Sunday 13 Feb: SJ on Taneyev's Piano Quintet

[french frank]

Sunday, 17:00

"Stephen Johnson is joined by the Danel Quartet & David Fanning to explore the nuances found in a hidden gem of the chamber music repertoire - the Piano Quintet by Sergei Taneyev. Sometimes referred to as "the Russian Brahms", Taneyev was a pupil of Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatoire, and in turn taught younger composers such as Scriabin, Gliere, Rachmaninoff and Medtner. He was a fine pianist himself, and was the soloist in the premieres of all of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concertos.
This Piano Quintet in G minor was written towards the end of Taneyev's life, in 1911 and ranks among the finest examples of Russian Romantic chamber music."

[Roehre]

Beautiful but long (more than 45 minutes IIRC), perhaps too long, quintet.

[french frank]

Beautiful but long (more than 45 minutes IIRC), perhaps too long, quintet.

The connections with Brahms and Tchaikovsky should pique the curiosity, though

[french frank]

Well, I enjoyed the analysis. Might not have time to listen to the performance before it disappears from the iPlayer but I think it would be on my list of possible purchases.

I realise now that I was probably thinking of Alexander Taneyev, who's almost exactly coeval with Sergei. SJ pointed out that there wasn't a lot of 'proper' Russian chamber music ('proper' in not sounding as good or better in orchestrated versions), with this quintet a notable exception. Alexander seems to have written nearly as much chamber music as Sergei.