Alexandre Tansman

Tansman was born and raised in Łódź, Congress Poland. His parents were of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. His father Moshe Tantzman (1868–1908) died when Alexander was 10 and his mother Hannah (née Gourvitch, 1872–1935) reared him and his older sister Teresa alone. Tansman later wrote: Tansman explained his later Francophile tendencies: ==Career==

Among his first music teachers were Wojciech Gawronski (a student of Zygmunt Noskowski, Moritz Moszkowski and Theodor Leschetizky) and Naum Podkaminer (a student of Hermann Graedener and Richard Hofmann). Although he began his musical studies at the Lodz Conservatory, his study was in law at the University of Warsaw. On January 8, 1919, Tansman won the first composers' competition held in independent Poland, and gave a series of concerts at the Warsaw Philharmonic in the following months. In the fall of 1919, encouraged by his mentors Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Henryk Melcer-Szczawinski and Zdzisław Birnbaum, Tansman decided to continue his musical career in Paris. The first artists he was fortunate to meet shortly after his arrival were Moritz Moszkowski and Sarah Bernhardt. In Paris, his musical ideas were appreciated, influenced and favoured by composers Maurice Ravel, Albert Roussel, Jacques Ibert, Igor Stravinsky, musicologists and critics Émile Vuillermoz, Boris de Schloezer, Alexis Roland-Manuel, Arthur Hoérée, conductors André Caplet, Gaston Poulet, Vladimir Golschmann. Though Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud tried to persuade him to join Les Six, he declined, stating a need for creative independence. Nevertheless, he was one of the earliest and leading representatives of neoclassicism, along with Stravinsky, Les Six, Sergei Prokofiev, Paul Hindemith, Alfredo Casella. He was also one of the most respected members of the international music group École de Paris, along with Bohuslav Martinů, Tibor Harsányi, Alexander Tcherepnin, Marcel Mihalovici, Conrad Beck. , Éditions Max Eschig From the 1920s Tansman's rise to fame was meteoric, with works conducted and championed by such world-famous baton masters as Arturo Toscanini, Tullio Serafin, Willem Mengelberg, Walter Damrosch, Sir Henry Wood, Serge Koussevitzky, Pierre Monteux, Otto Klemperer, Rhené-Baton, Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, Walther Straram, Hermann Abendroth, Leopold Stokowski, Erich Kleiber, Sir Adrian Boult, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Frederick Stock, Eugene Ormandy. Tansman follows Paderewski as the second Polish composer whose theatre piece – ballet Sextuor – was staged by the Metropolitan Opera (1927). As early as the first half of the 1920s, Belgian music critic and composer Georges Systermans wrote that Tansman's musical personality "combines poetic genius with Latin culture". Tansman's works started to be frequently performed in programs with pieces by Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky and Gian Francesco Malipiero on the one hand, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Carl Maria von Weber and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov on the other. From the mid-1920s, and into the decades that followed, Tansman's works were performed in some of the best concert halls in the world, such as Salle Gaveau, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Carnegie Hall, Opéra National de Paris, New York Philharmonic, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salle Pleyel, Boston Symphony Hall, Théâtre Mogador, Opéra National de Lyon, Château Royal de Laeken, Théâtre de la Ville, Palais-Royal, Berlin State Opera, Royal Albert Hall, Metropolitan Opera, Severance Hall, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, DAR Constitution Hall, Cologne Opera, Tokyo Hibiya Public Hall, Berlin Philharmonic, Oslo National Theatre, Wigmore Hall, La Fenice, Academy of Music (Philadelphia), De Doelen, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Opéra de Nice, Orchestra Hall, Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, Hollywood Bowl, Powell Hall, Mann Auditorium, Johannesburg City Hall, Teatro Colón, Grand Auditorium, Royce Hall. As Marcel Mihalovici noted, Tansman was one of the most prominent contemporary representatives