Review By Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International,June 2011
Having reviewed the Arensky and Balakirev concertos from Yablonsky and the Russian Philharmonic I was impatient to hear their Lyapunov. As with so many composers trapped in another’s shadow—in this case that of Balakirev—the mentor’s passing would pay artistic dividends. The three works on this disc precede Balakirev’s death in 1910 so one might expect a degree of imitation born of admiration and undue influence. Indeed, Lyapunov went on to complete his master’s Second Piano Concerto which, like his own, is also in the key of E.
Yablonsky’s pianist, Moscow-born Shorena Tsintsabadze, certainly makes the most of her opening flourishes. That comes after a slightly ragged orchestral introduction, but then the Russian Philharmonic’s playing does settle down after a while, the strings especially ardent. In the main the piano sound is perfectly acceptable, despite a bright edge to the extreme treble, most noticeable in the work’s many declamatory passages. As for the orchestra, there’s a brazen, somewhat overdriven quality to the tuttis that rather suits the all-or-nothing nature of this most extrovert concerto. That helter-skelter finale does push players and engineers to the limit though, earlier warmth and weight supplanted by fatiguing brightness. A pity, as this is an otherwise entertaining piece, enthusiastically presented.
Thank goodness for the soothing balm that is the introduction to the second concerto. This is altogether a less febrile work, and one soon registers a much wider range of orchestral colours. Tsintsabadze has a persuasive musical personality, and I really warmed to her playing in the work’s more inward moments. As for the Russian brass, they’re characteristically imprecise at times, but that bothers me much less than the piano’s tendency to jangle in the frequent climaxes, not to mention the ill-defined bass. Not so pronounced if you’re listening to a compressed MP3 on a packed rush-hour train, but much less desirable on a half-decent domestic stereo. As I mentioned in my Arensky review, this hard-working conductor and his forces seem to be on the musical equivalent of a fast-moving conveyor belt, a process that doesn’t always yield the most refined results.
That said, these concertos are worth exploring…As for the Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes it has a raw energy that is most arresting; what a shame the recording is equally so, notably in that riotous finale Despite the super-budget price tag Naxos can—and does—do better than this, so I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether the curiosity value of these works outweighs their technical shortfalls. No such ambivalence about Keith Anderson’s admirably concise and informative liner-notes, though.
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Review By Record Geijutsu,June 2011
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Review By Jerry Dubins , Fanfare,May 2011
Sergei Lyapunov (1859–1924) became disenchanted with the academic discipline at the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied, and with the conservative inclinations of his teacher, Sergei Taneyev. So he sought out Balakirev of the Mighty Five, with whose Russian nationalist leanings Lyapunov found himself more in sympathy. Balakirev, who at the time was the only professional musician in the group, would remain an important influence on Lyapunov. Despite this, the young composer, having been exposed to the rigors of conservatory schooling, found the others’ dilettantism distasteful and ultimately limiting; thus, as I was to learn, he fell in with the so-called Belyayev crowd, a society of Russian musicians who met in St. Petersburg between 1885 and 1908, and whose members included Glazunov, Liadov, and Rimsky-Korsakov. The latter distanced himself from the Mighty Five after he became professor of harmony, composition, and orchestration at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Like the Mighty Five, the Belyayev composers also believed in cultivating a native Russian music, but they differed by embracing the requirement for a Western-styled academic education and by being more receptive to the Western-oriented cosmopolitan model of Tchaikovsky. These ideas were largely disseminated by Rimsky-Korsakov through his many students, including Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Respighi.
For Lyapunov, the Belyayev philosophy presented the best of both worlds: music of a Russian bent wedded to a solid grounding in Western harmonic and contrapuntal practices. In a way, Lyapunov, along with Alexander Kopylov (1854–1911), another Belyayev member, Moszkowski (1859–1925), and Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859–1935), were the link between Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov on one side, and the three Gs—Gretchaninov, Glazunov, and Glière—and Rachmaninoff on the other.
Lyapunov’s Piano Concerto No. 1, in the godforsaken key of E♭-Minor (six flats!)—fine maybe for the pianist, but think of the orchestra’s string players—received its premiere in 1890 in a performance led by Balakirev. The piece won a Belyayev Glinka prize in 1904 (as did Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2), and it became a favorite of Josef Hofmann, who performed it often. Critical opinion, however, was not unanimous. Rimsky-Korsakov expressed doubts regarding Lyapunov, observing that “his music, though very noble, was almost completely lacking in originality.” And from there, Lyapunov’s ride was all downhill.
By the time Hyperion released its recording nearly 100 years later in 2002, here is what the critics were saying. Anastasia Tsioulcas of Classics Today: “This is Romantic music with a vengeance. Lyapunov never was satisfied to use one note when 10 would do just splendidly. By the end of the second concerto, you will either be utterly enthralled or so addled by trills, runs, and splayed chords that you’ll be at a loss to know which end is up.” And from an R. E. B. of Clamore....
