Lyapunov worked on the Sextet in January—March 1916, and the first performance took place on 30 April[1] that year in a concert at the Petrograd Conservatory with the composer playing the piano part.
[2] It was one of the most important concerts in Lyapunov's career, in the second half of which the complete cycle of his 12 Transcendental Études was performed for the first time in Russia.
Some portions of the proofs survived,[4] and some separate instrumental voices, with the help of which the composer reconstructed the sextet in its complete form, in August 1921.
[5][6] In autumn 1923 the fair copy of the new version was taken by Lyapunov to Paris together with manuscripts of other major compositions unpublished by that time: Symphony No.
[5][6] The sextet is dedicated to Zenaïde Schandarowska (née von Hennings, in Russian: Зинаида Оскаровна Шандаровская), who studied with Lyapunov in Saint Petersburg Conservatory and was one of his favorite pupils.