…these symphonies… have the momentum and flow of the true symphonist, particularly in these persuasive performances. Recommended with enthusiasm.

Taneyev's first composed symphony, in E minor, was the work of a 17-year-old student, dutifully ticking the prescribed boxes for his graduation from Moscow Conservatoire. As so often in the academic Russian tradition, the Scherzo is the most striking movement; the finale, by contrast, puts its folksong material through so many harmonic and contrapuntal routines that one almost imagines it crying for mercy.
The Third Symphony, in D minor and dedicated to Arensky, drew Tchaikovsky's praise for its musical content but also his reservations about the 'abstract' (ie non-orchestral) nature of the material. That seems a just assessment. The first movement, like Beethoven's Eroica, Schumann's Rhenish and Nielsen's Espansiva, moves in a liberally cross-accented triple metre (a useful aide-mémoire that these should all be third symphonies). It is in many ways no less ingenious than those works but never achieves lift-off in the way they do; the same goes for the Scherzo, whose strategy for integrating the Trio is resourceful but hardly revelatory. The modest Intermezzo is easy to like as a pleasantly relaxing episode, but would be more effective placed in more dramatic surroundings.
Polyansky and the Russian State Symphony have done Taneyev a superb service with these thoroughly prepared, expertly recorded performances.
The music itself may be too firmly tied to academic apron-strings to be viable in the concert hall, and the composer's verdict in not releasing them was surely the right one. But these are still need-to-know pieces for anyone interested in the Russian symphonic repertoire.

Polyansky and the Russian State Symphony have done Taneyev a superb service with these thoroughly prepared, expertly recorded performances.