ABSTRACT
On 27 January 1909, in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, Medtner gave a recital devoted wholly to his own music. It was an opportunity to perform several of his latest works for the first time: the C major Sonata, Op. 11, No. 3, the three Novellen, the three Nocturnes (with his brother Alexander as soloist) and, new at least to a Russian audience, the two Tales, Op. 14. In the spring his reputation as a pianist brought him a belated invitation from Ippolitov-Ivanov, the Director of the Conservatoire, to join the staff of his alma mater as a piano professor, pre-empting a similar offer from Glazunov in St Petersburg. Although the post offered the prospect of greater income than from his work at the Elisabetinsky Institute, which in any case had lapsed with his year spent in Germany, he feared that shouldering a substantial teaching load would severely curtail his creative output. In the end, however, he accepted.
