Ukrainian Preludes

Some years ago, I received a mail from Russia sent by a music-lover as yet unknown to me. His name was Alexander Plekhanov. He knew me from my CDs of works by persecuted composers and and wanted to draw my attention to a Ukrainian Jewish composer whom I had never heard of - Matvey Gozenpud. Attached to the email were a few of his compositions. I was busy on other projects at the time and neglected to answer him. In fact some time went by before I remembered the email with the scores and played them through at the piano - and was delighted. I was particularly taken by Gozenpud's cycle of 12 Preludes. I contacted Alexander Plekhanov, who I'm glad to say was not put out by my long silence. On the contrary: he was very pleased to learn I was interested and sent me many more scores in the following weeks and months by various Soviet composers of that period. Plekhanov is still a young man and he sees it as his mission to bring back to life music that has fallen into undeserved oblivion. He spends his spare time in Moscow's large music libraries in search of interesting compositions and has a strong commitment to composers from Ukraine. He publishes many of these rediscovered works in his online library and apart from that, he seeks to approach musicians directly and enlist their support for his discoveries. This CD, which brings together music by three composers from Ukraine, is thus our joint project, although we have yet to meet in real life. (Jascha Nemtsov)