Anatoly Lyadov

Anatoly Lyadov was a Russian composer, teacher and conductor, remembered for brilliant, brief orchestral works rather than anything on a large scale. His father conducted at the Mariinsky Theatre, and Lyadov grew up around it, frequently appearing onstage as a boy; as a Conservatory student he sang the small bass role of Mityukha at the 1874 St Petersburg premiere of Boris Godunov. He studied composition there under Rimsky-Korsakov and later taught there himself, Prokofiev among his pupils. He made his name with Musical Snuffbox (1893) and the tone poems Baba Yaga, Kikimora and The Enchanted Lake, all grown out of a Russian folklore opera he began around 1905 and never finished.