LDV90

FLORIAN NOACK 23 But it’s also undoubtedly what drew me very quickly to the music of Lyapunov. Beyond his official mission (he was commissioned by the Imperial Geographical Society to collect Russian folksongs), a large number of his pieces, whether authentically inspired by folklore or not, are coloured by modal tinges that evoke the various aspects of Russia: Slavonic, Orthodox, Caucasian or oriental. Add to this the influences of Chopin and Liszt, and the extraordinary, almost obsessive care he took over his piano writing, with a view to extracting from the piano the beauties of which it alone is capable, and you end up with an intensely rich and colourful universe. That’s what has always appealed to me in Lyapunov’s output.