Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev has been played on NTS shows including Baba Stiltz, with Piano Sonata, Op. 1 first played on 24 November 2023.

Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (Pronounced: Ta-'ñe-jəv) (also Taneev or Taneiev, Russian: Сергей Иванович Танеев, Sergej Ivanovič Taneev) (Vladimir, November 25, 1856 – Dyudkovo, near Moscow,June 19, 1915), a pupil of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author. (Taneyev's first name appears both as Sergei and Sergey.)

Taneyev was born to a cultured and literary family of Russian nobility. A distant cousin, Alexander Taneyev, was also a composer, whose daughter, Anna Vyrubova, was highly influential at court.

He began playing the piano at the age of five, taking lessons with a private teacher. His family moved to Moscow in 1865, and in 1866, the nine-year-old Taneyev entered the Moscow Conservatory. His first piano teacher at the Conservatory was Edward Langer. In 1871, Taneyev studied piano with the Conservatory's founder, Nikolai Rubinstein, and music theory with Tchaikovsky

Taneyev graduated in 1875, the first student in the history of the Conservatory to win the gold medal both for composition and for performing (piano). That same year he made his debut as a concert pianist in Moscow playing the first piano concerto in D minor of Johannes Brahms[2], and would become known for his interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven[3].

Taneyev was also the soloist in the Moscow première of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto in 1875. Tchaikovsky was clearly impressed by Taneyev's performance; he later asked Taneyev to be soloist in the Russian premiere of his Second Piano Concerto. (After Tchaikovsky's death, Taneyev also completed and premiered his Third Piano Concerto and Andante and Finale[4].)

Taneyev attended Moscow University for a short time and was acquainted with outstanding Russian writers, including Ivan Turgenev and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. During his travels in Western Europe in 1876 and 1877, he met Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns amongst others[5].

When Tchaikovsky resigned from the Moscow Conservatory in 1878, Taneyev was appointed to teach harmony. He would later also teach piano and composition. He served as Director from 1885 to 1889, and continued teaching until 1905[6]. He had great influence as a teacher of composition. His pupils included Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Reinhold Glière, Paul Juon, Julius Conus, and Nikolai Medtner. The polyphonic interweaves in the music of Rachmaninoff and Medtner stem directly from Taneyev's teaching. Scriabin, on the other hand, broke away from Taneyev's influence[7].

Taneyev was also a scholar of massive erudition. In addition to music, he studied—for relaxation—natural and social science, history, mathematics, plus the philosophies of Plato and Spinoza[8].

During the summers of 1895 and 1896, Taneyev stayed at Yasnaya Polyana, the home of Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sofia. She developed an attachment to the composer which embarrassed her children and made Tolstoy jealous. However this also released her from the distress of the isolation she experienced when Tolstoy grew distant from family concerns and devoted himself to the Christian anarchist-pacifism which shaped his last years. Sofia's infatuation with Taneyev and his music echoes the story of Tolstoy's great and penetrating dissection of marital relations in The Kreutzer Sonata.

Taneyev's later years were troubled by alcohol problems. He died from pneumonia contracted after attending the funeral of his pupil Scriabin.

A museum dedicated to Taneyev is located in Dyudkovo, where he died. There is also a section dedicated to Taneyev at the Tchaikovsky Museum in Klin[1].

Taneyev and Tchaikovsky Taneyev became the most trusted musician among Tchaikovsky's friends[9]. The two developed a friendship that would last until Tchaikovsky's death[10] Tchaikovsky was not the only one with whom Taneyev was frank, though some were less appreciative about it. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov recalls a clash Taneyev had with Mili Balakirev during a relearsal of a concert to commemorate the unveiling of a monument to pioneering Russian composer Mikhail Glinka. Rimsky-Korsakov writes, The following decade showed a marked change in opinion, Rimsky-Korsakov writes. Taneyev now appreciated Glauzunov, respected Borodin's work and regarded only Mussorgsky's compositions with disdain. Rimsky-Korsakov ascribed this change to a new period in Taneyev's activity as a composer. Previously he had been absorbed mainly in research for his treatise on counterpoint, which left little time for composition. Now he was throwing himself more freely into creative work. In doing so, Taneyev was guiding himself by the ideals of contemporary music while still preserving "his astounding contrapuntal technique[20] [edit] Master contrapuntalist Taneyev's specicialized field of study was theoretical counterpoint. He engrossed himself in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Giovanni Palestrina and Flemish masters such as Johannes Ockeghem, Josquin des Prez and Lassus. Eventually, he became one of the greatest of theoretical contrapuntists[22].

Taneyev published a gigantic two-volume treatise, Imitative Counterpoint in Strict Style, the result of 20 years of labor. In it, the laws of counterpoint are broken down, explained and brought into focus as a branch of pure mathematics. Taneyev used a quotation from Leonardo da Vinci as its inscription: "No branch of study can claim to be considered a true science unless it is capable of being demonstrated mathematically[23]."

An unfinished sequel on Canon and Fugue was published posthumously[24].

Taneyev's focus on strict mathematical counterpoint strongly influenced the way he composed his music. He described this process, while discussing his dramatic trilogy Orestia, in a letter to Tchaikovsky dated June 21, 1891:

I spend a great deal of time on prepatopry work, and less time on final composition. Some items I have not finished within the last few years. Important themes which are repeated in the opera, are used by me objectively, without any reference to a particular situation, for studies in counterpoint. Gradually, from this chaos of thoughts and sketches something orderly and definite begins to emerge. Everything extraneous is discarded. That which is unquestionably suitable remains[25].

Taneyev would continue this series of contrapuntal exercises until he had exhausted every polyphonic possibility. Only then would be actually begin composing music[26]

Taneyev's rationale for this process stemmed from his belief that truth and moral integrity in music were synonymous with its objectivity and purpose. He viewed classical concepts of composition as perfect examples of a compositional technique devoid of anything casual or extraneous[28