Alexandre Tansman - Piano Works (Margaret Fingerhut)

Information

Composer: Alexandre Tansman

• Recueil de Mazurkas
• Sonata rustica
• Troisième Sonatine
• Trois Préludes en forme de Blues
• Quatre Nocturnes
• Album d'amis

Margaret Fingerhut, piano

Date: 2009

Label: Chandos

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Review

Here is a major repertory hole filler: a decent cross-section of the piano music of Polish-born composer Alexandre Tansman on a single Chandos disc, featuring pianist Margaret Fingerhut. Tansman was himself a pianist of better than fair ability and produced much keyboard music for his own use; his piano music provides a snapshot glimpse of the various stages of development that Tansman went through. Although the Recueil de Mazurkas (1915-1928) were recorded in their complete form by pianist Diane Andersen for the Talent label back in the 1990s -- this is only Vol. 1 of the cycle, and one does not discover this until deep in the liner notes -- and the Trois Préludes en forme de Blues have also been recorded a couple of times in the digital era, the rest of the material on Chandos' Tansman: Piano Works is new to CD and some of it new to recordings altogether.

Tansman considered the Recueil de Mazurkas so fundamental to his early endeavors that he recorded some of these pieces himself for HMV in the 1920s. While they are certainly tasty -- and are early indeed, with certain pieces going back into the teens -- some show an uncertainty about how to combine modern style with the mazurka, a traditional dance that served as part of Tansman's heritage as a Pole; these are almost more clangorous than they need to be. The Sonata rustica (1924), dedicated to Ravel, shows successful assimilation of neo-classical ideas minus absolute mastery of it. By the time of the Troisième Sonatine (1933), however, Tansman has achieved just the right balance of polish and inspiration; he has arrived. What follows is mastery indeed; the Trois Préludes en forme de Blues (1937) is so populist in nature yet extraordinarily expressive one wonders why it isn't programmed very often. In the Nocturnes (1952), dedicated to Stravinsky, Tansman reinvents the language of Chopin through the prism of Stravinsky's style and produces a concise result that may contain some measure of reflection on the destruction of Europe; these are certainly very moving pieces. In the very late Album d'amis (1980), Tansman provides a set of portraits of friends and associates, and in some places here, Tansman allows himself some additional flexibility to his tonal resources, sometimes approaching atonality, but overall expressed in a manner similar to Scriabin, bringing Tansman full circle. Mixed in, however, are the languorous blues and clattering mazurkas that characterized different parts of Tansman's long journey.

With pieces like the Trois Préludes en forme de Blues one cannot imagine how any pianist cannot be captured by their charms, but conversely pianist Margaret Fingerhut is not in love with this music. She concentrates on technically solid performances, and in situations like the Rondo (perpetuum mobile) from the Troisième Sonatine, this approach is not only impressive, it's dazzling. However, one would like a little more emotional investment in this music, and for the most part Fingerhut isn't willing to go there. Nevertheless, pianists aren't falling over each other to record Tansman, and this gets the music out there in performances that are both serviceable and accurate. The sound, while quiet, is rich and present.

— Uncle Dave Lewis

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Alexander Tansman (12 June 1897 – 15 November 1986) was a Polish-born French composer. Born in Łódź to Jewish parents, he studied piano, composition and conducting before earning a law degree from Warsaw University. After moving to Paris in 1919, he gained recognition as a pianist and composer, influenced particularly by Stravinsky and Ravel. His international career included performances and tours across Europe, Asia and America. During World War II, he fled to Los Angeles with his family. Although he continued composing prolifically after returning to Paris, his neo-Classical style gradually fell out of favor.

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Margaret Fingerhut (born 30 March 1955) is a British classical pianist who is known for her innovative programmes and recordings in which she explores lesser known piano repertoire. She studied at the Royal College of Music with Cyril Smith and Angus Morrison, and afterwards with Vlado Perlemuter in Paris, and Leon Fleisher and Adele Marcus in the USA. Her discs on Chandos include works by Bainton, Bax, Berkeley, Bloch, Dukas, Falla, Grieg, Howells, Leighton, Moeran, Novák, Stanford, Suk and Tansman, as well as several pioneering collections of 19th century Russian and early 20th century French piano music.

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