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He was a brilliant pianist, a distinctive composer, a theorist and eminent teacher, and dubbed by Tchaikovsky as the Russian Bach. Donald Macleod, with Dr Anastasia Belina-Johnson, explores the life and music of Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev.

Vasili Safonov was Director of the Moscow Conservatoire at the start of the twentieth century, and he was a man Taneyev just didn't get on with. Taneyev did not agree with Safonov's changes to the curriculum, or his treatment of the revolutionary students in 1905. After nearly thirty years service to the conservatoire, Taneyev resigned. This gave him more opportunity to write music, such as his popular Piano Quintet in G minor.

Chamber music was a preoccupation for Taneyev in his latter years, but he also turned to one last cantata called On the reading of the Psalm. This he eventually completed in the year of his death. One bitterly cold day, Taneyev attended the funeral of one of his students, Scriabin. Taneyev was lightly clad and not wearing a hat, and he subsequently became ill and suffered with a heart attack and died. He didn't get to hear a performance of his final cantata.

Music, when soft voices die, Op 17 No 3
Vassily Savenko, bass-baritone
Alexander Blok, piano

Evening, Op 27 No 2
Houston Chamber Choir
Robert Simpson, conductor

Prelude and Fugue in G sharp minor, Op 29
Olga Kern, piano

Piano Quintet in G minor Op 30 (2nd mvt)
Vadim Repin, violin
Ilya Gringolts, violin
Nobuko Imai, viola
Lynn Harrell, cello
Mikhail Pletnev, piano

On the Reading of the Psalm Op 36 (3rd mvt)
Lolita Semenina, soprano
Marianna Tarassova, alto
Mikhail Gubsky, tenor
Andrei Baturkin, bass
St Petersburg State Academic Capella Choir
Boys Choir of the Glinka Choral College
Russian national Orchestra
Mikhail Pletnev, conductor

Producer: Luke Whitlock.