Serge Ivanovitch Taneiev was a great teacher of composition in Russia, having taught the great Russian composers and influenced scores of other musicians. Names like Serge Rachmaninoff, Leonid Sabaneiev, Lazare Saminsky, Walter Piston, Philip Greely Clapp, Igor Stravinsky, Tchaikofsky, and Serge Koussevitzky, who wrote the Introduction to this large volume. Music scholars who are acquainted with the Convertible Counterpoint of Serge Ivanovitch Taneiev consider it the greatest work ever written in its field.