The Tansman project
With a grant of Neustart Kultur I spent this summer with mostly unknown pieces by Alexandre Tansman who celebrates this year his 125th birthday!
Born in Lodz/Poland in 1897 he went in 1920 to Paris. He became French citizen. With the help of Charlie Chaplin he emigrated in 1941 to the US. Here he became a reknown movie composer, his soundtrack to “Paris Underground” got nominated for an Oscar! He made friends with the intellectual and cultural elite, Stravinsky, Mann, Einstein, Diaghilev and many more ( great quotes from Tansman himself about his famous friends here).
1946 he returned to Paris where he published in 1948 his biography about his close friend Stravinsky. 1986 he died there.
His work catalogue include symphonies, concerti ( his second piano concerto from 1927 dedicated to Chaplin), phantastic chamber music, many works for piano solo and an impressive catalogue for guitar, including concerti.
To find out more about this fascinating composer I can recommend this great website by the Polish Music Centre California with lots of quotations, work catalogue, vita etc
In 1972 his French Editor Max Eschig asked him for easier music to be used pedagogically, Tansman wrote these two volumes of little gems, they are technically easy but musically written with the full skills of a great composers, so also professional guitarist might consider some of them for concerts for example as encore.
Additionaly I already recorded two videos talking about interpretation in different ways, these pieces are a “school of interpretation” for more advanced players.
Volume 2 plus 2 encores will follow in the next months.
…plus all other streaming services of course….
Here my two interpretation videos:
Thank you Neustart Kultur Deutscher Musikrat for making this project possible!
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