For some reason, I have always had a bit of nostalgia for the Soviet Union, which is strange, because I was born after it had already fallen. Still, when I read books like Doctor Zhivago or The Master & Margarita, when I see films like Stalker or Cherry Town, when I listen to composers like Mieczysław Weinberg, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina and Dmitri Shostakovich, it somehow seems familiar to me. When I discovered Sergei Protopopov’s music, I felt the same sense of acquaintance and familiarity. Even though his compositions are dark and brooding, I find a strange kind of comfort in them. As is the case with all great composers, it is almost impossible to categorize Protopopov. People still try and describe his style as “Russian modernism”, “Soviet avant-garde”, or “Scriabinism”. Ultimately, his music is a category on its own.

When I learnt about Protopopov a few years ago, I wished I had gotten to know it sooner. However, he was not well-known at all; a lot of his music was never even recorded. I wanted to change that. Once I got to know his heart-breaking life story, marred by oppression and sabotage, I was even more convinced that someone had to do something about it. That’s why I decided to dedicate the third and final album in the Eclipse series to the music of Protopopov. – Written by Mattias Spee

Mattias Spee – piano