Sergey Taneyev was a monumental figure of late 19th-century Russian music. He was a student of Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky, and became teacher to Rachmaninov and Scriabin. Thomas Sanderling's acclaimed recordings of Taneyev's symphonies trace a development from the early influence of Brahms to a large-scale masterpiece in the final Fourth Symphony. This collection includes the mammoth overture Oresteia which has all the force of a Romantic symphonic poem, and the sublime cantata John of Damascus in which ancient sacred chant is woven into rich passages of expressive counterpoint.