Anatoly Lyadov - Three Preludes Op. 27 (Rapetti)

Pianist: Marco Rapetti
Composed in 1891

0:00 - Allegro ma grazioso
1:36 - Presto
3:06 - Allegro

Lyadov and his style
Anatoly Lyadov (1855-1914 b. St. Petersburg) is one of the least played geniuses of Russian music. His neglect makes some sense given his stylistic choices. One of which is that he accepted conservatory education and western innovations, refusing to take such as radical a stance as "the five" when crafting his own music [1]. This kept him securely away from that camp. On the other hand, his love of counterpoint and western romanticism [1] placed him more in tune with the likes of Tchaikovsky, the Rubinstein brothers, and Taneyev. Unfortunately, Lyadov never achieved the widespread success of Tchaikovsky, the precise, scholarly brilliance of Taneyev or the exacting critical mind of the Rubinstein brothers. What Lyadov offers instead is, of course, unique. But even though Lyadov played a significant role in Russian music's retreat from nationalism [2], he is still often undervalued when compared to the other giants of his time.

Sometimes, Lyadov's music gets lost in the sea of Russian nationalist music because of how similar his music can sound to the ambient output of the time. Lyadov, much like Taneyev, formed a style based on a synthesis of Russian nationalist elements like folk music and church modes and more western elements like tight form, counterpoint, and the rich romantic inheritance passed down by Chopin and Schumann [1]. Fairy tales, literature, and Russian realist art also played a significant role in filling Lyadov's mind with inspiration [1]. As time went on and nationalism declined, Lyadov filled a stylistic void. As Glazunov and Arensky came to be known, Lyadov also arose a "founding member of this 'first generation' of symbolist composers [3]. Late in life, he went on to be inspired by the French impressionists and by Scriabin, using the mystic chord in in some of his later works [1]. Throughout his career as a composer, Lyadov had a rich treasury of artistic influences to draw from, which lead to a varied and unique output but most importantly, an output worth listening to.

Three preludes
These preludes do not offer much of a departure from the previous set (op. 13). We still see monophonic textures, interesting modulations, and some occasional dissonance. There is some old and some new. Despite the similarity, there are still some interesting ideas here, all of which are injected into a continuous stream of color radiating out from a pianist's light touch.

Allegro ma grazioso - For a piece with such a light atmosphere, this piece hides many subtle dissonances - see 00:35 for example. The pedal-work must be as delicate as the fingering so as not to blur the rapidly modulating figurations together.

Presto - Like in the previous set, Lyadov experiments here with odd melodic placements. The most attractive element of this piece is the cohesiveness between the oddly placed melody and the texture. Lyadov achieves this marvel by having a 5-against-3 polyrhythm with the melody playing out at the very last note of of the 5. The brilliance here is that the melodic note plays out right before the next beat and avoids most of the harmonic value of the previous texturing note in 3. This allows a flow of activity from the melodic note to the beginning of the next beat which is the only place where the harmonic value of the texture is fully realized in the 5. This creates a hurried and jagged piece that pours out energy.

Allegro - A faster variation of Op. 13's andantino. The melodic notes still occur on the outside of a beat's 16th notes, but the texture has changed to be more monophonic.

Bibliography
[1] X. Zhang. A Study of the Piano Works by Anatol Lyadov. Doctoral Work. Arizona State University, 2018.
[2] M. Montagu-Nathan. A History of Russian Music. Sagwan Press. 2015.
[3] A. Masrow. “Contexts of Symbolist Music in Silver Age Russia 1861-1917”. Southern Methodist Univ. 2008.