of the centuries-old tradition of École de Paris: "This included musicians at Notre-Dame Cathedral during the Renaissance, and later Lully, Mozart, and Wagner. Not to mention Chopin, Falla, Enescu, Honegger, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Copland, and certainly our old colleague Alexander Tansman". In June 1938, four years after Stravinsky and in the same year as Bruno Walter, Tansman was granted French citizenship by the last president of the Third Republic Albert Lebrun. In 1946 Tansman returned to Paris and his musical career started again all over Europe. His works, with performances at times reaching over 500 a year, were performed by the best orchestras and conductors, such as Jascha Horenstein, Rafael Kubelik, André Cluytens, Carlos Chávez, Paul Kletzki, Charles Munch, Bruno Maderna, Paul van Kempen, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Ferenc Fricsay, Charles Bruck, Øivin Fjeldstad, Eugène Bigot, Franz André, Jean Fournet, Franz Waxman, Georges Tzipine, Pedro de Freitas Branco, Alfred Wallenstein, Eduard Flipse, Robert Whitney, Manuel Rosenthal, Roger Wagner, Jean Périsson, Vassil Kazandjiev. Twenty years after the composer's death, in 2006 Henryk Górecki wrote his long-awaited 4th Symphony, which he named Tansman Episodes by no accident. Górecki left a cryptogram that explains the way he created the theme for the symphony, using musical letters from the first and last names of "Aleksander Tansman". ==Private life==

Tansman's first wife was Anna E. Broçiner of Romanian-Swiss descent, whose family served to Royal Household of the Romanian ruling dynasty. They divorced in 1932. In 1934 he fell in love with the princess Nadejda de Bragança, daughter of Miguel, Duke de Viseu. They remained a couple until 1936. In 1937 he married a noted French pianist Colette Cras, student of Lazare Lévy and the daughter of Jean Cras, rear admiral and major general of the port of Brest, who was also a composer. They had two children. ==Music==

Tansman was not only an internationally recognized composer, but was also a virtuoso pianist and conductor. From the 1920s, he regularly performed as pianist at Carnegie Hall and Salle Pleyel, Wigmore Hall, Salle Gaveau. He performed five concert tours in the United States, the first one as a soloist under Sergei Koussevitzky with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1927–1928). A Polish artist whose music had a global influence, Tansman interwove Polish music with a new modern language and aesthetics of the 20th century. Karol Szymanowski, fifteen years older than Tansman, also mixed Polish influences with other ethnic influences, but Tansman transcended 19th-century musical poetics and German patterns much more than Szymanowski. Moreover, Tansman became the first composer in the history of Polish music to combine an overt and predominantly classicist orientation with such a wide output and substantial achievements in contemporary art. , Éditions Max Eschig Tansman always described himself as a Polish composer: "It is obvious that I owe much to France, but anyone who has ever heard my compositions cannot have doubt that I have been, am and forever will be a Polish composer". For these works, which ranged from light-hearted miniatures to virtuoso show-pieces, Tansman drew on traditional Polish folk themes, adapted them to his style, thus enriched melodic and harmonic means of modern music language, Tansman's music has been performed by such artists as singers Marya Freund, Jane Bathori, Madeleine Grey, Fanély Revoil, Suzanne Danco, Jean Giraudeau, Denise Duval, Freda Betti, Xavier Depraz, Jane Rhodes, Andrée Esposito, flautists Louis Fleury, Maxence Larrieu, clarinetist Louis Cahuzac, harpsichordist Marcelle de Lacour, pianists Marie-Aimée Roger-Miclos, Léo-Pol Morin, Mieczysław Horszowski, Walter Gieseking, Youra Guller, Jan Smeterlin, Robert Schmitz, Dimitri Tiomkin, Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer, José Iturbi, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Alicia de Larrocha, violinists Stefan Frenkel, Bronisław Huberman, Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, Joseph Szigeti, Alexander Mogilevsky, Henri Temianka, Jascha Heifetz, cellists Pablo Casals, Gregor Piatigorsky, Maurice Maréchal, Enrico Mainardi, Gaspar Cassadó, organist Marie-Louise Girod, quartets Pro Arte, Burgin, Budapest, Calvet, Paganini, Pascal, Parrenin, trio Pasquier. ==Selected works==