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Review By Patsy Morita, Allmusic.com,April 2011
This premiere recording by pianist Shorena Tsintsabadze includes the complete concerted piano works of Sergey Lyapunov. Lyapunov is certainly not one of the better-known or more imaginative Russian Romantics, but for those who are fascinated by the composers known as the “Mighty Handful” and their compatriots and followers, Lyapunov is a figure of interest. He was greatly influenced by Mily Balakirev, who provided Lyapunov with a good deal of advice on the composition of the Piano Concerto No. 1. Balakirev became the dedicatee of the work and also conducted its premiere in 1891. The two opening themes of the single-movement concerto—one stern, one pastoral—are unmistakably Russian. The piano writing in all three of these works shows the virtuosic legacy of Liszt, who was the teacher of one of Lyapunov’s piano instructors. The Second Piano Concerto (1909), also a single movement, has proven slightly more popular than the first (this is only the second commercial recording of the Piano Concerto No. 1). It begins slowly, sounding more like the middle movement of a large, three-movement Russian concerto, but then moves into more rhapsodic and dramatic material. The Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes will appeal particularly to listeners who enjoy Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture and Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia. It has a similarly spring-like freshness and joyfulness to it, complete with prominent roles for the tambourine and triangle in the central episode of its rondo structure. (The recording’s sound is extremely well-balanced among all the instruments.) Tsintsabadze and conductor Dmitry Yablonsky comport themselves skillfully and expressively in all three pieces, although there occasionally is the feeling that they need just a little more nuanced phrasing and shaping to satisfy those who revel in the passion of the Romantics. In the latter half of the Rhapsody there is a point where everyone’s energy seems to flatten out a tad, which could have been exploited as a more sweeping change of demeanor in the music. Nonetheless, Tsintsabadze is certainly a very capable pianist, sounding as if she can handle the bigger Romantic concertos, and she effectively demonstrates where Lyapunov’s concertos fall in the history of Russian music.
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Review By Paul Turok, Turok’s Choice,April 2011
Ukranian composer Sergey Lyapunov’s (1859–1924) piano concertos glisten with effective virtuosic passages; his music is entertaining enough while listening…Beautifully played by Shorena Tsintsabadze, with the Russian Philharmonic led by Dmitry Yablonsky (8.570783). The well-recorded disc also includes Lyapunov’s Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes.
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Review By Juan Manuel Parra Urbano, Ritmo,April 2011
No es de extrañar que Dmitry Yablonsky al frente de la Russian Philharmonic Orchestra defienda la memoria de Lyapunov (1859–1924), un compositor que gozó de la protección de Balakirev y sucedió a Rimsky-Korsakov como director asistente de música en la Capilla Imperial, y es que el pianismo que despliega el compositor ruso en sus páginas no está exento de la enorme exigencia técnica característica de la escritura romántica de la época. Los conciertos de Lyapunov se desvinculan de la tradicional estructura en tres movimientos, siendo articulados en uno sólo y muestran un lenguaje en el piano cercano al virtuosismo de Liszt, mientras que su orquestación traza cálidas líneas melódicas de acompañamientos simples. El protagonismo interpretativo, tanto de los conciertos como de la Rapsodia sobre temas ucranianos, reside en la pianista Shorena Tsintsabadze, que muestra una sólida destreza con el instrumento, más que en Yablonsky que se limita meramente a sostener a la orquesta y permite un sonido brusco en la sección de vientos. Para quienes sientan una pasión desmedida hacia el pianismo ruso tardo-romántico, Sergey Mikhaylovich Lyapunov es una opción con claras reminiscencias a Rachmaninov.
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Review By Steven J Haller, American Record Guide,March 2011
Sergei Liapounov has always seemed to inhabit the fringe rather than the cutting edge of Russian music, in many respects content to continue on where The Five left off. Rimsky-Korsakoff famously characterized him as almost completely lacking in originality, sometimes mimicking Balakirev, sometimes Glazounov. Today he’s remembered more as educator and folklorist than composer; he published some 300 songs—several of them in his own arrangements. Some may also know his orchestration of Balakirev’s Islamey; and it was Liapounov who undertook the completion of Balakirev’s Second Piano Concerto after his mentor’s death.
His own Second Concerto has been recorded more often than its predecessor. That’s not to say either of his concertos (nor the Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes for that matter) is ever likely to become standard repertory—more’s the pity. This is only the second time all three have been gathered together on one record, following the Hyperion with Hamish Milne and Martyn Brabbins we hailed nearly 10 years ago.
