Nicolas Slonimsky
Illustration — Slonimsky in 1933 Nicolas Slonimsky (– December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy, was a Russian-American musicologist, conductor, pianist, lexicographer, and composer. Best known for his writing and musical reference work, he wrote the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and the Lexicon of Musical Invective, and edited Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians.
Nicolas Slonimsky
Flopinot2012 · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Born
- 1894 · Saint Petersburg.
- Died
- 1995 · Los Angeles.
- Nationality
- Russian Empire · United States
- Occupation
- conductor · composer · musicologist · pianist · music critic · lexicographer · lecturer
- Fields
- classical music
- Education
- Boston Conservatory at Berklee · Eastman School of Music · Saint Petersburg Conservatory · Saint Petersburg State University
- Honours
- Guggenheim Fellowship · Laurel Leaf Award
- Languages
- English · Russian
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Illustration — Slonimsky in 1933 Nicolas Slonimsky (– December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy, was a Russian-American musicologist, conductor, pianist, lexicographer, and composer. Best known for his writing and musical reference work, he wrote the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and the Lexicon of Musical Invective, and edited Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
No house-authored Note is published until its assertions and sources pass the VALÉORINE evidence contract. The documentary article remains available in full while that enrichment is being consolidated.
Documentary enrichment in progress · no unsupported statement published
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Nicolas Slonimsky. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
not yet certified
- Identity
- resolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q555602 · wikipedia · Nicolas Slonimsky
In this article
Early life in Russia and Europe
Early life in Russia and Europe
Nicolas Slonimsky studied at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Eastman School of Music and Saint Petersburg Conservatory. The recorded working language is English and Russian. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are classical music. Employment is recorded with Boston Conservatory at Berklee and New England Conservatory. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship and Laurel Leaf Award.
Slonimsky was born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy in Saint Petersburg. He was of Jewish origin; his grandfather was Rabbi Chaim Zelig Slonimsky. His parents adopted the Orthodox faith after the birth of his older brother, and Nicolas was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. His maternal aunt, Isabelle Vengerova, later a founder of Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, was his first piano teacher. He grew up in the intelligentsia. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he moved south, first to Kiev, then to Constantinople, and ultimately to Paris, where many other Russian musicians and his sister Yulia Slonimskaya Sazonova had already fled. He worked as accompanist to the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, and he toured Europe in 1921–22 as accompanist to tenor Vladimir Rosing. In 1923, Rosing became director of opera at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and he invited Slonimsky to join him. Slonimsky's younger brother, Mikhail, remained in Russia and became an author. His nephew, Sergei Slonimsky, became a composer.
Conducting career
Conducting career
• Illustration — Slonimsky conducting Varèse's Ionisation in Havana In Rochester, Slonimsky continued his composition and conducting studies with Albert Coates and Eugene Goossens, and accompanied Rosing at many vocal recitals, including a performance at Carnegie Hall in October 1924. After two years, he moved to Boston, where Koussevitzky had become conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and resumed his position as his pianist and now bilingual secretary. During this time, Slonimsky taught music theory at the Boston Conservatory and the Malkin Conservatory, and began to write music articles for The Boston Evening Transcript, The Christian Science Monitor, and the magazine The Etude. Slonimsky began writing songs and other incidental pieces, and performed as a piano soloist and vocal accompanist. In 1927, he formed the Boston Chamber Orchestra, for which he solicited music from contemporary composers. Slonimsky was a great champion of contemporary music, and through his interest in performing it met Henry Cowell and Charles Ives. He conducted the world premieres of Ives' Three Places in New England in 1931 (in New York's Town Hall), Edgard Varèse's Ionisation for thirteen percussionists in 1933, and various other works. In 1931, Slonimsky married Dorothy Adlow, art critic of The Christian Science Monitor. She was active as a critic and lectured extensively around the U.S., serving on panels and art juries. They married in Paris, with Varèse as the best man. Their daughter, Electra, later edited his letters and collected works. In 1932, Slonimsky conducted a series of concerts in Havana highlighting Ives, Ruggles, Cowell, Amadeo Roldán and Alejandro García Caturla. He then traveled to Paris, Berlin and Budapest to conduct further concerts. He mentioned at the time, he found conducting to be "the nearest approximation to music in motion". Thanks to the popularity of these tours, he was invited to conduct five concerts in the Hollywood Bowl in the summer of 1933. These were controversial and received mixed critical reviews.
