In 1986 Thomas Döller and Jürgen Schwalk founded the Duo. Thomas Döller was born 1958 in Essen. He studied flute at the “Folkwanghochschule” in Essen with Prof.Andre Sebald and chambermusic with Prof. Meyendorf.. He take several masterclasses with Peter-Lukas Graf and Paul Meisen. He gave concerts with several orchestras as solist and member. He plays actually in the “Leonardo” winwoodquintet.

The Duo plays all over Europe and on different international festivals. A special honour was the invitation to the famous exhibition of Marc Chagal in Germany.

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...,

(regarding Tansman’s biography see: Corazon Otero, Alexandre Tansman. Su vida y obra para la guitara, Mexico, D.F. 1997)

(Text: Thomas Döller / Translation: Frank Rose)