Taneyev studied composition with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich) and piano with Nikolay Rubinstein. In 1878 he interrupted his career as a pianist to succeed Tchaikovsky as professor of harmony (and later piano and composition) at the Moscow Conservatory, where he was director from 1885 to 1889. In 1905 he resigned in protest at measures against the threatened revolution and resumed his career as pianist and composer. In 1909, after 20 years of work, he completed his two-volume study of counterpoint in the strict style. His works include the opera Oresteia (1895), four numbered symphonies, six numbered string quartets and other chamber works, and a setting for chorus and orchestra of Aleksey Khomyakov's “At the Reading of a Psalm” (1915).

Taneyev was a close friend of Tchaikovsky, some of whose works he completed. He regarded counterpoint as a branch of mathematics and admired the Renaissance composers Jean d'Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez, Orlando di Lasso, and Palestrina. Taneyev was a great teacher, a popular eccentric, an intimate of the Tolstoy family, and an early member of the Bolshevik party.