Alexandre Tansman

Born in Poland in 1897 to a family descended from Lithuanian Jews, Aleksander Tansman lost his father when aged just 10 and was thereafter brought up by his mother. He studied piano, harmony and counterpoint at the Łódź Conservatory from 1902 to 1914 and then progressed to Warsaw University, where he studied law and philosophy. In 1919, he won both first and second prizes in the Polish National Music Competition for his Fantasie and Piano Sonata respectively. The reputation thus earned allowed him to move to Paris, where he became friends with the likes of Ravel, Milhaud and Honegger. Famous composers like Stokowski, Toscanini and Koussevitzky took up his music at this time. Having acquired French citizenship in 1938 (and changing the spelling of his name to the more Francophone 'Alexandre Tansman'), the outbreak of World War 2 necessitated another move to the USA, where he was friends with Stravinsky, conducted and wrote film music. He returned to France in 1946, where he lived until his death in 1986.

Tansman's early music is heavily influenced by his associations with Stravinsky and Ravel, and his adored Chopin. By the 1920s, however, it acquired a more individual character and he began to follow Milhaud in using folk materials. Like Stravinsky, Tansman was able to write in abruptly disparate styles: neo-classical at one time and astringently atonal at others. His output is considerable, in various genres, including seven operas, ten ballets, six oratorios, more than eighty orchestral pieces (including nine symphonies), assorted virtuoso concertos and a substantial body of chamber music. He was also a noted composer for the guitar, written with Andrés Segovia in mind. The death of his great friend Stravinsky triggered the writing of one of his most deeply-felt orchestral works, Stèle.

In general, I rather suspect that most people will not have heard of Tansman, his music seemingly having fallen into that general oblivion that often attends composers immediately after their deaths. But in his lifetime, he was regarded as something of a musical superstar, both as a spectacular performer and a composer. One critic wrote of him that he was “one of the most gifted musical personalities of our times”. His decades of relative obscurity may also be coming to an end: nearly everything he wrote has been recorded and put down on CD, so access to his music is relatively easy these days. Should he be regarded as a French composer or a Polish one? Poland certainly claims him as one of her own, but Tansman himself always described himself as a Polish composer, saying 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.

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