Taneyev Festival, Wigmore Hall, London

For a composer whose approach to his craft was academic, Taneyev's String Trio, played last Saturday, seemed bewildering. There was plenty of imitative counterpoint to hang on to, yet harmonic movement between the main points of departure and arrival drifted aimlessly, while melodic invention was tamely within a classical mould, but otherwise flavourless.

Not even the energetic playing of Arisa Fujita, Rachel Roberts and Steven Isserlis could keep boredom at bay. And the rest of the first half offered no excitement to compensate. Medtner's Canzona and Dance No 2, played by violinist James Clark and pianist Nelson Goerner, was just about recognisable as its composer's, while a short Romance for cello and piano by Scriabin was barely more characteristic of his youthful style.

None of this music took risks, or not the sort that matter. That was left to Rachmaninov, in his Second Elegiac Trio, written in memory of Tchaikovsky, in which Isserlis and Goerner were joined by the violinist Vadim Repin. It's a richly gloomy work with an extravagant piano part that says to hell with the proprieties of chamber music.Goerner, again, was superb. The set of variations forming the middle movement is too long, but full of strikingly inventive ways of contrasting the instruments, and at times thrillingly atmospheric. The final movement, the closest to Tchaikovsky's style, is surprisingly brief. The Trio is not altogether forgotten, but it's still enough of a rarity to have made this fine performance welcome.

Glazunov's lyrical gift is widely known because of his Violin Concerto. The opening movement of his String Quintet, played in Wednesday's concert, was like a fountain, or several fountains, of charming melodies, woven effortlessly together, and if not quite so alluring, the following movements were equally graceful.

But more memorable was Arensky's Second String Quartet, another work written to commemorate Tchaikovsky, and accordingly scored for violin, viola and two cellos, producing some extraordinarily dark effects. The surprisingly concise final movement used the same Russian theme as Beethoven in his second "Razumovsky" Quartet, which Mussorgsky also used in the Coronation scene of Boris Godunov.

But the pièce de résistance of the evening was Taneyev's immense Second Piano Quintet of 1910, for which Mikhail Pletnev flew in from Moscow specially. It was superbly played, and with tactful subtlety on Pletnev's part. But subtle is not the right word for the music, whose grandiose pretension seems absurd in the light of Taneyev's lack of personal character. It's time to lay him to rest.