LDV90

Though we should not neglect the shade of Chopin (from whom the Tempête étude borrows its ardent passion), Lyapunov’s chief inspiration, alongside and equal to Liszt, was his teacher and mentor, Mili Balakirev, the soul of the Mighty Handful and a pianist like himself. (Balakirev once said to him, speaking of Liszt: ‘Don’t even try to escape his ever-dominant influence!’) Nevertheless, torn as he was between East and West, between the influences of Liszt and that of a ‘Russian national’ Romanticism, between programmatic and ‘pure’ music, how do you judge the miraculous balance that Lyapunov achieves in his Études?