The composer’s heritage of Taneyev is large in volume and diversified in genres. He composed Oresteia, an operatic trilogy after Aeschylus; numerous cantatas for orchestra, choir, and soloists, among which are the famous St. John of Damascus and Reading the Psalms; four symphonies; instrumental concertos; 22 opuses for chamber ensemble; over 60 songs for voice and piano; choral compositions; pieces for piano; arrangements of traditional songs, and piano transcriptions of works of other authors.

Instrumental chamber music is arguably the most important and meaningful part of Taneyev’s heritage, a peak of Russian classical music. None of his contemporaries felt such acute interest for chamber instrumentalism, resulting in interpretations so diversified. In the nearly forty years of his composing career, Taneyev wrote 22 instrumental ensembles for different sets of instruments. In this genre, he was unrivalled in Russia.

His string–and–bow ensembles splendidly demonstrate Taneyev’s knowledge of expressive resources of string instruments. In these, his inventiveness reached real heights, enchanting beauty of sound, and subtlety of color effects, let alone the polyphonic skill. Taneyev managed the secret of the quartet style in a free and virtuoso manner, applying the art of combining four voices on the basis of their complete equality, interaction, and fusion. The art of quartet was the domain where the strongest aspects of Taneyev’s artistic individuality — noble spirituality, sincerity and purity of lyrical emotion, subtle and profound intellectual culture — showed itself with the utmost fullness and perfection.

The composer created most of his quartets in his mature years, and only three quartets were written in his younger days. The author, ever demanding to himself, did not publish those early etudes, considering them imperfect. They were printed in 1952 for the first time.

Recorded in 1977 & 1978

Taneyev Quartet:
- Vladimir Ovcharek (violin)
- Grigory Lutzky (violin)
- Vissarion Solovyev (viola)
- Josef Levinzon (cello)