Russian Composers
The visit in spring 1935 by Cohen to the Soviet Union was another major milestone in her career. It was the country from which her ancestors had fled 100 years earlier. Not only was Cohen bringing British music to the USSR by playing pieces by Vaughan Williams, Bax, Bliss and Ireland, she also performed Shostakovitch's Preludes, Kabalevsky's Sonatina, and the Soviet premiere of Leonid Polovinkin's Suite from manuscript. Thereafter she took their music all over Europe and was acclaimed as the first musician outside the USSR to learn Shostakovitch's Twenty-Four Preludes, which he composed in 1932 and 1933. Her contribution in bringing to the attention of the world the work of unknown Russian composers is often forgotten.
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