London, Barbican: Taneyev Mini-Fest

Extract

The Russian National Orchestra and Moscow State Chamber Choir conducted by Mikhail Pletnev presented two unusually distinctive concerts at London's Barbican Hall at the end of March,³ starting with John of Damascus of 1884 – Taneyev called it Cantata No 1 – and ending the following evening with his tumultuous Cantata No 2, On the Reading of a Psalm (Po prochtenii psalma), from 30 years later. Although not claimed as such, the latter was surely a British première: not even that champion of the choral festival, Sir Henry Wood, seems to have done it.