As a longtime listener to “The Lost Chord,” perhaps you recognize this music:
The composer is Sergei Lyapunov. The first of Lyapunov’s “Transcendental Etudes,” the “Berceuse,” has served as the theme music for “The Lost Chord,” since the program’s debut in January of 2003. The pianist, as in the clip, is Louis Kenter, though I use a later recording, the one that was once available on Turnabout. Kenter recorded the work on at least two previous occasions.
Lyapunov was born on this date in 1859. He enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory at the personal invitation of its director, Nikolai Rubinstein. There he studied with Karl Klindworth (a pupil of Liszt) and Sergei Taneyev (a pupil of Tchaikovsky).
Since Lyapunov gravitated more toward the Russian Nationalist movement than to the more cosmopolitan approach of Tchaikovsky and his followers, he made it his mission to set out in search of Mily Balakirev, who had been the guiding force behind the group known as “The Mighty Handful,” or “The Russian Five” (which, with Balakirev, consisted of Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Borodin, and César Cui).
Lyapunov became the most important of Balakirev’s latter-day disciples, with master overseeing pupil as diligently as he had the composers of the 1860s. Together, Lyapunov and Balakirev went on folksong collecting expeditions, amassing some 300 songs.
Lyapunov succeeded Rimsky-Korsakov as the assistant director of the Imperial Chapel. He became head of the Free School and a professor of music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After the Revolution, he emigrated to Paris in 1923, where he directed a school for Russian émigrés. He died of a heart attack the following year, in 1924.
Lyapunov enjoyed a successful career as a touring pianist. The “Transcendental Etudes” are central to his output for the keyboard. He modeled the collection of 24 major and minor key movements on a plan devised by Liszt (though Liszt never completed his). He concluded the cycle with an elegy in memory of Liszt, and in fact dedicated the whole to the legendary keyboard master.
Each etude bears a descriptive title:
“Berceuse” (”Lullaby”) in F♯ Major;
“Ronde des Fantômes” (“Ghosts’ dance”) in D♯ Minor;
“Carillon” in B Major; “Térek” (“The River Terek”) in G♯ Minor;
“Nuit d’été” (“Summer Night”) in E Major;
Tempête (“Tempest”) in C♯ Minor;
“Idylle” in A Major;
“Chant épique” (“Epic Song”) in F♯ Minor;
“Harpes éoliennes”(“Aeolian Harps”) in D Major;
“Lesghinka” in B Minor;
“Ronde des sylphs” (“Dance of the Sylphs”) in G Major;
and “Elégie en mémoire de François Liszt” (“Elegy in Memory of Liszt”) in E Minor.
Happy Birthday, Sergei Lyapunov. Thanks for the great theme music!
As a bonus, here’s his beautiful “Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes:
PHOTOS: Sergei Lyapunov, pioneer of the chia beard