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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915)

Composer of the Week: Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915): Episode 3: Taneyev and Wagner

Episode 3

Episode 3: Taneyev and Wagner

Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915)

Taneyev and Wagner

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915), Taneyev and Wagner

Donald Macleod on Taneyev's completion of his opera on Greek mythology, The Oresteia.

Donald Macleod focuses on Taneyev's completion of his opera on Greek mythology, The Oresteia, after many years of work.

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.

Taneyev had inherited a keen interest in Greek mythology from his father. It is no surprise that his only opera set Aeschylus's tragic trilogy, The Oresteia. Tchaikovsky could not understand why Taneyev would write an opera on such a theme, something he thought was far removed from the everyday Russian person. The opera failed to enter into the permanent repertoire.

Taneyev was now exceptionally busy as a teacher at the Moscow Conservatoire. At the age of twenty-nine, he was invited to become the institution's Director and went on to not only raise academic standards, but save it from financial ruin. Composing had to be fitted into the summer months and his opera took many years to complete. It was Tchaikovsky who secured a performance date for Taneyev's stagework, forcing the composer to complete it. During this period Taneyev did find time to compose some smaller works, such as his present for Tchaikovsky's birthday, a little piece for piano four hands, quoting a number of Tchaikovsky's own works.

Canzona
Stanislav Jankovsky, clarinet
Novosibirsk Academic Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Sanderling, conductor

String Quartet in A major (3rd mvt)
The Leningrad Taneiev Quartet

Overture, The Oresteia, Op 6
The Philharmonia
Neeme Jarvi, conductor

The Composer's Birthday, for piano four hands
Joseph Banowetz, piano
Adam Wodnicki, piano

The Oresteia (Act III Scene III)
Ludmilla Ganestova, soprano (Pallas Athene)
Ivan Dubrovin, tenor (Orestes)
Chorus of the Belorussian State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Orchestra of the Belorussian State Opera and Ballet Theatre
Tatiana Kolomizheva, conductor

Producer: Luke Whitlock.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod and Anastasia Belina-Johnson explore the life and music of Sergei Taneyev

Donald Macleod is joined by Dr Anastasia Belina-Johnson to explore the life and music of Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev, a one-time child prodigy, who became an excellent pianist and a great composer

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Composer of the Week

Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915)

Episode 3: Taneyev and Wagner

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