Firma Melodiya presents a premiere of a unique work of 20th century Russian music – 24 Preludes and Fugues by Vsevolod Zaderatsky.To say that the composer’s fate was tragic means to say nothing. A composer, pianist and conductor, Zaderatsky went through all circles of Soviet hell – arrests, imprisonments, Gulag, exiles, persecution for “formalism”… However, nothing could crush the man’s mighty craving for creation. He wrote his main work in the period of 1937 to 1939 in a prison camp in Kolyma using telegraph forms as music paper…

A representative of Taneyev’s school, Zaderatsky was perhaps the only composer who ventured upon continuation of his teacher’s polyphonic tradition. Zaderatsky revived Bach’s tradition on his own even before Hindemith and Shostakovich created their cycles of the kind. Here, the time-honoured form is combined with a quite peculiar interpretation of “tonal” thinking. At the same time, the composer’s style is a synthesis of the most significant achievements in the music of the first half of the last century.

Vsevolod Zaderatsky’s works began to draw attention of musicians and the public as late as in the 21st century. The 24 Preludes and Fugues were performed entirely for the first time in 2014 in Moscow. Now they have been put on record by a group of young pianists, prize-winners of international competitions and prominent representatives of performing art of their generation. We are pleased to present Ksenia Bashmet, Yuri Favorin, Nikita Mndoyants, Lukas Geniušas, Andrei Gugnin and Andrei Yaroshinsky.