LDV90

20 LYAPUNOV • 12 ÉTUDES D’EXÉCUTION TRANSCENDANTE Lyapunov seems awkwardly placed in the history of music, between Tchaikovsky and then Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, his exact contemporaries. Do you think that this position was detrimental to him, as was the ‘paternity’ of Balakirev, not to mention the commanding figures of Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky, all of whom were contemporaries of Tchaikovsky’s? And soon afterwards came Stravinsky, then Prokofiev . . . So many geniuses of a different stature from his, who seem to have overwhelmed him somewhat. What do you think of this very special historical situation? Lyapunov has been criticised for his lack of a personal style. And in fact, even more than with Liszt, it was with Balakirev, his teacher, that Lyapunov identified, so strongly ‘that he was barely capable of writing anything that could not pass for an exact replica of his model’, as Guy Sacre has written. Perhaps the elaboration of a personal language seemed a little pointless to him; perhaps what he had to express did not require a revolution for its utterance. It is certain that composers like Rachmaninoff and Scriabin are such strong personalities that they inevitably end up breaking free of their models, imposing a new musical universe. Yet none of the composers mentioned would replace, or console us for the loss of Lyapunov’s oeuvre for piano, if it were to disappear.