Taneyev, Skryabin, and the Orchestra (en) (original) (raw)

Abstract

It is one of music history’s morbid coincidences that Sergey Taneyev, the temporary teacher of Aleksandr Skryabin, died just two months after his former pupil. This happened in the year of 1915. At the 100th anniversary of the two composer’s deaths, this paper aims to reconsider their artistic relationship. After a brief discussion of Taneyev’s and Skryabin’s orchestral oeuvres, their preconditions and compositional principles, I will focus on a pair of works that were written within a distance of only a few years—Taneyev’s C minor Symphony, Op. 12, of 1896–98, and Skryabin’s 2nd Symphony in the same key, Op. 29, of 1901. A comparative analysis of these works reveals a fascinating analogy: Both symphonies employ multiple transformation of themes and motivic cross-reference between their movements. This aspect links the works to a 19th-century paradigm of multi-movement orchestral composition, the so-called ›cyclic principle‹—a concept established primarily by Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt and César Franck. I will also examine the teacher-pupil-relation between Taneyev and Skryabin as well as possible mutual influences between the two composers. Finally, I try to determine what aspects of musical craftsmanship Skryabin is supposed to have acquired in Taneyev’s classes at the Moscow Conservatory.