Roslawez (1880-1944) studied composition and violin in Moscow. He was one of the leading figures in musical life in the 1920s. Later increasingly marginalised by the political regime to the point where he was excluded from his profession, he spent the last years of his life in poverty. The piano pieces in this edition date from the period 1914-1922: their complex structures and finely shaded dynamics and tone colour go beyond the familiar bounds of musical expressiveness and structure for that time.