Nikolayeva was born in Bezhitsa, in the
Bryansk district, on May 4, 1924. In 1950, Nikolayeva won first prize in the
International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in
Leipzig, which was founded to mark the bicentenary of
Bach's death in 1750.
Dmitri Shostakovich, who was a member of the jury, composed and dedicated the
24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, to her: it remained an important part of her piano repertoire. the
International Tchaikovsky Competition and the
Leeds Piano Competition. Nikolayeva was the teacher of
Nikolai Lugansky. Among her other students were
András Schiff, whom she taught in summer courses at the
Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar, and
Michael Korstick, whom she taught during her master classes at Musikhochschule Cologne, Germany. She died on November 22, 1993, in
San Francisco, nine days after succumbing to a
brain haemorrhage during a performance of one of the Op. 87 fugues at the
Herbst Theatre. As
James Campbell-Methuen commented in her obituary, "Aside from the Shostakovich, though, Tatiana Nikolayeva will be remembered as a Bach player who flung stylistic considerations to the winds and played the music with an irrepressible musical intelligence and knowledge of the resources of her chosen instrument." ==Partial repertoire==