Taneyev: Suite de concert & Ioann Damaskin

Inspired by a poem by Aleksey Tolstoy, Taneyev’s cantata John of Damascus was the first work that the self-critical Russian composer deemed worthy of an opus number, its sublime music drawing on an ancient sacred chant woven into rich passages of expressive counterpoint. A quarter of a century later, the virtuosic and scintillating Suite de concert, Taneyev’s first work for solo violin and orchestra, was also successfully premièred. 

Suite de concert, written in 1909, is a novel, if rather disorganized, approach to a Romantic violin concerto. It’s an unusual conflation of serenade, neo-Baroque suite, and theme and variations that—in the hearing of it—seems to divide into movements or sections: an introductory Prelude, followed by a scherzo-like Gavotte, and then a slowish “Fairy Tale” movement marked Andantino. These three movements, in turn, set the stage, none too convincingly, for a theme and six variations with an extended variation-coda. But that’s not the end of this identity-confused work. The grand finale is a spirited Tarantella. In terms of style, I suppose some of the writing is suggestive of Glazunov’s A-Minor Violin Concerto that preceded the Suite de concert by five years; but there’s a passage beginning at 2:49 in the “Fairy Tale” movement that bears an uncanny resemblance to Chausson’s Poéme for violin and orchestra , written in 1896. It has long been the composer’s most widely known and recorded piece…Russian violinist Ilya Kaler has been one of Naxos’s long time and most dependable house artists, having recorded a respectable cross section of the Romantic violin repertoire. While Taneyev’s piece is no salon morceau, neither is it a virtuosic vehicle like the almost exactly contemporary Glazunov and Sibelius concertos. Kaler’s rounder tone and less excitable approach work well in the Taneyev, and I prefer his performance to that of Gringolts [on Hyperion].

When it comes to the cantata, Ioann Damaskin, Naxos[‘s recording, with…] its Russian chorus, orchestra, and conductor… sounds convincingly authentic…At Naxos’s budget price, though, I’d say the new CD is well worth the modest investment. --Fanfare, March 2010