Evening & Night

A setting of pastoral verses of Polonsky dating from the last two decades of the composer's life, after her withdrawal from musical life following the Russian Revolution. Leokadiya 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 Balakirev and Auer. She performed in both Germany and the UK in the 1900s, but her career petered out after 1920. The pencil manuscript of Evening & Night was discovered in the Russian National Museum of Music, Moscow. Although separate and self-contained it appears that the composer thought of the two songs as a pair. The work has been edited for performance by Graham Griffiths as part of the Kashperova Edition.