| Sixth study subtitled "Storm" from the Transcendental Etudes Op. 11 (1905) Sergei Lyapunov (1859-1924) belongs to the group of pre-revolutionary Balakirev disciples and conservative Russian composers. Like Medtner and Glazunov, Lyapunov rejected the new aesthetics of Scriabin, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky, preferring the models and sound world of late Romanticism. Lyapunov attended the Moscow Conservatory, studying piano with Karl Klindworth, an eminent pupil of Liszt, and composition with the renowned Taneyev. After graduation, Lyapunov became a student of Balakirev and taught at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The 1917 October Revolution brought changes that Lyapunov would not accept and, like so many other Russian composers and musicians, he fled to France in 1923. A year later he died of a heart attack. In the late 19th-century, critics and composers praised Lyapunov as a first-rate composer of piano music comparable to Balakirev. Indeed, Lyapunov was given the fanciful appellation of "Black Balakirev" due to the severity and expressive power of his works. |
