Joseph Banowetz - Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev: Piano Concerto in E flat major

Title: Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev: Piano Concerto in E flat major Artist: Joseph Banowetz Release Date: 2006 Label: Toccata Classics Duration: 77:01 Album Type(s): composer biography, performer(s) biography, musical score, composition (work) description, lyrics/libretto UPC: 5060113440426 Genre: Classical Total Copies: 0 Members Wishing: 1 Number of Discs/SwapaCD Credits: 1

1. Piano Concerto in E flat major
   - I. Allegro
2. Piano Concerto in E flat major
   - II. Andante funebre
3. Prelude for piano in F major
4. Lullaby (Kolïlbel'naya), for piano in B flat major
5. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
   - Theme
6. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
   - Var. I, [Un poco più mosso]
7. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
   - Var. II, Allegretto alla quartetto di P. Tschaikovsky
8. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
   - Var. III, [Allegro]
9. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
   - Var. IV, [Allegretto]
10. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
    - Var. V, Andante espressivo
11. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
    - Var. VI, Allegro
12. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
    - Var. VII, Andante
13. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
    - Var. VIII, Allegro vivace
14. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
    - Var. IX, Allegro
15. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
    - Var. X, [Con moto]
16. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
    - Var. XI, Andante
17. Theme & Variations, for piano in C minor
    - Var. XII, Andante [non troppo lento]
18. Allegro, for piano in E flat major
19. Andantino Semplice, for piano
20. Elegy for piano in E major
21. March, for piano in D minor
22. Improvisations (4), for piano (collaborative work by Taneyev, Arensky, Glazunov, Rachmaninov)
    - No. 1, [Moderato], E minor
23. Improvisations (4), for piano (collaborative work by Taneyev, Arensky, Glazunov, Rachmaninov)
    - No. 2, Allegretto, C major
24. Improvisations (4), for piano (collaborative work by Taneyev, Arensky, Glazunov, Rachmaninov)
    - No. 3, [Allegro scherzando], B flat minor
25. Improvisations (4), for piano (collaborative work by Taneyev, Arensky, Glazunov, Rachmaninov)
    - No. 4, Largo, F minor
26. The Composer's Birthday, for optional narrator & piano, 4 hands
27. The Composer's Birthday, for optional narrator & piano, 4 hands

To most people unfamiliar with the history of Russian music, Sergey Taneyev is not a well-known composer. To those who are familiar with it, he was Tchaikovsky's most important student, a composer who worked, for the most part, outside the circle of Rimsky-Korsakov, although he worked alongside it. Taneyev's music, therefore, does not share the same harmonic or programmatic characteristics of his contemporaries' music. His is more studied, more traditionally European in concept. The solo piano works on this recording by Joseph Banowetz reflect that attention to structure and construction. In many ways, Banowetz's reputation as an educator and scholar, as well as a performer respected around the world for his intrepretations of Romantic literature, makes him the perfect interpreter of Taneyev's piano music. He finds the lyricism, heroicism, melancholy, and yearning typical of Romantic piano music in Taneyev's, but this music is in every sense of its composition -- even emotionally -- orderly. Complexity is found in thematic and harmonic development, the technical more than the expressive. While Taneyev's melodies are not nearly as memorable as Tchaikovsky's, they can still be moving and quite affective, as in the prelude and the "Lullaby." The more substantial "Theme and Variations" and the Allegro show Taneyev's talent for larger forms; however, the two movements of an unfinished Piano Concerto that open the album show that skill as still being nurtured. It's a work from Taneyev's student days, overflowing with good ideas, many reminiscent of Tchaikovsky, but definitely in need of tightening and refining and saving some of those ideas for other movements or works. Two curiosities of Taneyev's piano music -- the area of his output that is perhaps the least recognized -- are thrown in to show the composer had a sense of humor as well. First are four brief "improvisations," written at a dinner party by Taneyev, Arensky, Glazunov, and Rachmaninov. Each composer completed in a first line, then they would rotate the manuscripts around the table until all four had composed a portion of each page. The final offering is a small pastiche of Tchaikovsky melodies put into a piano duet, with a fantastical narrative, written as a birthday present for the elder composer. Since the manuscript isn't clear whether it is meant to be narrated aloud, or even truly performed at all, Banowetz and Adam Wodnicki perform it with narration by Vladimir Ashkenazy and without. ~ Patsy Morita, All Music Guide

Name Credits Anastasia Belina Liner Notes Anthony Casuccio Mastering Engineer Joseph Banowetz Piano Jürgen Schaarwächter Liner Note Translation Luba Doronina Engineer Marina A. Ledin Production Director, Coordination Martin Andersson Executive Producer Michel Fleury Liner Note Translation Pavel Lavrenekov Editing, Producer Russian Philharmonic of Moscow Orchestra Thomas Sanderling Conductor Victor Ledin Production Director, Coordination