In the history of Armenian piano art, the role of Olga Kalantarovna Kalantarova, a professor at the Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) Conservatory, an honored worker of the art of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, a prominent representative of the Soviet pianistic school, was special.
Kalantarova was born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi). Her father, Kalantar Akhverdovich Kalantarov, was a well-known lawyer in the city, and her mother, Varvara Georgievna (née Korganova), graduated from the Transcaucasian Institute of Noble Maidens. The Kalantarov family loved music, not only their mother and sisters played piano, but also Olga’s grandmother, nee Princess Khoja-Minasova. In the Tiflis years, Olga received an excellent education, was fond of fiction, and poetry, and studied foreign languages. But above all for her were music lessons at the Tiflis Musical College under the guidance of a famous Georgian teacher (Greek by origin), pianist Aloizy Mizandary.
After graduating from college, Kalantarova moved to Petersburg in 1895 and entered the conservatory in the class of the famous Russian pianist Anna Yesipova. In 1902, she brilliantly graduated from the conservatory, her name was entered on the marble plaque of the laureates of the conservatory of the pre-revolutionary period.
From that moment on, her life is forever associated with St. Petersburg — the city she loves endlessly, with the conservatory, to which she devoted almost five decades of her life, becoming one of the best professors of this musical university.
Olga Kalantarova was an excellent pianist who followed in her art the glorious traditions of the Russian pianistic school. She performed mainly in chamber concerts of the conservatory with professors: in a duet with violinist Ioannes Nalbandian, and a trio with Leopold Auer and Aleksandr Verzhbilovich. The audience also remembered the performance of Olga Kalantarova together with Leonid Nikolayev, Samary Savshinsky, and Natalia Poznyakovskaya — Concerto for 4 pianos BWV 1065 by J.S. Bach.
Summing up the successive ties with the Anna Yesipova school and the new, value that Kalantarova contributed, we can talk about the Yesipova-Kalantarova school. It is no coincidence that on December 7, 1968, a poster for a concert by pianists from the Yesipova-Kalantarova school appeared at the Leningrad Conservatory. Students of both professors took part in it.
The high authority of O. Kalantarova, the great recognition of her musical and pedagogical activity is evidenced by the fact that she was invited to the historic First All-Union Competition for Young Pianists, along with such outstanding representatives of the Soviet piano art as Konstantin Igumnov, Leonid Nikolayev, Heinrich Neuhaus.
Over the years of fruitful pedagogical activity, more than 100 pianists graduated from Kalantarova’s class, including prominent teachers, authoritative professors, and associate
professors of the Leningrad and other Soviet conservatories. From compatriots, Anaida Sumbatyan took a full conservatory course with Kalantarova, and for some time Georgy Tigranov, Olga Babasyan, Eleonora Martirosyan, and others studied with her. It is difficult to retell the biography of Olga Kalantarova — she seems to have disappeared into the generations of students.
In 1902, at the age of 25, Olga Kalantarovna graduated with honors from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the class of Anna Yesipova. She spent the first years after graduation in the shadow of her teacher, whom she bowed to all her life. Since 1903, Kalantarova became her assistant, since 1908 she was called a teacher, since 1912 — a professor of the 2nd degree (according to modern terminology — an associate professor), and in 1926 she was approved as a professor.
From the concert activity of Olga Kalantarova refused — perhaps her innate shyness prevented her — only occasionally, and even then in her early years, she performed in an ensemble. And she was an excellent pianist, with rich technique, and soft touch, with an extensive repertoire.
From the mid-20s, the period of the full flowering of Kalantarova’s pedagogical talent began. It was then that her class entered into a creative competition with the classes of other outstanding teachers of the Leningrad school — Leonid Nikolayev and Samary Savshinsky.
The concerts of the students of these three classes, which were usually held in the overcrowded Small Hall of the Conservatory, were distinguished by perfection, brilliance, depth of performance, and a variety of personalities.
