Sergey Taneyev (1856-1918) was an important Russian composer whose music is not nearly as well known as it should be. He has been called the 'Russian Brahms' largely because he was a classicist in the midst of the high romantic era, with a complete mastery of counterpoint and classical forms, an interest in baroque and classical era music and a tendency to write abstract rather than programmatic music. His quartets, of which there are ten (but only six of which are numbered, the others being early works) have been recorded before. My only exposure to those recordings are those of the eponymous Taneyev Quartet. Here we have the beginning of a new series of Taneyev quartet recordings and on the basis of this one release, containing the Quartets No. 1 and 3, I think I will prefer these new ones, largely because of the limpid style of the Carpe Diem Quartet and its tendency to play them without the darker sound and occasional turgidity one hears in the Taneyev's performances. The Carpe Diem are given pellucid recorded sound.