenson published a composition by Tchaikovsky for the first time, after which he published nearly all of the works by the outstanding composer.
Among works by composers from other countries, published by P.I.Jurgenson, one can mention the complete piano editions of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, the complete piano sonatas by Beethoven, Wagner’s operas, works by Bach, Haydn, Handel, Mozart, Schubert, Liszt and other outstanding representatives of Western musical culture.
Several generations of Russian musical intellectuals were brought up on the musical scores and books on music theory and history, published by the publishing house of P.I.Jurgenson. The activities of the P.I.Jurgenson musical publishing house is one of the most important elements in the foundation of Russian music and Russian music printing.
Piotr Ivanovich Jurgenson and his musical publishing house have secured for themselves a permanent place in the history of world music culture.
Jurgenson Charity Foundation
The Jurgenson Charity Foundation was founded in 1998 with the participation of Dmitri Likhachov, Mstislav Rostropovich, Irina Antonova, Nikita Mikhalkov, Gennady Rozhdestvenski and other major cultural figures. Among the founders are also the Russian Fund for Culture, the Russian Union of Composers, the Moscow Musicians’ Union, and other organisations.
The main purposes of the Foundation are to revive the music publishing house of Peter Jurgenson, to popularise Russian and foreign classics and the works of modern Russian composers, and to promote all facets of musical education.
Its council of trustees is comprised of: Sviatoslav Belza, Vera Gornostaeva, Elena Trukhanova and Andrei Eshpai.
Apart from its involvement in Competitions, the Foundation is also implementing a programme of publishing music and study material for children's musical schools and music high schools—more then 30 volumes have been released. With the help of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), the Foundation has also created the “Electronic Notnitza”—the world’s first CD music library. This disk contains 6500 pages of music including 750 compositions by more than 150 composers. In conjunction with the Composer’ Union of Russia the Musical Club of the Jurgenson Salon is presenting a festival of young Russian composers (www.classicalarchives.com).