Luca Faldelli - Sergey Ljapunov: Piano Works '2024

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Chant du crèpuscole, Op. 22
02. Chant D'Automne, Op. 26
03. Piano Sonata, Op. 27
04. Variations and fugue on a Russian Theme, Op. 49
05. Variations on a Georgian Theme, Op. 60

This year 2024 marks the hundredth anniversary of Sergei Mikhailovich
Lyapunov’s death, and is therefore a welcome opportunity for discovering,
re-discovering, or at least disseminating and enjoying, the work of this great
composer of late-Romantic Russia.
He was born in Yaroslavl, on November 18, 1859, to a refined and cultivated
family. His father, Mikhail Vasilievich, was a scientist who specialized in
astronomy and mathematics: Alexander, one of Sergei’s two brothers (the
other was called Boris) would become in turn a celebrated mathematician, who is
still remembered for his discovery of a particular mathematical function.
Their mother, Sofya Alexandrovna, was a proficient amateur pianist who gave the
first musical instruction to her son Sergei, who had displayed unmistakable
signs of musical talent at a very young age.
Unfortunately, Mikhail died when Sergei was just eight; thus, the family had to
relocate in the larger city of Nizhny Novgorod. This, however, provided Sergei
with opportunities which he would have hardly received in his birth city.
Specifically, he could study, from 1873 to 1878, in Nizhny Novgorod, where a
branch of the Russian Musical Society’s school had opened just recently.
At 19, in 1878, Sergei was admitted to the prestigious Conservatory of Moscow,
not least thanks to the recommendations provided by the great Nikolai
Rubinstein, one of the most famous Russian musicians of the era who was also the
Conservatory’s director. In Moscow, Lyapunov could complete his musical
education under the guidance of leading musicians. He studied piano with two
former pupils of Franz Liszt, i.e. Paul Pabst (1834-1897) and Karl Klindworth
(1830-1916), and also with V. I. Wilborg. His teachers of composition were
Nikolai Hubert (1840-1888), but especially Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
and a former student of Tchaikovsky himself, i.e. Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915).
This musical lineage would have automatically qualified Lyapunov as a
“Western” Russian musician: at that time, the Russian musical
panorama was deeply divided between two main schools. One was more academic and
traditional, and looked West for inspiration: its most important representative
was, in fact, Tchaikovsky. The other school had a “nationalistic”
approach and aimed at a deep study of the Russian folk heritage, of the modes
and styles of local musicianship, and at their integration within the forms and
genres of the classical repertoire. Its main representatives were the
“Mighty Handful”, or “The Five”: a group of musicians
from St. Petersburg, several of whom lacked any official academic training, but
who were able to infuse genuinely Russian elements (rather than “postcard
Russia”) within their music.
Lyapunov, although trained in the former field, was more attracted by the
latter, and so he sought advice, guidance, and mentorship from the St.
Petersburg musicians, and in particular from Mily Balakirev. This led him to a
momentous and courageous decision, i.e. to reject the offer of a job from the
Moscow Conservatory and to continue his education (at an age when, by coeval
standards, he should have abundantly finished it) under the guidance of the St.
Petersburg “outsiders”.
Lyapunov had graduated in 1883 from the Conservatory of Moscow, and he turned to
Balakirev as to his new mentor: Balakirev would fulfil splendidly this role, but
also become a revered friend for Lyapunov, who warmly reciprocated. In that same
year, Lyapunov debuted as a conductor, and his first appearance with the baton
was greeted enthusiastically by the very exacting Muscovite press.
He was to abandon the city of the Kremlin, however, in favour of that on the
Neva, where he took residence in 1885. Balakirev introduced him to his circle,
and particularly to the Mighty Handful: Aleksander Borodin, César Cui, Modest
Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Balakirev encouraged his young
protégé to embark in the composition of a Symphony, which was to become
his First Symphony in B minor. Lyapunov’s works began to appear in print,
issued by publisher Zimmermann, and this increased both his fame and his
finances.
In 1890, Lyapunov was earning his life as a music teacher at the Nikolaev Cadet
Corps; later, he succeeded Rimsky-Korsakov in the prestigious job of Assistant
Director of the Imperial Chapel. In the meantime, Lyapunov cooperated with
Balakirev in order to edit the complete works of Glinka, the greatest Russian
musician prior to the late-Romantic flowering.
Their interest in Russian music of the past was not limited to “art
music” such as Glinka’s, but also to folk traditions; indeed,
Lyapunov, Balakirev and Anatoly Lyadov were entrusted a delicate mission by the
Imperial Geographical Society. They did some impressive fieldwork in three
regions (Vologda, Vyatka/Kirov and Kostroma) where they collected approximately
300 folksongs, a tenth of which were arranged by Lyapunov as songs for voice
with piano accompaniment.
Lyapunov’s career proceeded with the assignment of a chair as a professor
of piano and theory at the Conservatory of St. Petersburg (1910-1917);
furthermore, he was an acclaimed piano soloist and conductor who toured