Later life and work
Later life and work
In 1964 Slonimsky's wife died and he moved to Los Angeles. He taught at UCLA for three years and lectured and spoke about music, introducing himself to classes by spelling out his name: "Slonimsky. S–L–O as in 'slow', N–I–M as in 'nimble', S–K–Y as in 'sky'." He possessed a sly sense of humor, and was a regular guest on radio and television programs, including Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. New York public television station WNET filmed an interview with him for the "Aging" segment of the PBS series The Mind. He became a friend of avant-garde composer and rock guitarist Frank Zappa, and performed some of his own compositions at a Zappa concert in Santa Monica, California, in 1981. He named his cat Grody-to-the-Max after learning the phrase from Zappa's daughter Moon Zappa. Slonimsky wrote the Lectionary of Music as a "reading dictionary," as he called it. Then in 1988, he published his autobiography, Perfect Pitch, filled with anecdotes about 20th century musical figures, including his mentors and colleagues. For his 98th birthday, he visited Saint Petersburg to participate in a music festival. A documentary of his life, including video of this visit, A Touch of Genius, was broadcast by Film America on his 100th birthday. He died in Los Angeles in 1995 at the age of 101. His papers are archived in the Library of Congress.
Piano
Piano
• Minitudes • Variations on a Kindergarten Tune • Yellowstone Park Suite • Russian Nocturne • Two Etudes • Silhouettes Iberiennes • Russian Prelude • Modinha • Variations on a Brazilian Tune (My Toy Balloon) • Studies in Black and White
Chamber music
Chamber music
• Muss Perpetuo • Suite (Сюита) • Piccolo Divertimento • Quaquaversal Suite
Commercial and satire
Commercial and satire
• Five Advertising Songs • Gravestones at Hancock, New Hampshire (1945) • A Very Great Musician • I Owe a Debt to A Monkey (A Humorous Encore Song)
Listening to Slonimsky
Listening to Slonimsky
• Newmillenniumrecords.com, Doug Ordunio of KFAC converses with Slonimsky at his home, 1979 • Speaking of Music, Charles Amirkhanian of KPFA talks to Slonimsky, 1987 • Music & Conversation with Slonimsky at his home in Los Angeles, 1979 • Ode to Gravity, Music by and for Slonimsky on his 97th birthday (with Charles Amirkhanian, June 1991) • Slonimsky at 76, Slonimsky discusses Igor Stravinsky and Charles Ives with Charles Amirkhanian and Robert Commanday, 1971 • On Frank Zappa, Slonimsky discusses his relationship with Frank Zappa, 1983 • A dinner at Mrs. Antheil's house, Slonimsky shares roast duck with Charles Amirkhanian, Carol Law and the widow of composer George Antheil, 1971 • Lecture at Berkeley Piano Club, 1971 • On Shostakovich, after the composer's death, 1975, Slonimsky discusses the work of Dmitri Shostakovich • A program on the elder statesmen of American music, including Slonimsky • Slonimsky talks with David Cloud on the 40th anniversary of the world premiere of Varèse's Ionisation (Varèse), 1973
Identity
Identity
Nicolas Slonimsky is recorded as having studied at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Eastman School of Music and Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Formation and teaching. Slonimsky studied at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Eastman School of Music, Saint Petersburg Conservatory and Saint Petersburg State University.

Nicolas Slonimsky conducting Ionisation (Varèse) in Havana.
Flopinot2012
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1894
Nicolas Slonimsky born at Saint Petersburg.
1995
Nicolas Slonimsky died at Los Angeles.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Saint Petersburg.
Birth place
Los Angeles.
