KASHPEROVA, Leokadiya

  Kashperova was a respected figure in St Petersburg for two decades (c1895–1916), giving piano recitals, appearing in chamber music series, hosting regular musical evenings at her apartment on Tuesdays in the manner of the more celebrated ‘Korsakov’s Wednesdays’; in 1907 she undertook concert tours to Berlin and London (twice). Her music was well-known to concert audiences in Russia and beyond. But, inescapably, her life was upended by the Revolution of 1917.

Thereafter, the accumulated impact of civil strife, two world wars and the constantly shifting sands of Soviet cultural policy condemned her to becoming a neglected footnote to Russia’s musical history. Effectively, after her death in 1940, her biography and her remarkable music were completely forgotten, even in Russia. However, recent research demonstrates that Kashperova deserves to be remembered as much more than ‘Stravinsky’s piano teacher’: she was primarily a composer-pianist of extraordinary talent. Her catalogue testifies to over fifty years’ creativity and establishes her as one of the very earliest female Russian composers of international stature.