Andrey Petrovich Esaulov

Andrey Petrovich Esaulov was a Russian composer, chiefly of songs. He lived in the first half of the nineteenth century, in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and had contact with some of the central figures of Russian literature of his time.

He left the army, where he had served as military Kapellmeister, in the 1820s and settled in Moscow, lodging in the house of P. V. Nashchokin, who introduced him to Pushkin. He composed several songs, among them two to French texts dated 1828. He later published works setting texts by Zhukovsky and Katenin, and two songs to poems by Pushkin. An offer of a post as répétiteur in Moscow, in 1830, seems to have been turned down. In 1833 he moved to Saint Petersburg, where he worked in a theatre orchestra until early 1834, and he then suffered penury; Pushkin gave him financial assistance.

In the 1830s he settled in Ryazhsk and then in Ryazan, where he taught piano and directed a church choir. From this period comes his only known work for full orchestra, a Tragic Overture in three sections. In his last years he composed large-scale sacred works and short pieces for piano. He drowned in the river Trubezh.

His legacy, modest and fragmentary, documents the musical life of the provinces.