Piano Quartet in E major Op.20 (1902–06)

Unlike Borodin, Taneyev was not drawn to Russian folk song as material for his music. Although he was a pupil and a close associate of Tchaikovsky, he was more interested in Bach fugues than Slavonic songs and dances, just as he was far more likely to find inspiration in Renaissance counterpoint than in the exotic tunes and harmonies that Borodin found so attractive. His olympian ideals and high artistic integrity – qualities entirely appropriate to a director of the Moscow Conservatoire – did not make him a dull composer, however. If his music lacks the melodic interest of that of some of his Russian contemporaries, it is fascinating for the brilliantly resourceful use he makes of his always serviceable and often engagingly expressive thematic material.

The Piano Quartet in E major, one of many distinguished chamber works Taneyev wrote in the last twenty or so years of his life – once he had resigned his directorship at the Conservatoire and completed his long-term Oresteya opera project – is a characteristic example of a fundamentally classical orientation in matters of structure allied with an adventurous harmonic imagination. At the same time it is outstanding in Taneyev’s chamber music for the intensity of its emotional inspiration.

The turbulent first movement is driven by the energy which, generated by the piano in the opening bars, explodes fortissimo in the passionate main theme projected by violin and viola    over E major harmonies on cello and piano. There are other first-subject ideas, including a little phrase marked dolce on violin and then viola which, though it is initially swept aside, is the first indication of the reduction in tension that eventually brings the impulse to rest on pianissimo arpeggios on the piano, an undulating figure low on cello and viola and a high harmonic sustained by the violin. This is where the second subject comes in with a tenderly lyrical melody on the strings at the beginning of an episode remarkable for its fanciful scoring. Another new theme introduced by viola leads, however, to a renewal of dynamic tension culminating in a fortissimo reminder of the passionate main theme, an emphatic chord of B major and a dramatic silence. Now there is an opportunity to recall the piano’s opening bars, which had been ignored up to this point, and to integrate them with other material in a development section masterly in its contrapuntal ingenuity and its thematic flexibility. The energy generated at the start of the movement still has the power to explode into the main theme as before and not only to sustain a thorough recapitulation but also to fuel a quicker and jubilant coda.

If the first movement calls Brahms to mind (even though Taneyev is said to have had no liking for his music) the second is reminiscent of Fauré – not so much in the construction, which is a slow movement with a scherzo middle section, as in the nature of the intimate melody introduced by violin over repeated C major piano chords in the Adagio opening bars. Developed with every appearance of contrapuntal and expressive spontaneity, it quietly comes to rest in the key in which it began. The abrupt change that follows – the tempo now Allegro agitato, the tonality C minor, the 4/4 metre replaced by a combination of 3/4 and 9/8 – is not the complete departure it at first seems: a variant of the Adagio melody is infiltrated into the scherzo texture by violin which is then joined by viola and cello with ever increasing fervour over continuing triplet activity on the piano. As the tempo changes back to Adagio the main theme is reintroduced by viola in its definitive form but in E flat rather than C major. The restoration of the melody to its original key is held in reserve for a massive Largamente climax involving all four instruments and creating a sense of fulfillment that remains unquestioned to the end of the movement.

Amply treated though the Adagio melody has been, Taneyev is not finished with it just yet. Until a point about two thirds of the way through, the Allegro molto last movement behaves like an eventful rondo based on a vigorous theme in E minor and incorporating two contrastingly lyrical episodes as well as the fugue that one has felt coming on for some time. But, after the intervention of an angry-sounding cello in its gruff low register, there is a magical change of key to E major and, in a sustained Moderato serafico closing section, the Adagio melody reappears on the strings, ultimately to effect an ethereally transfigured ending.