Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Leonid Desyatnikov - Nocturne (1994)

While exploring new piano repertoire, I came across this composition. I played the Nocturne for a while, and to my surprise, it reminded me of a piece I had already recorded—Weather Storm by Craig Armstrong.
You can listen to that recording here: youtu.be/QKMX7pAd3J0

*The Nocturne from Giselle’s Mania forms part of a film score written by Leonid Desyatnikov, the scenario concerning the ballerina Olga Spessivtseva who suffered mental breakdowns in 1934 and 1937.

**Leonid Desyatnikov was born in 1955 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He is a graduate of the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatory, where he studied composition and instrumentation, and where he continued to live after completing his studies.

Desyatnikov has composed four operas, several cantatas, and numerous vocal and instrumental works. His principal compositions include: The Children of Rosenthal (an opera in two acts; libretto by Vladimir Sorokin), commissioned by the Bolshoi Theatre; Poor Liza (a chamber opera in one act; libretto by Leonid Desyatnikov, after the novel by Nikolai Karamzin); Gift (a cantata based on the verses of Gavrila Derzhavin); The Leaden Echo (a work for voice(s) and instruments, based on the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins); The Rite of Winter 1949 (a symphony for chorus, soloists, and orchestra).

Desyatnikov has collaborated with violinist Gidon Kremer since 1996 as both a composer and an arranger. He has arranged works by Astor Piazzolla, including the tango-operita María de Buenos Aires and the tango suite Cuatro estaciones porteñas.

Leonid Desyatnikov left St. Petersburg in March 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.


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