Sergei Taneyev

Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev (Russian: Серге́й Ива́нович Тане́ев, pronounced [sʲɪrˈɡʲej ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ tɐˈnʲejɪf]; 25 November [O.S. 13 November] 1856 – 19 June [O.S. 6 June] 1915) was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author.

Taneyev was born in Vladimir, Vladimir Governorate, Russian Empire, 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. Alexander was drawn closely to the nationalist school of music exemplified by The Five, while Sergei would gravitate toward a more cosmopolitan outlook, as did Tchaikovsky.

He began taking piano lessons at the age of five with a private teacher. His family moved to Moscow in 1865. The following year, the nine-year-old Taneyev entered the Moscow Conservatory. His first piano teacher at the Conservatory was Edward Langer. After a year's interruption in his studies, Taneyev studied again with Langer. He also joined the theory class of Nikolai Hubert and, most importantly, the composition class of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. In 1871, Taneyev studied piano with the Conservatory's founder, Nikolai Rubinstein.

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). He was also the first person to be awarded the Conservatory's Great Gold Medal. That summer he travelled abroad with Rubinstein. That year he also made his debut as a concert pianist in Moscow playing Brahms's First Piano Concerto, and would become known for his interpretations of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. In March 1876 he toured Russia with violinist Leopold Auer.

Taneyev was also the soloist at the Moscow première of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto in December 1875. He was chosen after Gustav Kross had given a dreadful performance at the concerto's Russian première in St Petersburg three weeks earlier. The conductor on the later occasion was Nikolai Rubinstein, who had famously lambasted the work less than a year earlier (5 January), but who had by that time come to appreciate its merits. Tchaikovsky was clearly impressed by Taneyev's performance; he later asked Taneyev to be soloist in the Russian première of his Second Piano Concerto and of his Piano Trio in A minor. After Tchaikovsky's death, Taneyev edited sketches by Tchaikovsky that he completed with an Andante and Finale and were premièred as a Tchaikovsky Third Piano Concerto.

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 Émile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, César Franck, and Camille Saint-Saëns, amongst others.

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. He had great influence as a teacher of composition. His pupils included Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Jacob Weinberg, Reinhold Glière, Paul Juon, Julius Conus, Nikolai Medtner, and Thomas de Hartmann. 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.

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