He was taught informally by his conductor step-father Konstantin Lyadov [ru] from 1860 to 1868, and then in 1870 entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study piano and violin.

He taught at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1878, with pupils including Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Mikhail Gnesin, Lazare Saminsky, Lyubov Streicher, and Boris Asafyev.

Conductor Nikolai Malko, who studied harmony with him at the conservatory, wrote, "Lyadov's critical comments were always precise, clear, understandable, constructive, and brief.... And it was done indolently, without haste, sometimes seemingly disdainfully.

"[1] Igor Stravinsky remarked that Lyadov was as strict with himself as he was with his pupils, writing with great precision and demanding fine attention to detail.

Lyadov introduced timber millionaire and philanthropist Mitrofan Belyayev to the music of the teenage Alexander Glazunov.

[4] Interest in Glazunov's music quickly grew to Belyayev's patronage of an entire group of Russian nationalist composers.

[4][5] With young composers increasingly appealing to Belyayev for help, he asked Lyadov to serve on an advisory board to select among applicants, together with Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov.

[8] He married into money in 1884, acquiring through his marriage a country property in Polynovka, Borovichevsky, Novgorod Governorate, where he spent his summers composing unhurriedly, and where he died in 1914.

[citation needed] While Lyadov's technical facility was highly regarded by his contemporaries, his unreliability stood in the way of his advancement.

Lyadov never finished the opera, but sections of the work found realization in the short tone poems Kikimora and The Enchanted Lake.