Steinberg was born into a
Lithuanian Jewish family in
Vilnius,
Russian Empire (now in Lithuania). His father, Osey (Hosea) Steinberg, was a leading scholar of
Hebrew. In 1901, he went to
Saint Petersburg, to study biology at
the university there. He graduated in 1906. In the meantime he also started studying at the
Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He entered
Anatoly Lyadov's
harmony class, moving on to
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's
harmony class and
Alexander Glazunov's
counterpoint class. His considerable talent in composition soon became clear, encouraged especially by his mentor Rimsky-Korsakov. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1908. Fellow student
Igor Stravinsky resented the apparent favoring of Steinberg by Rimsky-Korsakov over him. Nevertheless, Steinberg named Stravinsky as one of his closest school friends when the latter had made a big name in the West, which Stravinsky resented even more. Steinberg was considered first as a great hope of Russian music but refused to imitate Stravinsky and other modern composers, instead preferring the 19th-century music of the
Mighty Handful. Steinberg composed with firm control and brilliant orchestration, noted often about his music. In 1908, Steinberg was baptized into the
Russian Orthodox Church and married his mentor's daughter, Nadezhda Rimskaya-Korsakova. Steinberg's father-in-law died the same year, and Steinberg edited and completed his
Principles of Orchestration, which was later published in Paris. At the conservatory, Steinberg first became a lecturer, then in 1915, Professor of Composition and Orchestration, the position that Rimsky-Korsakov had held. He remained in that post during the
October Revolution and subsequent
Russian Civil War. Composer
Dmitri Shostakovich began studying at the Conservatory as a 13-year-old boy in 1919 and Steinberg tried to guide him in the traditions of the great Russian composers of the 19th century. Ultimately, however, Steinberg was disappointed to see Shostakovich "wasting his talent" by imitating the styles of Stravinsky and
Sergei Prokofiev. Between 1921 and 1926, Steinberg composed
Passion Week, a
Russian Orthodox choral concerto which is now regarded as a masterpiece. While writing it, Steinberg transformed the Medieval
Znamenny chants used to relate the Passion and Death of
Jesus Christ during
Holy Week by composing sometimes as many as twelve different harmonies at once. Steinberg's decision to write a work of overtly
Christian music during the
Second Soviet Anti-Religious Campaign was an act that could have had serious consequences for himself and his family. Steinberg scholar Oksana Lukonina believes that his decision to compose a work of religious music was motivated in part by the events of 1921. The poet
Alexander Blok had died after being refused permission to go abroad for medical treatment. Lukonina also sees Steinberg's turn to chant-based choral music as a manifestation of renewed interest in the religious heritage of
Russian culture shown by such other artists of the early Soviet period as the painter
Mikhail Nesterov and, eventually, the Nobel Prize-winning poet and novelist
Boris Pasternak. In 1923, midway through the composition of
Passion Week, the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union banned the performance of all music with religious undertones. Upon receiving the news, Steinberg ruefully confided in his diary that he now had no chance of ever hearing
Passion Week performed. In the vain hope that choirs in the West might be interested, Steinberg arranged in 1927 for the score to be published by a
White emigre firm in Paris. The Paris edition appeared under the title,
La Semaine de la Passion d’après les vieux chants religieux russes pour choeur mixte a cappella. Hoping that
Passion Week might have wider appeal than just among the
Russian diaspora, Steinberg arranged for the Paris edition to include translations of the sung text from
Old Church Slavonic into both
Latin and English. After the 1920s, however, Steinberg is believed to have never again acted contrary to the Party's wishes. Steinberg's subsequent music drew upon
world literature for its subject matter. The dictates of
socialist realism, which began being forced upon Soviet composers in 1932 meant no great changes for Steinberg, as his style was already very similar to the 19th century composers whom
Joseph Stalin admired. As
Stalinism tightened its grip, Steinberg drew also on the
folk music of the Soviet Union's ethnic minorities, particularly those from
Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan. He also let himself be inspired more and more by musical and literary folklore. Steinberg played an important role in Soviet music life as the teacher of composers
Dmitri Shostakovich,
Galina Ustvolskaya,
Lyubov Streicher, and
Yuri Shaporin. Steinberg held numerous posts at the Conservatory, among others deputy director 1934–39. He retired in 1946. Shortly before his death, Steinberg was interviewed by an American musical scholar about his past rivalry with Igor Stravinsky. Even though Stravinsky had repeatedly criticized him in the West, Steinberg refused to follow suit. In what may have been part of a deliberate effort by the Soviet State to convince Stravinsky to return home, Steinberg expressed only admiration for his former rival's talents mixed with regret that Stravinsky had chosen to become an emigre. Steinberg also claimed that Stravinsky's absence from his Motherland was a catastrophic loss for Soviet music and cultural life. Maximilian Steinberg died in
Leningrad on December 6, 1946. ==Legacy==