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Taneyev - Symphonies No 1 and 3

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Label: Chandos

Cat No: CHAN10390

Barcode: 0095115139028

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 2nd April 2007

Works

Taneyev, Sergei

Symphony no.1 in E minor
Symphony no.3 in D minor

Artists

Russian State Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Valeri Polyansky

Works

Taneyev, Sergei

Symphony no.1 in E minor
Symphony no.3 in D minor

Artists

Russian State Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Valeri Polyansky

About

Sergei Taneyev’s music, written in the late nineteenth-century romantic tradition, is well-crafted, attractively scored and tuneful. Both symphonies receive their premiere recordings with this release.

Polyansky and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra are renowned for their recordings of Russian repertoire and have made many acclaimed recordings for Chandos.

Taneyev is better known as a pupil of Tchaikovsky who criticised his master for putting ballet music into a symphony! Soviet musicology has also dwelt more upon the theoretical aspects of the composer’s work, not least the influence of his huge study, Strict Counterpoint in the Convertible Style. This has meant that many works which the composer was too self-critical to admit to publication (only the Fourth Symphony was published) were studiously reconstructed, and recently musicologists and collectors have reassessed the legacy of Taneyev’s music.

Symphony No.1, in E minor was never even performed in Taneyev’s lifetime. Reasonable conjecture suggests that it was one of many tasks set for the 16-year old student by Tchaikovsky. Taneyev’s orchestration throughout is melodic and lyrical; the example of Tchaikovsky clearly fired his assistant’s imagination. By the time he completed his Third Symphony in 1884, Taneyev had taken Tchaikovsky’s place as Professor at the Moscow Conservatory. There is much of Brahms’s easy-flowing spirit and natural polyphony, within the work, as well as foreshadowing another Russian symphonist, Glazunov.

Taneyev’s compositional style is characterised by its fastidious craftsmanship, the composer’s inclination to contrapuntal techniques and his adept handling of large-scale forms. A lone figure in late nineteenth-century Russian music, he was openly contemptuous of contemporary nationalist composers and his work owes little to Russian tradition. These premiere recordings make a welcome arrival to the Russian music catalogue.