Ukrainian Romances. Masterpieces of Ukrainian Music.

Strange enough, it is somehow not customary to speak about Ukrainian romance – actually, it is often considered that there is even nothing to speak about. That is an ambiguous position. That is, on the one hand, it is difficult to compete with the trend of "Russian romance" – that is true. But why compete? These are just different things. It somehow historically happened so that Ukrainian romance, in fact, did not have a chance to develop freely and to its full. That is why speaking about it as about an independent genre with clear formal features – that is, maybe, not quite right. But if one means the tender singing of light sadness – for it is with such feelings that we associate romances, isn't it? – Ukraine has a great number of such songs... And, naturally, on the disc you will find wonderful samples of what it is possible to call Ukrainian romance.

It is not only interesting, but also pleasant to know that – guess who – Oleg Skrypka himself made a direct contribution into compilation of absolutely all discs of the "Masterpieces of Ukrainian Music" series. Considering that it was his recording house "Kraina Mriy" that has been working over the series – that is, actually, not surprising. But, in any case, it is nice to see that Skrypka has revealed an outstanding awareness of the material. You should also take into account how extensive the palette of themes selected has appeared – and not hackneyed, by the way... We believe that when working over these compilations, he had a lot of interesting discoveries for himself – and we have no doubt that for the future audience of these discs these discoveries may appear no less interesting...