Alexander Krein

Russian composer Alexander Krein (1883-1951). He was unable to stand firm in the wake of the growing political pressure in the Soviet Union. In 1931 he composed a work to to text of a speech by Stalin. Thereafter he became a successful composer, but only with works in which he disowned his Jewishness. Krein, who came from a family of great Jewish musicians, was actually regarded in the 1920s as the protagonist of the new Jewish music.