DESCRIPTION:
Sergei Taneyev (1856 - 1915), Prelude and Fugue in G-Sharp Minor, Op. 29 (1910)

Performed by Lilya Zilberstein

00:00 - Prelude, Andante
03:45 - Fugue, Allegro vivace e con fuoco

The Prelude and Fugue in G sharp minor is the only work for solo piano to which Taneyev gave an opus number. It is a culmination of his life-long research into early music and counterpoint, and its chromaticism and polyphonic textures are elements of his mature style. The work was written in memory of the composer’s nurse, Pelageya Vasil’yevna Chizhova, who had looked after Taneyev since his birth, and did not leave his side until her own death. When she died, Taneyev mourned her ‘with real tears’, as Tolstoy’s wife Sophya wrote in her diary. These tears and emotions are embodied in the melancholy and pensive Prelude that resembles Chopin’s nocturnes, and thereby pays homage to a composer Taneyev greatly admired. The fiery, agitated Fugue is a complex polyphonic work that clearly demonstrates why Tchaikovsky, the critic Laroche, and many others after them, thought Taneyev to be the greatest contrapuntal master in Russia. The masterful, well-crafted Prelude and Fugue is considered to be the best example of Taneyev’s writing for solo piano. It is also significant because it is the only representative of the genre until Zaderatsky and Shostakovich wrote their collections of preludes and fugues later in the century.