Given Liapounov’s estimable reputation as a concert pianist and his studies with both Pavel Pabst and Liszt’s pupil Karl Klindworth, we may not be surprised to learn that his affection for the Hungarian master inspired him to compose his own set of Transcendental Etudes dedicated to Liszt’s memory. That direct influence is also reflected in his concertos, both of them conceived as a single movement with clear fast and slow sections often connected by a brief cadenza. Surely you can hear the opening of Liszt’s First Concerto in the rugged orchestral tutti that launches Liapounov’s counterpart—though harmonically the chorale in the horns that follows sounds very much like Glazounov—and there are passages in Liapounov’s Second Concerto that might have been lifted from Liszt’s (listen around 8 minutes in). But Liszt surely never would have thought of the expansive opening Lento of 2—it sounds so very Russian, really not that far removed from the first movement of Glazounov’s Fourth Symphony. Indeed, while far from lacking in opportunities for the soloist to shine, the mood of both concertos is more lyrical and introspective than fustian, much like Glazounov’s Violin Concerto or the Fifth Concerto of Vieuxtemps, and I’m really surprised the immense popularity of those examples has never been afforded to Liapounov. Russian cognates to the Ukrainian bouquet seem limited to whiffs of the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto at the outset; in turn the second cited theme reminded me of the finale of Xaver Scharwenka’s Second Concerto, an impish and very Polish sounding romp, while the finale is a hearty Cossack kazachok.
Besides the Milne you may find separate discs of 2 from Howard Shelley and Vassily Sinaisky on Chandos and Alexander Bakhchiev with Boris Khaikin on Russian Disc, while the indefatigable Michael Ponti recorded the Rhapsody in Volume 5 of Vox more....
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Review By Christophe Huss, Le Devoir,February 2011
Sergueï Lyapounov (1859–1924) est l’un de ces seconds couteaux de la musique russe que les amateurs de généreuse musique romantique prennent plaisir à écouter et à découvrir. Comme Kabalevski, lui aussi bien servi par Naxos, Lyapounov s’attache à composer une musique sincère et abordable, ancrée dans le terroir. On ne s’étonnera donc pas de trouver une Rhapsodie ukrainienne complétant cet enregistrement des deux volubiles concertos. Le concept du concerto pour piano est ici directement tiré des concertos de Liszt: un bloc d’une vingtaine de minutes accolant des épisodes contrastés. Le langage, aussi, est post-lisztien, dans la veine de Balakirev et dans l’esprit nationaliste de l’école de Rimski-Korsakov, mais sans la subtilité des textures orchestrales rimskiennes. Liapounov, bonne solution de remplacement à Liszt et Rachmaninov, est servi par une interprétation convaincante.
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Review By RéF, Pizzicato,February 2011
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Review By B.A. Nilsson, Metroland Online (Albany, NY),February 2011
LYAPUNOV, S.M.: Violin Concerto / Symphony No. 1 (Fedotov, Russian Philharmonic, Yablonsky) 8.570462
LYAPUNOV, S.M.: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes (Tsintsabadze, Russian Philharmonic, Yablonsky) 8.570783
The young Prokofiev, a student in St Petersburg, noted that one his professors, Sergey Lyapunov, was nicknamed “St Serge…referring to his exceptional piety and the nobility of his countenance.” Lyapunov was by 1913 quite the old guard in Prokofiev’s eyes, but subsequent mentions in the student’s diary were filled with respect—unusual for the otherwise snide, often snotty Prokofiev.
Most of Lyapunov’s music fell by the wayside. After all, there were Rimsky-Korsakoff and Tchaikovsky for the old school, Rachmaninoff representing the last hurrah of the romantics, and Stravinsky already shaking things up.
So these two new releases from Naxos give us works that have no grounding in familiarity and distinguish themselves, on initial listenings, as much by who they remind me of as by the charm of the pieces themselves.
And they are charming in a broad, sweeping, brassy way. Listen to Lyapunov spin out his ideas in the first movement of his first movement and, sure, you’ll think Tchaikovsky. Four noble brass chords; a subservient answer from the strings. And again. And then the melody rolls out, slowly, portentously, soon hitting a Brahmsian passage of winds over plucked violins.
Which is not to deny the composer his own identity, but I always look for something to cling to when wandering in the unfamiliar. If anything, that movement soon presents a picture of Lyapunov as a bit of the anti-Tchaikovsky, resisting the other’s habit of never letting a good tune go, developing his material in fascinating ways. If the scherzo is pure Peter Illyich, then the slow second movement has Sibelius in its ears.
There’s no possible way to avoid comparing Lyapunov’s single-movement Violin Concerto to the one written 10 years before by Glazunov, but this one culminates in a long and fiery cadenza before its short wrap-up, and has to be as much fun to perform as to listen to.
The mantle of Liszt hangs over the works for piano and orchestra, although it’s Liszt by way of Rachmaninoff. Again, both concertos are single-movement, episodic works with a good deal of virtuoso passagework, and the Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes, which puts to use folk material that was always one of the composer’s interests.
Both discs feature the Russian Philharmonic (actually, the Moscow City Symphony) conducted by Moscow-born, Yale-educated Dmitry Yablonsky, and the forces sound excellent. Likewise, violinist Maxim Fedotov and pianist Shorena Tsintsabadze bring amazing chops to bear on the solo parts, reminding us that such talent isn’t always i more....
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