As David Brown tells us in his excellent essay accompanying this delectable disc‚ Sergei Lyapunov has always been a shadowy figure‚ his derivative yet distinctive voice drowned by his more celebrated compatriots and even by his contemporaries Taneyev‚ Liadov and Arensky. Yet hearing the First Symphony in a performance of this calibre you are reminded of the way Lyapunov’s melodic appeal is complemented by brilliant craftsmanship. The opening motif is sufficiently brief to invite elaboration and to play a key role in music as coherent as it is heartfelt. The chromatic undertow as the music eases into the poco più tranquillo‚ its mix of sweetness and unrest looks ahead to Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony‚ and if the themes are less memorable than in that towering Romantic masterpiece they are marshalled and directed with great compositional skill. Vassily Sinaisky and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra allow the long sinuous lines of the Andante sostenuto to unfold with an unfaltering tact and commitment‚ and in the balletic Scherzo‚ with its memories of Tchaikovsky‚ he realises all of the music’s captivating grace and charm. There is not even a trace of bombast or sentimentality in the finale’s concluding meno mosso grandioso; as David Brown admits‚ his feeling – prompted by a less than successful early recording – that ‘there is no compelling reason why this symphony should ever be roused from slumber’ is triumphantly erased. Lyapunov‚ like all but the greatest composers‚ does not easily survive a bad performance. If Borodin is a key influence in the symphony then Liszt is central to the thinking behind the Second Piano Concerto. Lyapunov‚ after all‚ paid an eloquent tribute to Liszt in his 12 Transcendental Etudes for solo piano‚ a magni­ficent if uneven creation‚ and not surprisingly the lavish and intricate pianism in the Second Concerto is a Romantically inclined pianist’s dream. Certainly its succulent themes and star­dust decoration could hardly be spun off more beguilingly than by Howard Shelley. His relaxed mastery and enviably elegant style inform every bar of this most seductive work. Finally‚ Lyapunov’s very Russian­sounding Polonaise in D‚ Op 16‚ provides a stirring encore that will have even the least susceptible feet tapping‚ particularly when presented by Sinaisky with such commanding sweep and ceremony. The recordings are magnificent; no lover of Russian Romantic by­ways can afford to be without this.