Death place
Compositions
• Illustration — "Grandmother chord", first used by Slonimsky
Writings and musical criticism
Writings and musical criticism
Throughout his life, Slonimsky wrote extensively for periodicals and newspapers, produced program and liner notes, and contributed to numerous reference works. He described himself as a "diaskeuast" (from Greek διασκευαστής), a "reviser or interpolator". When his conducting career slowed, he spent more time writing about music. He produced the chronology Music Since 1900, and later after travelling in Latin America, produced the first thorough coverage in English, Music of Latin America. In 1947 he published the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, which would later become one of his most influential works as a sourcebook for composers and performers. The book influenced many jazz musicians and composers, including Allan Holdsworth, John Coltrane, Frank Zappa, Paul Grabowsky, and Steve Rochinski, and remained in print 60 years later, but was largely ignored for years after its publication. Quincy Jones said in a February 2018 interview: "Every time I used to see Coltrane, he'd have Nicolas Slonimsky's book." • Illustration — Slonimsky, 1990s Two books for children followed, The Road to Music and A Thing or Two About Music, with jokes, anecdotes and puzzles. Then in 1953, Slonimsky brought out the Lexicon of Musical Invective ("Critical Assaults on Composers since Beethoven's Time"), a collection of hilariously scathing, insulting, vituperative, and enraged contemporary critiques of musical greats in their time. In 1958, he became editor of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, developing a reputation for factual accuracy, and remained its head editor until 1992.
Books
Books
• Music Since 1900 (1937) • Supplement to Music since 1900 (1986) • Music of Latin America (1945) • Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (1947) • The Road to Music New York (1947) • A Thing or Two about Music (1948) • Lexicon of Musical Invective (1953) • Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1958). • The Concise Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1987) • Perfect Pitch (1988) • Lectionary of Music (1989)
Collected writings
Collected writings
• Nicolas Slonimsky: The First Hundred Years (1994) • The Great Composers and Their Works (Reissued as The Listener's Companion) (2000) • Nicolas Slonimsky: Writings on Music (2004) • Dear Dorothy – Letters from Nicolas Slonimsky to Dorothy Adlow (2012)
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q555602: Nicolas Slonimsky
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
- “Nicolas Slonimsky”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
scholarly publication
- Slonimsky, Nicolas (1894-1995), musicologist, conductor, and composer, American National Biography Online, 2000
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2000
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Slonimsky, Nicolas. Perfect Pitch: A Life Story. Oxford University Press. 1988. 0-19-315155-3.
- 2.Head, Fanny Po Sim. Nicolas Slonimsky – Rediscover His Legacy Through His Music and Life. Interlude. September 19, 2021.
- 3.Slonimsky, Nicolas. Dear Dorothy: Letters from Nicolas Slonimsky to Dorothy Adlow. University of Rochester Press. 5–9. 2012. 978-1-58046-395-9.
- 4.Cariaga, Daniel. Slonimsky Stories Live On. Los Angeles Times. F28. January 21, 1996.
- 5.Kozinn, Allan. Nicolas Slonimsky, Author of Widely Used Reference Works on Music, Dies at 101. The New York Times. B6. December 27, 1995.
- 6.Mary Baker Eddy Library. Women of History: Dorothy Adlow. June 28, 2024.
- 7.Ross, Alex. Under the Stars. The New Yorker. August 18, 2014.
- 8.Perfect Pitch: A Life Story (book review). Publishers Weekly. March 1, 1988.
- 9.Marchese, David, "In Conversation: Quincy Jones", Vulture, February 7, 2018.
- 10.Noelle Mullinger, Lisa. Nicolas Slonimsky's Role in the Musical Modernism of the Early Twentieth Century. University of Kansas. 67. 18 April 2013.
- 11.Nicolas Slonimsky Documentary: A Touch of Genius (56 minutes) Webarchive. 2021-12-11.
- 12.Nicolas Slonimsky collection, 1873–1997. Library of Congress. 1997.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
Slonimsky, Nicolas (1894-1995), musicologist, conductor, and composer, American National Biography Online, 2000Crossref registry
Verifiedreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q555602: Nicolas SlonimskyWikimedia Foundation
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Music memorabilia
42,307 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Nicolas SéjanPerson
- Nicolás SestitoPerson
- Nicolas SiretPerson
- Nicolas SkorskyPerson
- Nicolas ValletPerson
- Nicolas VérinPerson
- Nicolas ZourabichviliPerson
- Nicolas-Charles BochsaPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Nicolas Slonimsky?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.