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Biography Alexandre Tansman
Alexandre Tansman, of Jewish descent and with a bourgeois
family background, was brought up in Lodz, Poland. His parents, yet, favoured cosmopolitan education for their son who, accordingly, learned seven foreign languages. Additionally, frequent and regular travelling as
well as visiting museums or enjoying concerts were in the family’s habits. His mother taught him the first piano lessons, and, at the age of eleven, he became a pupil at Lodz Conservatory. In Lodz as well as in
Warsaw, he was trained to be a pianist, composer and conductor. Always dreaming of a life as a musician and composer in Paris, Tansman made use of a trick:
he sent in several compositions for the national Polish
composer competition, using two different pen names. Thus he won both, the first and the second prize which enabled him to move to Paris, as he did the same month, fleeing the particular, rather conservative taste
of music in Lodz and Warsaw that he considered a handicap to his musical development and career. As a matter of fact, both, the public having never really appreciated his music, believing that it was modernist art,
and the growing anti-Semitism were rather important for his decision to leave Poland.
Paris
Having arrived in Paris with the help of the prize money, Tansman first fended for himself as a
factory worker. Later his vast knowledge and skills of several languages helped him to find a job as a bank clerk. Roland-Manuel, an important and reputable musicologist and one of Tansman’s friends, arranged a
meeting with Maurice Ravel. This meeting, however, provided for a decisive step in Tansman’s career: Ravel, holding Tansman’s compositions in high esteem, mediated between Tansman on the one hand and publishers,
other musicians and concert agents on the other. Thus, Tansman could give his first piano recital in Paris in 1920. From then on, Tansman’s compositions were regularly performed in Europe as well as in America.
The success and reputation of Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937), at that time, had already reached its zenith. He continued his work, orchestrating more of his pieces. Ravels’ Pavane pour une infante defunte for piano
had already been a great success in 1899. The Pavane, originally a ceremonious, striding dance, performed at a court, was turned into a grievous piece of music mourning the passing of a Spanish princess.
Ravel’s
Piece en forme de Habanera is a rearrangement of his Vocalise-Etude for vocal and piano (1907). Although a dance originally coming from Cuba, the Habanera is regarded as typically Spanish, at least since Bizet’s
opera ‘Carmen’. The present arrangement especially emphasizes the Spanish colour as it makes use of the guitar.
Back to Tansman’s career: following an invitation by Henri Prunieres, publisher of the music
journal Revue Musicale, he met Andrès Segovia, one of the greatest Spanish guitarists. This particular meeting with Segovia, who at that time was residing in Paris, had a significant influence on Tansman’s
compositions. Segovia, as he was intonating a piece of music, namely a Chaconne by J.S. Bach, for the rather exclusive and illustrious society, demonstrated a variety of special sounds which he elicited from his
guitar due to his excellent and extraordinary technique. Enthusiastic about the guitar being used in recitals, Tansman was inspired to compose his own pieces for guitar. Thus, with the help of Segovia, Tansman
produced a whole series of really great compositions for guitar, maybe the most outstanding of their kind in the twentieth century. (see ”Hommage à Tansman”, Pieces for Guitar, interpreted by Jürgen Schwalk, CDP
& p, 13061998).
(World) Trips
Being both, interpreter and conductor, Alexandre Tansman was regularly invited to participate in concerts in America. His frequent journeys abroad inspired or
even fired his artistic, melodic imagination. Within his Sonatine Transatlantique, originally orchestral music and having scored a brilliant success at its premier in Paris in 1929, Tansman translated into music the
impressions that he had gained whilst travelling: Foxtrot, Spiritual, Blues and Charlston are the titles of the different movements.
In 1932 Tansman went on a world tour, starting from Warsaw. He gave
concerts in Hawaii, Japan, China, the Phillippines, Singapore, Java and Bali, India, Egypt, Greece, and in Israel.
Acquainted with different, non-European musical styles, he was inspired to compose 15 pieces,
meant as a kind of musical guide book: Le Tour du Monde en Miniature.
After having returned to Paris, Tansman continued to work intensely on several musical projects, among them Rhapsodie Hébraique, which he
arranged twice, as a version for orchestra as well as one for piano. The gentle and seemingly improvised sound of this piece is apparently suited to be perfomed by the alto flute - which, compared to the regular
transverse flute, has a deeper and more intimate sound - and the guitar.
Exile
The German fascists and their occupation of France meant a tremendous change for the Jews: life for them became
impossible in Paris. It was only with the help of a relief fund founded and organized by Charly Chaplin - whom Tansman had met earlier in the States and to whom he had dedicated his first piano concerto - that
Tansman and his family were enabled to flee Europe at the end of 1941. Only just did they catch the very last ship from Lisbon to the States. The Tansmans lived, as many other musicians, writers, or artists in
exile, in Hollywood, L.A.: Arnold Schönberg, Igor Strawinskij, Darius Milhaud, Hanns Eisler, Theodor W. Adorno and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a considerable number of the European avant garde, was able to survive
the period of fascism thanks to scattered commissions by the movie makers.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1885-1968), who had already emigrated to the States in 1939, composed film music as well as any other
forms of music. His Sonatina opus 205 for flute and guitar (1965) can be regarded as one of the nicest pieces of this particular kind of chamber music. It is, in itself, a transition between different musical
idioms, from waltz up to jazz ballad.
Impulse
After the war and until his death on November 15th, 1986, Tansman lived in Paris. He bequeathed an extensive list of opera, yet, exept for his
guitar pieces, today’s concert repertoire hardly includes any of his compositions.
We would maybe best understand Tansman’s feelings and evident fascination for the metropolitan flair of Paris, if we were
sitting in a pavement café, associating the faint, gentle wind of the musical impressionism...,
... somehow, also Benoit Schlosberg’s Trois Esquisses breathe out this atmosphere, this particular flair.
Schlosberg’s sketch of the middle movement includes a dedication to Claude Debussy and it revives the very impressionistic mood by which Tansman possibly felt so magically attracted.
In the piece Un petit
jazz (1982) there are a number of jazz-inspired sounds. John Duarte (1919) has dedicated this piece of music to Ida Presti, a famous guitarist, who asked him ”to play a little piece of jazz” for her whenever they
met.
(regarding Tansman’s biography see: Corazon Otero, Alexandre Tansman. Su vida y obra para la guitara, Mexico, D.F. 1997)
(translation: Frank Rose)
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