11-V ()mune,.

, Taneyev

String Quartets — No 1, Op 4; No 3, Op 7

Carpe Diem Quartet (Charles lAietherbee, Robert Firdman ow Korine Fujiwara va Wendy Morton vc) Naxos ® 8 570437 (62' • DDD)

An economical way to discover the music of a hugely respected figure

It has never been easy to find recordings of more than a few of Taneyev's nine string quartets at any one time. There is a complete cycle (which

I have not heard) by the

Taneyev Quartet on the Russian Northern Flowers label, but the admirable first volume from the young Krasni Quartet had no successor when Olympia folded (A/01). Direct comparison in the five-movement B flat minor Quartet (officially No 1, though actually the fourth Taneyev composed) shows the American Carpe Diem Quartet to be every bit as closely in touch with the idiom — if anything, they bring rather more emotional weight, never inappropriately applied — and just as well recorded.

There is a grave dignity to most of Taneyev's work that can seem a little samey but which you simply have to accept if his music is going to nourish you. Once over that hurdle, if it is one, you find a range of expression and an undemonstrative mastery of harmony and structural flow that make his chamber music far more rewarding — for me at least — than, say, Glazunov's. The long variations second movement of the D minor Quartet is especially charming, as well as predictably resourceful, and its grave conclusion, perhaps a little disconcerting at first encounter, comes to seem natural on rehearing. Admittedly a giant like Tchaikovsky allows himself more risks and sets the emotional stakes higher; and if pushed

I would have to say that the very best of Taneyev is to be found in his piano chamber works rather than in the quartets. But if you want to know why he was (and in many quarters still is) such a hugely respected figure in Russia, you could do a lot worse than make the modest investment in this more than promising Naxos series.

David Fanning