Apparently a staple in Russia, the music of Taneyev exists on the fringes of the repertoire in the West, something that should be rectified–and will be if this superb CD made by a starry cast of performers gets the attention it deserves. He’s a Romantic composer, but hardly of the heart-on-sleeve variety, since he was a master of counterpoint and firmly encased his Romantic impulses in a well-fitted classical jacket. Sometimes he makes you think of a more modern, pungent Brahms with a Russian accent.

Lydia Mordkovitch and the then Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi were a celebrated team in the 1980s, recording many notable Russian works, including the concertos by Khachaturian, Prokofiev and Shostakovich for Chandos, and winning a Gramophone Award. This ‘team’ has recently re-assembled to record little-known concertante works by Taneyev and Rimsky Korsakov. The unusual coupling of works by Taneyev and Rimsky-Korsakov, two great composer friends, neatly symbolises the era of the last decades of nineteenth-century Russia, with its great conservatories in Moscow and St Petersburg exerting enormous influence on the music of the country at the time.

A pupil of Tchaikovsky, whom he replaced at the Moscow Conservatory, Sergey Taneyev was a virtuoso pianist and a teacher of Scriabin and Rachmaninov. Although as a composer Taneyev is best known today for his four symphonies, he also composed a sizeable body of chamber music, including six String Quartets. These beautifully crafted works are marked by technical assurance at every turn, as well as dramatic inspiration and intense lyricism. The masterly five-movement Quartet No. 1, in fact Taneyev’s Fifth, includes two notable slow movements, while the lighter Quartet No. 3 features a graceful theme with eight variations, alternately playful and contemplative.

Firma Melodiya presents a rarity of Russian chamber music, string quartets by Sergei Taneyev performed by Lubotsky Trio. In the early 20th century, they called Taneyev “musical conscience of Moscow.” Tchaikovsky’s best student and friend, the first recipient of the Big Gold Medal of the Moscow Conservatory, and a teacher of Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and other famous composers, Taneyev proved to be an outstanding pianist, composer, educator and music theorist. A true master of polyphonic composition and a fine ensemble performer, Taneyev devoted special attention to thematic development, vibrant voiceleading, subtle palette of strokes, and sought to find an ideal balance between emotional and rational in music. The chamber and instrumental genres were perhaps the ones that answered his artistic demands to the greatest extent. Two string trios – E flat major, Op. 31, and B minor (no opus) – on this album belong to the 1910’s, the last period of Taneyev’s life. The latter one remained unfinished and was published many years after the composer’s death. The recording was made in Germany in 2015, the year of the 100th anniversary of the prominent Russian composer’s death.

A musical cosmopolitan and a Russian patriot, many regarded Taneyev's compositions as unintelligible and reactionary. The Utrecht String Quartet, an ensemble delighting in discovery, has now set itself the task of his long overdue rehabilitation. Just in time for the hundredth anniversary of the composer's death, the Dutch musicians, together with Pieter Wispelwey and Alexander Zemtsov, are presenting his two string quintets in a new recording, shedding new light on Russian music from around the turn of the century.

The Carpe Diem String Quartet’s first volume of Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev’s string quartets (Nos. 1 & 3 – 8.570437) gained critical accolades both for the revival of this important repertoire and for the ensemble’s sensitive and assured interpretations. A gift to musicians and listeners in search of rewarding new repertoire, Taneyev’s Second and Fourth String Quartets are masterfully crafted, the former piece possessing the inner energy of Beethoven, the latter being his most dramatic quartet. Both quartets impress with their unexpected harmonic combinations, wealth of ideas and mastery of form.