Alexander Tansman's many hundreds of compositions include: • Album polski (The Polish Album) for piano (1915–1916) • Symphonie No. 1 [later withdrawn] (1916) • Sérénade No. 1 for Orchestra (1916) • String Quartet No. 1 (1917) • Huit Mélodies japonaises à Marya Freund for voice and piano or orchestra (1918) • Sonate No. 2 à Bronisław Huberman for violin and piano (1919) • Petite Suite (The Little Suite) for piano (1919) • Impressions à Vladimir Golschmann for orchestra (1920) • Intermezzo sinfonico for orchestra (1920) • String Quartet No. 2 (1922) • Sonatine à Mieczyslaw Horszowski for piano (1923) • Scherzo sinfonico à Serge Koussevitzky for orchestra (1923) • Huon de Bordeaux (Huon of Bordeaux), suite for orchestra (1923) • Sextuor, ballet d'après une nouvelle de Alexandre Arnoux (1923) • La Danse de la Sorcière (Dance of the Sorceress) for orchestra (1923) • Vingt pièces faciles sur des mélodies populaires polonaises à Ignacy Jan Paderewski for piano (1917–1924) • Sinfonietta No. 1 for orchestra (1924) • Sonata rustica à Maurice Ravel for piano (1925) • Piano Concerto No. 1 à (1925) • Symphonie No. 2 (1926) • La Nuit kurde (The Kurdish Night), opera (1927) • Piano Concerto No. 2 à Charlie Chaplin (1927) • Suite for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1928) • Mazurkas à Albert Roussel for piano (1918–1928) • Toccata à Pierre Monteux for orchestra (1928–1929) • Suite – Divertissement for violin, viola, cello and piano (1929) • Le Cercle Éternel (The Eternal Circle), ballet (1929) • Cinq Pièces à Joseph Szigeti for violin and orchestra (1930) • Sonatine Transatlantique for piano (1930) • Triptyque (Triptych) for string orchestra (1930) • Concertino à Jose Iturbi for piano and orchestra (1931) • Quatre danses polonaises (Four Polish Dances) for orchestra (1931) • Symphonie No. 3 (Symphonie Concertante) à Sa Majesté la Reine Elisabeth de Belgique for piano, violin, viola, cello and orchestra (1931) • Septuor à Béla Bartók for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, viola, cello (1932) • La Grande Ville à Kurt Jooss, ballet (1932–1933) • Rapsodie hébraïque for orchestra (1933) • Sonatine No. 3 à Walter Spies for piano (1933) • Bric à Brac à Vladimir de Terlikowski, ballet (1935) • Fantaisie à Gregor Piatigorsky for cello and orchestra or piano (1936) • Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (1936–1937) • Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1937) • Variations sur un theme de Frescobaldi for string orchestra (1937) • Piano Trio No. 2 (1938) • Symphonie No. 4 (1939) • ''La Toison d'or'' (The Golden Fleece), opera (1939) – world premiere: 2016, Tansman Festival, Lodz Grand Opera • Rapsodie polonaise (The Polish Rhapsody) for orchestra (1940) • Sextuor à cordes à Igor Stravinsky for 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos (1940) • Symphonie No. 5 à Paul Kletzki (1942) • Pièce concertante (Konzertstück) for piano (left hand) and orchestra to Paul Wittgenstein (1943) • Symphonie No. 6 "In Memoriam" for mixed choir and orchestra (1944) • Adam and Eve, part 3 of Genesis Suite, for narrator and orchestra (1944) • Divertimento à Arnold Schönberg for oboe, clarinet, trumpet, cello and piano (1944) • Symphonie No. 7 "Lyrique" (1944) • Kol-Nidrei for tenor solo, mixed choir and orgue (1945) • Two Ancient Polish Religious Songs for mixed choir and orgue (1945) • Concertino à Andrés Segovia for guitar and orchestra (1945) • Musique pour cordes for string orchestra (1947) • Musique pour orchestre (Symphonie No. 8) à (1948) • Les Voyages de Magellan (Magellan's Travels), suite for orchestra (1949) • Tombeau de Chopin for string quintet or string orchestra (1949) • Isaïe le prophète (Isaiah, The Prophet), symphonic oratorio for tenor solo, choir and orchestra (1949–1950) • Cavatine à Andrés Segovia for guitar (1950) • Sinfonia Piccola (1951-1952) • Concertino for Oboe, Clarinet and String Orchestra (1952) • Christophe Colomb (Christopher Columbus), suite for orchestra (1952) • Sonatina da camera for flute, violon, viola, cello and harpe (1952) • Le Serment (The Oath) à Henry Barraud, opera (1953) • Concerto pour orchestre à Darius Milhaud (1954) • Hommage à Manuel de Falla for guitar and chamber orchestra (1954) • Sonate No. 5, to the memory of Béla Bartók for piano (1955) • Partita à Gaspar Cassadó for cello and piano (1955) • String Quartet No. 8 (1956) • Prologue et Cantata for mixed choir and chamber orchestra (1957) • Concerto à Louis Cahuzac for clarinet and orchestra (1957) • Sabbataï Zevi, le faux messie (Sabbatai Zevi, the False Messiah), opera (1957–1958) • Symphonie No. 9 (1957–1958) • Suite Baroque à Sa Majesté la Reine Elisabeth de Belgique for chamber orchestra (1958) • Les Habits Neufs du Roi à Charles Bruck, ballet pantomime d'après Hans Christian Andersen (1958–1959) • Suite for Bassoon and Piano (1960) • Musique de cour à Andrés Segovia for guitar and chamber orchestra (1960) • Psaumes (The Psalms) à Salvador de Madariaga for tenor solo, choir and orchestra (1960–1961) • Résurrection (d'après Léon Tolstoï, The Resurrection), ballet (1961–1962) • Suite in modo polonico à Andrés Segovia for guitar (1962) • Six Mouvements à Pierre Capdevielle for string orchestra (1962–1963) • ''L'Usignolo di Boboli'', opera (1963) • Fantaisie à Diane et André Gertler for violin and piano (1963) • Concerto à Charles Reneau for cello and orchestra (1963–1964) • Hommage à Chopin à Andrés Segovia for guitar (1966) • Suite Concertante for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra (1966) • Quatre mouvements à mes amis Lulu et Vladimir Jankélévitch for orchestra (1967–1968) • Concertino for Flute, String Orchestra and Piano (1968) • Hommage à Erasme de Rotterdam (Homage to Erasmus of Rotterdam) for orchestra (1968–1969) • Stèle in memoriam Igor Stravinsky for orchestra (1972) • Élégie, to the memory of Darius Milhaud for orchestra (1975) • Sinfonietta No. 2 for orchestra (1978) • ''L'Oiseau qui n'existe pas'' for Claude Aveline for piano (1978) • Les Dix Commandements (The Ten Commandments) for orchestra (1978–1979) • Huit Stèles de Victor Segalen (Eight Steles of Victor Segalen) for voice and chamber orchestra (1979) • ''Album d'amis'' for piano (1980) • Musique à Nicanor Zabaleta for harpe and orchestra (1981) • Hommage à Lech Wałęsa for guitar (1982) • Alla Polacca for viola and piano (1985) • 7 operas (1927; 1939; Le roi qui jouait fou 1948; 1953; 1957–1958; 1963; Georges Dandin 1973–1974) • 10 ballets (1922; 1923; Lumieres 1927; Le Cercel eternel 1929; 1935; 1944; He, She and I 1946; Le train de nuit 1951; 1958–1959; 1961–1962) • 9 symphonies (1917; 1926; 1931; 1939; 1942; Lyrique 1944; 1948; 1957–1958) • 8 string quartets (1917; 1922; 1925; 1935; 1940; 1944; 1947; 1956) Film music: Poil de Carotte, dir. Julien Duvivier (1932), La Chatelaine du Liban, dir. Jean Epstein (1933), Flesh and Fantasy, dir. Julien Duvivier (1943), Destiny, dir. Reginald Le Borg (1944), Paris Underground, dir. Gregory Ratoff (1945), Sister Kenny, dir. Dudley Nichols (1946). ==Selected recordings==

• Symphonie no. 5, Stele, Quatre mouvements – Czecho-Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Meir Minsky, conductor – Marco Polo, Naxos – 1991 • Complete Music for String Quartet: String Quartets nos. 2–8 – Silesian String Quartet – Etcetera – 1992 • Piano Sonatas and Sonatinas – Daniel Blumenthal, piano – Etcetera – 1993 • Concerto pour orchestre, Etudes for orchestra, Capriccio for orchestra – Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Antonio de Almeida, conductor – Marco Polo, Naxos – 1995 • Piano Concerto no. 2 – Polish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra in Cracow, Zygmunt Rychert, conductor, Marek Drewnowski, piano – Alexander Tansman Association for the Promotion of Culture, Joseph Hofmann Foundation – 1996 • Fantaisie – Igor Zubkovski, cello, Irina Khovanskaia, piano – Alexander Tansman International Competition of Musical Personalities, DUX – 1996 • Violin Concerto, Cinq Pieces, Quatre danses polonaises, Danse de la Sorciere, Rapsodie polonaise – Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Le Monnier, conductor, Beata Halska, violin – Olympia – 2000 • Divertimento, Sinfonia piccola, Sinfoniettas nos. 1, 2 – Virtuosi di Praga, Israel Yinon, conductor, Koch-Schwann – 2000 • Bric a Brac, Symphonie no. 4 – Bamberger Symphoniker, Israel Yinon, conductor – Koch-Schwann – 2000 • Cello concerto, Fantaisie for cello and orchestra, The Ten