the more, Tchaikovsky was painfully grateful for his fellow-musician's candor. Soon after Tchaikovsky completed his ballet The Nutcracker, Taneyev made a piano transcription of the entire work. On finishing his transcription, he gave it to Tchaikovsky, who then made his own alterations to it. (This transcription was published in 1892.) Taneyev and The Five Tchaikovsky was not the only one with whom Taneyev was frank, though some were less appreciative of it. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, recalling a clash Taneyev had with Mily Balakirev during a rehearsal of a concert to commemorate the unveiling of a monument to the pioneering Russian composer Mikhail Glinka, wrote: "At the rehearsal of the concert he publicly declared to Balakirev: 'Mily Alekseyevich! We are dissatisfied with you.' I picture to myself Balakirev constrained to swallow a rebuke of this sort. Honest, upright and straightforward, Taneyev always spoke sharply and frankly. On the other hand, Balakirev, of course, could never forgive Taneyev his harshness and frankness with regard to his own person." Nor was this the only time Taneyev shared strong opinions about the St Petersburg based nationalist music group known as "The Mighty Handful" or "The Five." Rimsky-Korsakov recalls what he considered Taneyev's glaring conservatism in the 1880s. Taneyev reportedly showed "deep distrust" in Alexander Glazunov's early appearances. Alexander Borodin was merely a clever dilettante, and Modest Mussorgsky "had made him laugh". He may not have had a high opinion of César Cui or even of Rimsky-Korsakov himself. However, Rimsky-Korsakov's study of counterpoint, which Taneyev learned of from Tchaikovsky, may have prompted Taneyev to revise his opinion of that composer. The following decade showed a marked change in opinion, Rimsky-Korsakov writes. Taneyev now appreciated Glazunov, respected Borodin's work, and regarded only Mussorgsky's compositions with disdain. Rimsky-Korsakov ascribed this change to a new period in Taneyev's activity as a composer. Previously he had been absorbed mainly in research for his treatise on counterpoint, which left him little time for composition. Now he was throwing himself more freely into creative work. In doing so, Taneyev was allowing himself to be guided by the ideals of contemporary music while still preserving "his astounding contrapuntal technique". Rimsky-Korsakov also writes that, after the fiasco regarding the Mariinsky Theatre's production of Taneyev's Oresteia, Mitrofan Belyayev, the publisher and impresario who now headed the "Mighty Handful", shared Taneyev's outrage over the incident and volunteered to publish the score himself. Prior to its publication,