I discovered this work the other night purely by chance, thanks to YouTube’s “suggested video” algorithm thing. I gave it a try…and then I listened to it three times in succession. What a wonderful, magical, lyrical work! It’s full of exuberance and good cheer. I haven’t been able to find out a whole lot of information about the work in question, and I had never even heard of Sergei Lyapunov before seeing this work suggested. Lyapunov was a Russian Romantic who fled Russia after the Revolution, settling in Paris and eventually dying of a heart attack in 1924. He appears to have been fairly prolific, and he falls into the category of those composers whose work was not original or unique enough to warrant a lasting place in the standard repertoire, but who was also too good to languish in unfortunate obscurity.
Here is Sergei Lyapunov’s Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes, for orchestra and piano. There is some scintillating stuff here–take the sixteen minutes and listen to it!