Alexei Stanchinsky

At the age of 16, he continued to develop his skills by taking lessons from music educators such as Josef Lhévinne and Konstantin Eiges for piano, and Nikolai Zhilyayev and Alexander Gretchaninov for counterpoint, harmony, and composition.

Stanchinsky was diagnosed with the disease Dementia praecox, apparent from a wide variety of symptoms including hallucinations and fits of rage.

During the years before his death he had moved on from traditional styles of composition and began to discover his own creative musical voice, rather than mimicking those of past composers.

After much of his work was finished and he seemed to have returned to a sense of normalcy, he was asked by his teacher Taneyev to partake in a recital along with fellow composers of his time.

According to musicologist Barrie Martyn,[6] in April he gave Nikolai Medtner the pieces that were performed at the concert, and in May he was hoping to stay with him during the summer holiday for further discussions, though this did not happen.

His revelation to the world was short lived, as a few months later he was found dead near a stream near Logachyovo, close to a family friend's estate.

There are other works that are credited yet were left unfinished or destroyed by Stanchinsky due to his brash nature in his composition lessons, and his later desire to create his own musical voice.

[7] Alexei Stanchinsky is often viewed as a revolutionary Russian composer, but there are many aspects of his work that can be seen as a sort of tribute to those musicians that he admired.

He reciprocated these concepts by featuring Russian folk songs as the melodies in his music, quite similar to the works of Stravinsky during the same time frame.

As his sister Lydia Stanchinskaya wrote, Alexei was found the next day "... dead on the bank of the river 15 miles from Logachev, in wet clothes.