Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, a librettist, first met in Vienna in 1783. They shied away from the staid Greco-Roman mythologies, used frequently in opera until then, choosing
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Lyadov, Anatoly
Lee-add-off | History may regard him as a wasted talent, but the small amount that Lyadov did achieve had a significant impact, as Daniel Jaffé explains Published:
Who was Anatoly Lyadov?
Igor Stravinsky (who became one of the
The Firebird. His low compositional output, partly owing to the amount of time he took to complete each work, has only reinforced this reputation. Then there is the oft-repeated charge, originating from his teacher
Rimsky-Korsakov, that Lyadov was ‘incredibly lazy’.
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Yet contemporary accounts and memoirs by Lyadov’s colleagues and pupils, including Stravinsky himself, reveal a composer not only held in the highest esteem but also widely loved. Indeed, Lyadov excited the enthusiasm of some of Russia’s greatest creative minds, including all five members of the ‘Mighty Handful’ group of composers while he was still a teenager. So how come he appeared to achieve so little despite