Sergei Liapunov

LYAPUNOV, Sergei Mikhailovich (or Lyapunov) (b. November 18 [November 30], 1859, Yaroslavl; d. November 8, 1924, Paris) — was brought up in Nizhny Novgorod, where he took his first music lessons in the newly formed local branch of the Russian Musical Society . On the recommendation of Nikolai Rubinstein, director of the Moscow Conservatory, he enrolled in 1878. His main teachers were Karl Klindworth, a former student of Franz Liszt, in piano, and Sergei Taneev in composition . Soon after graduating from the conservatory in 1883, he moved to Petersburg in 1885, desiring to work more closely with the Russian nationalist school and Mily Balakirev, in particular. Balakirev, who himself was born and raised in Nizhny Novgorod, took Liapunov under his wing and guided his work on early compositions as carefully as he did with the members of The Mighty Five in the 1860s. The influence of Balakirev remained dominant in his creative life.

In 1893, the Imperial Geographical Society sent Liapunov together with Balakirev and Anatoly Lyadov on an expedition to collect folk songs from the areas of Vologda, Vyatka (Kirov) and Kostroma. They collected about 300 songs, which the Society published in 1897. Liapunov arranged 30 of these songs for voice and piano and used authentic folk songs in several of his compositions in the 1890s. He succeeded Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, as assistant director of the Imperial Court Chapel, became the director of the Free Music School, then its head, and also, in 1911, a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After the Revolution, he emigrated to Paris in 1923, but the following year died of a heart attack. Liapunov had a successful career as a pianist. He made several tours in Western Europe, including Germany and Austria in the years 1910-1911. Since 1904, he also appeared as a conductor.

Liapunov turned to sacred music relatively late — in 1915 six sacred choruses op. 62, were published; four of them are free compositions, and two are based on church chants. In 1919, Lyapunov was elected warden of the “house church” at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, in which the singing was performed by a choir consisting of conservatory students; this church lasted until its closure in 1922. In connection with the services here, L. began work on a musical setting of the Liturgy, but it was never completed and remains in the manuscript. In addition, on June 20, 1922, while on trial by a revolutionary tribunal in the notorious Petrograd court case dealing with the “Seizure of church valuables,” he wrote a setting of “Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos,” which also remains unpublished. After being found guilty (but released with a suspended sentence) and as a result of the difficulties that ensued, Liapunov found it necessary in 1923 to go on tour to Germany and France, from which he apparently did not plan to return. He participated in plans to create a Russian musical conservatory in Paris and gave several recitals. In one of his last letters to his family, he asks them to send him manuscripts of his sacred choral works and some arrangements of Russian folk songs; it is not known whether this request was fulfilled, however.

(See Miller, Vladimir. “Sergei Liapunov” in vol. Russkoe pravoslavnoe tserkovnoe penie v XX veke: Sovetskii period. Kniga 1, 1920-1930-e gody, chast’ 1 [Russian Orthodox Church Singing in the 20th Century: The Soviet Period. Book 1, 1920 - 1930s, part 1], in ser. Russkaia dukhovnaia muzyka v dokumentax i materialakh, Tom IX [Russian Sacred Music in Documents and Materials, Volume IX], M. P. Rakhmanova, Editor-in-Chief, (M.: IAzyki slavianskoi kul’tury, 2015), pp. 302-320.)