Emil Medtner

Emilii and Nicholas Medtner were cousins of Victor Stember. Emil Medtner is the older brother of Nicholas Medtner, renowned Russian composer and pianist. Rachmaninoff declared him 'the greatest of Contemporary Composers.'

Emil was a philosopher and friend of Carl Gustav Jung, influencing Jung's thoughts on symbol and translated three volumes of Jung's works into Russian, financed by Medtner's friend, Edith Rockefeller McCormick.

Nicholas Medtner fell in love with Anna Mikhaylovna Bratenskaya, a respected violinist and young wife of his older brother Emil.  Later, when World War I broke out, Emil was interned in Germany where he had been studying. He generously gave Anna the freedom to marry his brother and Nicholas and Anna were married in 1918.

Victor Stember writes of a book his cousin wrote in his personal diary on June 12, 1919, Moscow: 'I bought books of the modern German mystic Rudolph Steiner, discussed (critically) by Emil in his book 'Meditation on Goethe', for which, in turn, he was 'slapped' by Andrey Bely, who wrote a whole book on the subject.'

Emil is buried alongside his brother Nicholas in Hendon Cemetery in London.

See painting # 193 of Emil's brother, Nicholas.