Leokadiya Kashperova
• Known primarily as a pianist, Leokadiya Kashperova was also active in St Petersburg as a composer
• Works include symphonic scores, Romantic songs, chamber music and choral works
• Studied composition with Nikolay Solovyov and piano with Anton Rubinstein
• Favoured interpreter of virtuosic new works by Glazunov and her friend Balakirev
• Travelled internationally as a piano soloist, including to London and Berlin
• Taught Stravinsky for two years from 1899, enabling him to re-launch his career as an interpreter of his own piano works
• After marrying a Bolshevik revolutionary, she was forced to flee Petrograd, first to the Caucasus in 1918, then to Moscow
• Although nearly all Kashperova's works had been published and performed before the Revolution, not a note of her music was heard following her flight
• New Kashperova editions being created by Boosey & Hawkes in consultation with Dr Graham Griffiths, Music Research Fellow at City, London University and a member of the editorial board of the St Petersburg Conservatoire
• The Kashperova edition gratefully acknowledges the support of the Russian National Museum of Music in Moscow
Works by Leokadiya Kashperova include:
Piano Concerto in A minor op.2 (1900) for piano and orchestra
Symphony in B minor op.4 (1904-05) for orchestra
Suite for Piano: In the midst of nature (1910)
"…as soon as I began uncovering Kashperova’s lyrical and beautifully-crafted music I realised that Kashperova had been unjustly overlooked… her considerable achievements had been erased by the misfortunes of History…"
Dr Graham Griffiths
