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Taneyev is something of a cult figure in Russian musical history. He is in many ways the musical link between Tchaikovsky, his teacher, and Rachmaninov, his student (his classroom also saw such distinguished figures as Scriabin and Medtner, and he did much for the education of the young...

It was Mikhail Pletnev who infected me with his love of Taneyev's music when he put together an ensemble to do the Quintet at the Verbier Festival. It's an enormously powerful work, of incredible melodic complexity and which throws up great harmonic complications for its players. It's a bit like...