Search - Sergey Taneyev, Olga Solovieva :: Taneyev: Violin Sonata; Piano Music

Five Stars for Violin Sonata; Three Stars for Most of the Re

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 11/03/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Taneyev remains for me a very uneven composer. On this disc the marvelous Violin Sonata -- a tuneful and gentle late work, marked 'Of Medium Difficulty' (a bit of a jest), from 1911 -- outshines the rest. Close to it in quality is the fiercely knucklebusting Fugue from the Prelude and Fugue, op. 29, from 1910. Obviously these are fruits of Taneyev's later years, and to be fair most of the rest of the contents of this disc come from his earliest years, some while he was still studying with Tchaikovsky at the conservatory. That being said, the performances are themselves reflective of the worthiness of the music; pianist Olga Solovieva rather trudges through the Theme and Variations (1874) and doesn't make much of the five Scherzos (1874) or the negligible Prelude (1894). She does rather better with the lightweight, even frothy, Quadrille (1876?). The Chopinesque 'Repose' (1880) comes off nicely, as does the Andantino semplice (1876?). Violinist Ivan Peshkov is sterling in the four-movement 21-minute-long Sonata and in Leonid Feigin's violin/piano transcription of Taneyev's song, 'Stalactites' Op. 26, No. 6. As was true with an earlier Naxos Taneyev disc Taneyev: Orchestral Works - Oresteia Overture, one marvelous major piece makes the disc worth having. I doubt I shall ever play the early piano pieces again (except for that wonderfully virtuosic Fugue), but I've fallen in love with the sonata.



It should be noted that four of the five Scherzos and the Quadrille are receiving their first recordings.



Scott Morrison"