op posth

Choir (SSAA) a cappella

Leokadiya Kashperova

• Choral score with piano accompaniment for rehearsal only
• Edited by Graham Griffiths
• A setting of Polonsky
• Intermediate level
• Published by Boosey & Hawkes

The pencil manuscript of Evening & Night was discovered in the Russian National Museum of Music, Moscow. Although separate and self-contained it appears that Kashperova thought of the two songs as a pair. The songs, a Polonsky setting of pastoral verses, date from the last two decades of the composer’s life, after her withdrawal from musical life following the Russian Revolution.

The work has been edited for performance by Graham Griffiths as part of the Kashperova Edition and is suitable for intermediate choirs.

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.