String Trio in D major (1879–80)

If Taneyev’s reputation as a master of counterpoint – “the best in Russia,” according to Tchaikovsky – seems daunting, it is as well to remember what he said about Mozart: “His contrapuntal learning merely helps him to be clear. Learning is good only when it leads to naturalness and simplicity.” That is a sentiment he took to heart in his own works. The String Trio in D, one of his earliest chamber pieces, is a particularly attractive example. Wearing his learning lightly, Taneyev clearly takes Haydn as a model, not least in the first movement, where he presents nicely contrasted first and second subjects together with a closing theme and codetta to the exposition, which he then repeats according to classical precedent. The development is accomplished without pretension, even in the fugato passages, and the recapitulation would be perfectly regular but for a little further development of the first subject in the closing bars.

The Scherzo is Taneyev’s answer to the challenge set by Haydn’s minuets al rovescio – which is to say that when the lightly articulated opening section is recalled after the rustic-sounding trio section it is played literally backwards. After a repeat of the trio, it is finally restored to its original shape. Proud of this achievement though he was, he presents it without fuss and without pretension. Even so, as though to compensate for any suspicion of academic excess, he goes on to offer a texturally and structurally simple slow movement with, uncharacteristically for Taneyev, a main theme with a hint of folk song in it. There are more hints of folk song in the modestly idiomatic Russian-dance main theme and at least one of the melodious episodes of the concluding rondo.