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), consigned for decades to a footnote in musical history as Stravinsky’s piano teacher, is undergoing rediscovery as a composer in her own right. Graduating from the St Petersburg Conservatoire, she emerged as a virtuoso pianist and composer in the late romantic tradition and was associated with some of the great musicians of her day, including Mily Alexayevich Balakirev and Anton Rubinstein. She performed as a pianist in Germany and the UK in the 1900s but her compositional career was silenced after the Russian Revolution in 1917.

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.

Sample Pages