Russian State Symphony Orchestra

“Given that we are unlikely to see much competition in this repertoire, it is good to find that the performances are accomplished ones. The State Symphony Orchestra of Russia... plays idiomatically and, when offered the opportunity in Ivan IV, with appropriately “Russian” verve...[Golovchin] knows exactly how this music needs to be presented to best effect.” MusicWeb International, 23rd May 2013

“Polyansky and the Russian State Symphony have done Taneyev a superb service with these thoroughly prepared, expertly recorded performances.” Gramophone Magazine, June 2007

“…these symphonies… have the momentum and flow of the true symphonist, particularly in these persuasive performances. Recommended with enthusiasm.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2007 ****

“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.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

"So is this another winner from Naxos? I think so...This is Svetlana's old band, so you can expect colourful winds and penetrating brass...Try the Weill-like 'Foxtrot' from the Jazz Suite No 1 (track 19) and I dare say you'll be hooked: those trombone glissandos are nicely done, the Hawaiian guitar slyly insinuating." - David Gutman, Gramophone July 2002

“Anyone with a liking for the music of the great age of pianism will enjoy these works, especially as Alexander Paley, in a good if 20-year-old recording, has the virtuosity and also the essential relish of them.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2013

“Paley’s control of the intense lyricism and dramatic virtuosity embedded in the [second] concerto’s romanticism is admirable...There is certainly plenty of expressive and reflective playing from Paley [in No. 4] but he sometimes takes this to excess” MusicWeb International, May 2013