Irene Gorainoff

Suite variée op. 81

Irène (Eneri) Gorainoff was born as Irene Biriukov on 15th November 1897 in Ostrogoschk. Her parents were an officer Biriukov and Maria Bronikowsky (1874-1928). After a short marriage the mother married Alexei Gorainoff (1872-1935), who adopted the little Irène. At the age of twelve years Irène Gorainoff was a well known pianist. She also composed and had already written over eighty works, when publisher Julius Heinrich Zimmermann signed on some of her works in 1910. In the same year she was allowed to record piano rolls on the famous Welte-Mignon reproducing piano. On 17th May 1916 she married Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin (1887-1926) in St. Petersburg. He was an army officer in the regiment Preobrazhensky. In December of the same year her husband became one of the murderers of Russian itinerant preacher and con?fidant of the Empress: Rasputin. After his death, Irène emigrated to France. In 1946, she married again in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois the Russian Paul Petrovich Borovsky (1892-1955). Irène Gorainoff died on 23 January 1980 in Paris.