London, Barbican: Taneyev Mini-Fest

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.