Karetnikov studied at the Central Musical School and the Moscow Conservatory where his teachers were Vissarion Shebalin, Tatiana Nikolayeva, Igor Sposobin and Viktor Tsukkerman. He also studied privately with Philip Herschkowitz, a pupil of Berg and Webern. He was influenced by music of the New Viennese school and was a firm supporter of twelve-tone technique. His ballets Vanina Vannini and The Geologists were performed at the Bolshoi Theatre with choreography by Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasiliev. However, the authorities found the music unacceptable. It was criticized, and then banned from the performances in the Soviet Union for decades. His Symphony No. 4 received its first performance in 1968 in Prague, just before the Soviet army invasion to suppress the Prague Spring. His third ballet Little Zaches Called Zinnober was performed at the Hanover Opera House in the composer's absence, because he was not given permission to travel abroad. His main activity at that time was writing incidental music for theatre, film and television. He continued to compose and publish his serious works in secrecy. He wrote two large scale operas Till Eulenspiegel and The Mystery of Apostle Paul,. Having no opportunity to perform these works in public, he persuaded the Moscow Cinema Orchestra to make the recording for him privately, section by section over the years. When the tape was ready, the vocal parts were added. This was, perhaps, the only examples of a samizdat opera. Finally, Till Eulenspiegel was premiered by the BielefeldOpera in Germany conducted by Geoffrey Moull in 1993, and The Mystery of Apostle Paul was premiered in concert on August 4, 1995, Hanover after the composer's death. Karetnikov was also the author of a collection of autobiographical stories called Темы с вариациями, published in Russia in 1990.
Works
;Opera
Till Eulenspiegel, opera in two acts performed in 1993, Bielefeld, Germany
The Mystery of The Apostle Paul, oratorio-opera in one act, premiered in concert August 4, 1995, Hanover, Germany
Melodia C10 29949 000. Recorded: 1988. Nikolai Karetnikov: Тиль Уленшпигель . Soviet State Cinema Orchestra; Conductors: Emin Khachaturian and Valery Poliansky.
Le Chant du Monde LDC 288029/30. Nikolai Karetnikov: Till Eulenspiegel 2 CDs. Soviet State Cinema Orchestra; Conductors: Emin Khatchaturian/Valery Poliansky
Le Chant du Monde, Russian Season LDC288070, Released: February 1994. Audio CD DDD. Karetnikov, Nikolai: Chamber Music. Performers: Oleg Kagan, Vladimir Skanavi, Vladimir Loukianov, Konstantin Komissarov, Alexander Petrov, Alexander Gothelf, and Yury Slessarev.
