Arensky, the Russian pianist, composer and conductor, was a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov at St. Petersburg Conservatoire and later taught at the Moscow Conservatoire, where he numbered Rachmaninov and Scriabin among his pupils.

Arensky wrote two symphonies and a violin concerto, as well as a set of variations for strings on a theme by Tchaikovsky, a work originally composed for string quartet.

His best known composition is the Piano Trio in D minor, the first of two such works, which was written in 1894 and shows some influence of Mendelssohn.