Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915)
TANEYEV, Sergei (1856-1915) entered the Moscow Conservatory as a 10-year-old prodigy and quickly became a favored protégé of Nicholas Rubinstein and Peter Tchaikovsky. In 1878, at the age of 22, he joined the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory and served as professor of composition, counterpoint, piano, and musical form. Taneyev had a large and colorful musical personality yet remained a deeply intellectual “musician’s musician”. His list of students reads like a “Who’s Who” in early 20th century Russian music: Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Gretchaninoff, Chesnokov, Kastalsky, and Gliere among others. Taneyev’s choral output had a tremendous influence on the Russian choral school that was developing at the time. Most significant of his choral works is his massive “Twelve Choruses” op. 27 which has been compared to Rachmaninoff’s monumental “All-Night Vigil”, but in the secular realm.
