"The first concert program of old Russian romances was performed by Hmyrya in the season of 1961-62, and then, in 1968-69, he almost fully updated it due to significant replenishment with "tenor pieces". Among the composers of the first half of the 19
th century who composed vocal music, Alyabyev, Varlamov, Gurilev and others stand out. Since all of them composed music beyond their main employment providing earnings, for a long time, in spite of the undeniable value of the music, they were considered dilettantes. Boris Romanovich said on this occasion: "This group of Russian composers was called dilettantes. Now they are united by the generic name "non-classics". All the same quite depreciating, right? But it seems to me that their music is unusually close to the very nature of the Russian soul, there is depth, reverie, clarity of the national character. Take only the romance "On the Dawn of the Misty Youth". Does not it deserve to be considered classics?" Hmyrya was one of the first singers to revive the old romance for the audience, and this program was fully included into this compact disc.
The release of the compact disc with recordings of old Russian romances performed by Borys Hmyrya will be a nice present for the contemporary generation of fans of the high art and the most accomplished vocal." Anna Prints, the president of Borys Hmyrya Foundation