Piano (Piano Solo)
SKU: HL.48025020
Suite for Piano Solo
in Six Movements.
Composed by Leokadiya
Kashperova. BH Piano.
Classical. Softcover. 32
pages. Boosey & Hawkes
#M060135637. Published by
Boosey & Hawkes
(HL.48025020).
ISBN
9781784546250.
Leok
adiya Kashperova
(1872-1940), hitherto
consigned to a footnote
in musical history as
Stravinsky's piano
teacher, is undergoing
rediscovery. A double
graduate of the St
Petersburg Conservatoire,
she emerged as a virtuoso
pianist and composer in
the romantic tradition.
She was associated with
some of the great
musicians of her day,
including Mily
Alexayevich Balakirev and
Leopold von Auer. She
performed in both Germany
and the UK in the 1900s,
but her career petered
out after 1920. These new
editions of the Cello
Sonatas 1 & 2 have
been broadcast and
recorded, whilst new
editions of her Symphony
and hitherto unpublished
Piano Concerto have
recently been issued.
Kashperova's Romantic
empathy with nature and
childhood may be keenly
observed in her chamber
music and songs. The
six-movement piano suite
In the Midst of Nature
(1910) in no exception in
the way it uses
evocations of nature to
express nostalgia for her
childhood in the peaceful
and remote Russian
countryside. In the Midst
of Nature also resents an
artfully graded
progression, indicating
that Kashperova probably
shared this music with
her many pupils: the
early movements are
within the range of the
talented young player
whilst the latter
movements require the
technique and
interpretative maturity
of a conservatoire
student, the whole work
being admirably suited to
the professional
recital.