It is not my usual custom to hug complete strangers backstage after a concert. But this is the situation I frequently find myself in these days, when I play my programme 'Ukraine - A Piano Portrait'.  Ukrainians in the audience come backstage to thank me for playing music from their homeland and they dissolve into tears as they struggle to explain what it means to them. Their tears then cause me to become emotional too, and so we end up weeping together and embracing one another. 

I have long felt a strong connection to Ukraine. My grandfather was born in that most musical of cities, Odesa. Benno Moisewitsch, Shura Cherkassky, Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh, Nathan Milstein all came from there, as did George Gershwin’s parents and even Bob Dylan’s grandparents. Like other Jews at the turn of the 20th century, my grandfather left to find a better life, one without the constant threat of pogroms. He intended to go to America but could not afford the passage and ended up in Manchester instead. 

When the Russians invaded Ukraine in February 2022, I felt, as did so many, an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and despair. So, I channelled my emotions in the only way I knew how: music. I already had many of Sergei Bortkiewicz’s exquisitely crafted piano pieces in my library. In those first dark days of the war, I found that his heart-on-sleeve music spoke to me in a powerful way, and no piece more so than Les Rochers d’Outche-Coche. I teamed up with a young Ukrainian filmmaker, Viktoriia Levchenko, who sent some extraordinary images of the war’s devastation to accompany my performance of it. The resulting video on YouTube raised funds for several emergency vehicles to be sent to the front line.

Encouraged and touched by the response to the video, I began to explore other Ukrainian repertoire, focusing mainly on forgotten Romantic composers. What I uncovered was a veritable treasure trove of incredibly beautiful music. I then compiled a recital programme with the aim of taking the audience on a journey into the heart of Ukraine to reflect its many moods: dark, sad and tragic of course, but also richly romantic, heroic, triumphant, joyous, even humorous. Barvinsky, Lysenko, Revutsky, Kosenko, Silvestrov, Lyatoshinsky…  With the exception of Silvestrov, who has become something of a cult figure, these names are all but unknown outside Ukraine. 

A common thread with almost all these composers is that they endured dreadful hardship and upheaval in their lives. Mykola Lysenko was one of the first composers to strive for a national artistic identity, but he got into trouble with the Russian authorities for promoting the use of Ukrainian language and for separating himself from Russian culture.  

Sergei Bortkiewicz had to flee Germany where he was living when WWI broke out. He was then forced to abandon his family estate in Ukraine when the Red Army came. He eventually found his way back to Germany only to have to flee yet again when the Nazis came to power.  

Viktor Kosenko lived in dire poverty and died at only age 42, possibly due to his terrible living conditions. Boris Lyatoshinsky had his music banned by the Soviet authorities for its 'anti-national formalism'. Valentin Silvestrov fled Kyiv for Berlin when the Russians invaded in 2022.  

Perhaps saddest of all was Vasyl Barvinsky. In 1948 he and his wife were arrested and sent to a Gulag. When they were released 10 years later, he discovered that most of his music had been destroyed. He spent the last few years of his life trying to reconstruct the works that had been lost, but he died before he could complete the task. 

I felt that these were composers whose remarkable music had to be heard. I began to perform this programme around the UK in a series of fundraising concerts. I then spoke to Siva Oke at SOMM, and she responded warmly to the idea of recording this repertoire. Thus emerged our album – 'Ukraine, A Piano Portrait'. Proceeds from CD sales will be donated to British-Ukrainian Aid, an organisation which sends ambulances and medical aid to Ukraine. 

Music is a powerful emotional tool, so I hope this recording will offer its listeners a special catharsis at a time when Ukraine’s very existence is in peril. I hope that when they listen, they too will shed a tear for that beautiful, devastated country and its extraordinarily brave people. 

'Ukraine: A Piano Portrait' with Margaret Fingerhut is out now on the SOMM label: https://listn.fm/ukrainepianoportrait/

Find out more: www.margaretfingerhut.co.uk