Samuel Yevgenyevich Feinberg (1890-1962), born in Odessa and raised in Moscow, was a composer and pianist who remains beloved for his transcriptions and recordings. At a young age—prior to his fame as a composer and musician—Feinberg was an accomplished translator. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory under the iconic Alexander Goldenweiser, a revered teacher and close friend of Leo Tolstoy. Feinberg—recipient of universal esteem—composed three piano concertos, 12 piano sonatas and a number of fantasias, in addition to transcriptions and other works for both piano and violin. His compositions are striking, rich with chromaticism and bold contrast, often slowly revealing their unique nature upon repeated listening and playing. Feinberg’s complete recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is widely considered a gem and he was the first pianist in Russia to perform it. He was also among the first to perform a live radio concert, in 1927, from Berlin. Political tensions and Stalinism in the USSR throughout the 1930s prevented Feinberg from leaving, except to appear as a competition jury member in Vienna and Brussels. Further, because his style did not fall under the championed (read: forced) genre of “socialist realism,” he isolated himself, working privately and creating inward, masterful compositions. Fortunately, technological developments and the end of the war in his later years allowed Feinberg to remain an eminent Russian artist and commit many recordings to disc, and he was awarded the Stalin Prize, the Soviet state’s highest honor, in 1946. Feinberg’s far-reaching and signal book, Pianism as Art, was published posthumously, a testament to the great admiration that his students and peers at the Moscow Conservatory held for him.