Commandments – Radio-Philharmonie Hannover, Israel Yinon, conductor, Sebastian Hess, cello – Koch-Schwann – 2001 • Isaie le prophete – Sinfonia Varsovia, Wojciech Michniewski, conductor, Alberto Mizrahi, tenor – City of Lodz, Alexander Tansman Association for the Promotion of Culture – 2004 • Genesis Suite – Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Gerard Schwarz, conductor, Tovah Feldshuh, Barbara Feldon, David Margulies, Fritz Weaver, Isaiah Sheffer – speakers – Milken Family Foundation, Naxos – 2004 • Suite in modo polonico, Cavatina – Andres Segovia, guitar – Deutsche Grammophon – 2004, 2006 • Musique pour orchestre – Symphonie no. 8 – Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, conductor – Centrum Nederlandse Muziek, Radio Netherlands International, NM Classics – 2005 • Symphonies nos. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, Quatre mouvements – Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Oleg Caetani, conductor – Chandos – 2006–2008 • Variations sur un theme de Frescobaldi, Triptych, Musique pour cordes, Partita for string orchestra – Amadeus Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra, Agnieszka Duczmal, conductor – Alexander Tansman Association for the Promotion of Culture, Polish Radio – 2006 • Le Serment – Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Choeur de Radio France, Alain Atinoglu, conductor, Helene Collerette, violon, Marie Devellereau, Jean-Sebastein Bou, Fabrice Dallis, Alain Gabriel, Delphine Haidan – soloists, Eric Genovese, reciter – Radio France, Harmonia Mundi – 2007 • Sinfoniettas nos. 1, 2, Sinfonia piccola, Sinfonie de chambre – Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Oleg Caetani, conductor – Chandos – 2009 • Piano Concerto no. 2 – Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Steven Sloane, conductor, David Greilsammer, piano – Naïve – 2010 • Clarinet Concerto, Concertino for oboe, clarinet and string orchestra, Six Mouvements – Silesian Chamber Orchestra, Miroslaw Jacek Blaszczyk, conductor, Laurent Decker, oboe, Jean-Marc Fessard, clarinet – Naxos – 2011 • Piano Concertino, Piece concertante, Elegie, Stele – Branderburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Howard Griffiths, conductor, Christian Seibert, piano – CPO – 2012 • From Trio to Octet: Suite-Divertissement, Musica a cinque, Musique a six, Sextuor a cordes, Sonatina da camera, Tombeau de Chopin – Silesian String Quartet, Beata Bilinska, piano, Joanna Liberadzka, harpe, Jan Krzeszowiec, flute, Piotr Szymyslik, clarinet, Roman Widaszek, clarinet, Adam Krzeszowiec, cello, Krzysztof Firlus, double bass – Alexander Tansman Association for the Promotion of Culture, Classica – 2012 • Triptyque, Isaie le prophete – The Zimbler Sinfonietta, Choeur et Orchestre Philharmonique de la Radio d'Hilversum, Paul van Kempen, conductor – Forgotten Records – 2012 • Music for violin and piano: Sonatas, Sonatinas, Romance, Fantaisie – Klaidi Sahatçi, violin, Giorgio Koukl, piano – Naxos – 2015 • Suite for oboe and orchestra, Clarinet Concerto, Concertino for oboe, clarinet and string orchestra, Adagio for string orchestra – Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Brian Schembri, conductor, Diego Dini Ciacci, oboe, Fabrizio Meloni, clarinet – CPO – 2016 • Ballet Music: Sextuor, Bric a Brac – Polish Radio Orchestra, Wojciech Michniewski, Lukasz Borowicz – conductors – Tansman Festival – CPO – 2017 • Kol Nidrei – Ensemble Choral Copernic, Itai Daniel, conductor, Sebastien Obrecht, tenor, Nicole Wiener, organ – Institut Europeen des Musiques Juives – 2018 • 11 Interludes, Hommage a Arthur Rubinstein, 2 Pieces hebraiques, Prelude et Toccata, 6 Caprices, Etude-studio – Giorgio Koukl, piano – Grand Piano – 2019 • The Polish Rhapsody – Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Jacek Kasprzyk, conductor – The National Frederic Chopin Institute, NIFCCD – 2019 • Isaiah, The Prophet – Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Choir, Paul van Kempen, conductor, Cornelis Kalkman, tenor – Decca – 2020 • Danse de la Sorciere – Les solistes de l'Orchestre de Paris, Laurent Wagschal, piano – Indésens Records – 2020 • Musique de cour – Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Ben Glassberg, conductor, Thibaut Garcia, guitar – Erato Records – 2020 ==References==