two piano sonatas. He also composed songs, some of them set to the lyrics of the Chinese ancient poets. Reflections (1925), a cycle of seven pieces for the piano, is one of a small number of works for the instrument; his other piano works are the sonatas (written in 1924 and 1925), Ballade (1928), a suite (1942), and seven of his , written in 1942 and 1943. During the 1920s Lyatoshynsky composed a series of romances based on the writings of poets that included Heinrich Heine, Konstantin Balmont, Paul Verlaine, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, Percy Shelley, Maurice Maeterlinck, and a setting of Heine's poem "Black sails on a boat" (19221924). Other works include his Sonata for Violin and Piano (1924), and the String Quartet No 3. His opera The Golden Ring (written in 1929), based on a novel by the Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko, describes the struggle of the Ukrainians against the Mongol invaders in the 13th century. The Golden Ring was not considered to adhere to the doctrine of the Communist Party. His second opera, Shchors (1937), was based on the story of the Ukrainian communist Mykola Shchors during the conflict in Ukraine that followed the end of the First World War. The Piano Sonata No.1 was published in Moscow in 1926, the year he composed an overture based on Ukrainian folk music—the Overture on Four Ukrainian Themes, his first attempt at integrating his own musical style with original folk tunes. In June that year, Glière performed the premiere of Lyatoshynsky's First Symphony in a concert programme. During 19311932, Lyatoshynsky wrote an orchestral suite for orchestra. From 1932 to 1939, he was a committee member of the Bureau of the Union of Composers of Ukraine. Following the commission from the officials of the Odesa Opera and Ballet Theatre, he travelled to Tajikistan to study folk music and compose a ballet about the life of local people. In 1932, he composed his Three Songs on Tajik Themes for violin and piano, based on the folk music of the region. Moscow Conservatory From 1935 to 1938, and from 1941 to 1944, Lyatoshynsky taught orchestration at the Moscow Conservatory. He was the chairman of the Union of Composers of Ukraine in 1939. The Second Symphony in B flat was commissioned in 1933 by the Organizing Bureau of the Union of Soviet Composers, to be premiered in Moscow along with a number