0 Taneyev: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4

Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Valeri Polyansky

'This is a striking, and very well-recorded pair of performances, well worth the attention of lovers of Russian music who have not yet encountered the works.'--Gramophone

'With astute confidence and pounding vigour, Valeri Polyansky commands a lucious sound and first-rate perfomance from the Russian State Symphony Orchestra.' --The Observer

“Polyansky provides a splendidly passionate and invigorating introduction to music that we really should know better in the West. The Fourth Symphony has always been the most popular of Taneyev's symphonies, and with good reason.

He writes a powerful opening Allegro and a wellbuilt finale, but for all his symphonic skills here, it's in the middle two movements that the most personal music is to be found. The scherzo dances along with the vitality that many a Russian composer has brought to comparable movements, and with the rhythmic quirks that he liked so much; but it's in the Adagio that something more is discovered. Taneyev has routinely been reproached for lacking melodic distinction, sometimes with reason, but this superb movement comes close to the manner of Bruckner, or sometimes Mahler. For English ears, the sense of 'stately sorrow' serves as a reminder that the phrase was coined of his own music by Elgar.

Conductor and players make of this fine music a tragic statement, and it's here that they're at their most intense. Polyansky also produces a strong case for the Second Symphony, his sense of structure holding the rather oddly organised opening movement together, as a powerful chorale passage has to be integrated with a sonata Allegro. He doesn't play down the suggestions of Dvorák, whom Taneyev clearly found sympathetic.
This is a striking, and very well-recorded, pair of performances, well worth the attention of lovers of Russian music.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Detail: Taneyev: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4

0 Taneyev: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3

Polyansky and the Russian State Symphony have done Taneyev a superb service with these thoroughly prepared, expertly recorded performances. The music itself may be too firmly tied to academic apron-strings to be viable in the concert hall, and the composer’s verdict in not releasing them was surely the right one. But these are still need-to-know pieces for anyone interested in the Russian symphonic repertoire. --Gramophone

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.

Detail: Taneyev: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3

0 Arensky & Taneyev: Violin Concerto, Suite

'These two products of Russia's Silver Age go well together on disc … Ilya Gringolts is a fine advocate for both works, combining brilliance and idiomatic sensitivity, and enjoying fine support from Volkov and the BBC Scottish … In short, another superbly conceived and truthfully recorded addition to Hyperion's Romantic Violin Concerto series' --Gramophone

'Gringolts' fluency, virtuosity and lyrical intensity have been much and rightly admired and this record I'm almost tempted to say is his best yet. He is expertly and sensitively partnered by Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra' --BBC Music Magazine

Detail: Arensky & Taneyev: Violin Concerto, Suite