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Chandos
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Sergey
Mikhaylovich Lyapunov
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Symphony
No. 1, Op. 12 Sergey Lyapunov has always been a shadowy figure. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory, but the style of composition taught there was not to his taste. He was more attracted by the works of the selfconsciously 'nationalistic' composers that Balakirev had gathered around himself in St Petersburg during the early 1860s, such as Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. |
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That Lyapunov was an inventive and highly accomplished craftsman emerges in the Polonaise in D major, a carefully wrought conception with a thoughtful family similarity between the main themes of the opening and central sections that helps make for a very pleasing whole. Lyapunov possessed a marked share of Russian eclecticism. Indeed his engaging one-movement Piano Concerto No. 2 pays direct homage to Liszt's Concerto No. 2, and those who know this latter work (also in one movement) may have fun spotting the moments in Lyapunov's which unabashedly remember, or even borrow from, Liszt's piece. That said, the invention with which Lyapunov fills out his concerto is very much his own. The concerto's opening is especially ravishing, and the piano revels as much in dazzling or beguiling ornamentation as in thundering virtuosity, both when partnering the orchestra and executing its numerous cadenzas. Like the concerto, Lyapunov's Symphony No. 1 is haunted by a work of an earlier composer, and its key (B minor) is the pointer to Borodin's great Second Symphony. Lyapunov, however, was no plagiarist and the care he took in composing his symphony is evidenced by his excellently crafted thematic development and clear, uncluttered orchestration. |