extensively both nationally and internationally.
With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, Lyapunov abandoned his homeland and
settled in Paris (1923), but, as mentioned at the beginning of this short
biography, he died just one year later, due to a heart attack.
His Chant du crepuscule, op. 22, was written in 1904 and published by Zimmermann
in Leipzig the same year. It bears witness to Lyapunov’s extraordinary
pianism, which is also testified by his pianistic opus magnum, i.e. his twelve
Etudes d’exécution transcendante op. 11 which complete Liszt’s
eponymous collection both in numerical terms (a dozen each, totaling 24 pieces
just as Chopin’s two major opuses of Etudes, i.e. op. 10 and op. 25), and
in technical/musical terms. It will be recalled that Lyapunov had studied piano
with two of Liszt’s pupils, and his approach to the piano, both
technically and musically, had been shaped by Liszt’s legendary school.
Although this particular piece is not primarily virtuosic, but rather elegiac,
expressive, and passionate, it requires full mastery of piano technique and a
wide set of pianistic skills, as well as large hand-span and the capability of
managing seamlessly complex rhythmical figures and their combinations. The
overall atmosphere is that of a nostalgic piece, as befits a contemplation of
sunset; it is a work not without elan and life – far from it – but
one in which life is contemplated, so to speak, from afar. It is also a piece
exuding “Russianness” through and through.
A similar atmosphere marks his Chant d’automne, op. 26, written two years
after op. 22 (1906), and again printed by Zimmermann (the work is dedicated to
Sophie Chipilow). The piece begins with deceiving simplicity, with an
unaccompanied melodic line which later gives way to an accompanied song in the
fashion of a Chopinesque nocturne. The left hand’s waves, always from the
upbeat and directed upwards, give momentum and dynamism to an otherwise quiet
and elegiac contemplation. However, particularly when the pace changes to a Poco
più animato, the texture thickens, the technical demands increase, and the
waves of tension/distension become more pronounced, up to a delicate cadenza.
The reprise is adorned and more sustained, until a calmer Più lento brings
the piece to its close, in an ethereal ppp.
Lyapunov’s Piano Sonata op. 27 is coeval with the preceding works, having
been written approximately between 1906 and 1908 and issued in 1908 by
Zimmermann. The long and complex gestation of this work marked a moment of deep
disagreement between Lyapunov and Balakirev. True, Lyapunov did not focus
entirely on this project during the two years it took him to finish it; he was
particularly busy, in that period, with teaching (at the Saint Helen’s
Institute) and concertizing. However, when he had completed the piece’s
composition, he did not ask for Balakirev’s opinion (which he normally
sought and prized highly), but rather sent the score directly to the publisher.
Before its appearance in print, however, Balakirev could see it, and he starkly
criticized it, both as concerns its larger structure and its details. Indeed,
Balakirev’s dissatisfaction with his friend and pupil’s work
seemed to increase with each audition, to the point that, when Lyapunov
premiered the Sonata in a semi-public venue, Balakirev polemically left the
room.
The work is in a single movement, in the form consecrated by Liszt’s
B-minor Sonata, and resuming in its seamless structure the traditional three
movements of the classical Sonata; the unity thus achieved allows for a
heightened narrative component, since the music flows powerfully and embraces
the listener in its majestic waves. The result, though inspired by Liszt, is
also quintessential Lyapunov, particularly in its Russian-sounding melodies and
in what it suggests of exotically Oriental.
If the Sonata seems to allude to Liszt’s B-minor Sonata, the Variations
and Fugue on a Russian Theme, op. 49 (1912) seem to pay homage to Brahms’
Handel-Variations. This regards particularly the overall concept, and the ideals
and values it embodies. Just as Brahms had aimed to pay homage to the great
Baroque (and German) tradition by transforming Handel’s graceful theme
into a masterly and majestic composition which explores the full palette of
piano technique and the complex polyphony of the concluding Fugue, so was
Lyapunov eager to demonstrate the artistry and the nobility of Russian music by
employing it for a similar work. It is a demanding piece, whose transcendental
technique mirrors the vastity of its musical horizons and ambitions.
Something similar, although on a slightly different plane, can be said of the
Variations on a Georgian Theme op. 60, written in 1914/15. They are another
large-scale work, whereby the choice of a Georgian theme aims at creating some
kind of distance even from “Russianness”: in other words, if Russia
was felt as exotic by the representatives of mainstream Western music, Georgia
was somewhat exotic for the mainstream Russian culture. The enigmatic theme,
with its modal aura, gives birth to a series of variations whereby lively
playfulness, singing tones, utter and powerful virtuosity, and rich polyphonic
textures intertwine.
These works are all masterful examples of a genius’ pen, and they would
deserve to be fully admitted within the international repertoire of pianists;
this recording, paying homage to Lyapunov’s centennial, contributes to
the appreciation of this unjustly neglected figure.

Related artists