Tansman: Symphonies, Volume 4 - Chamber Symphonies

Through his quest to revive the work of this previously much-maligned Neo-classicist composer, Oleg Caetani has become synonymous with Tansman. He once again provides us with defining interpretations in this, the fourth and final volume. The interest in this series has won Tansman many new admirers and led to more recordings of his music.

Oleg Caetani conducts Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, an orchestra devoted to promoting international and contemporary music.

International Record Review wrote of Volume 1, ‘After hearing this spectacularly engineered new SA-CD, I really do believe that Alexandre Tansman’s time has come… there’s no need to hesitate over Oleg Caetani’s performances’, while Fanfare wrote of Volume 2, ‘Oleg Caetani and his down-under musicians give this hair-raisingly impetuous but always disciplined music the strongest possible advocacy… This CD is the best possible introduction to a composer who deserves far wider exposure’. The previous volumes have all been awarded the prestigious Diapason d’or in France.

With this latest instalment we are impressed to find again, a great unity of style although they were written at very different periods of his life. Sinfonietta No.1 dates back to 1924 and reveals an influence of Stravinsky, while featuring stylizations of Polish folklore. Polish writer Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz reported from the Paris premiere that the work includes ‘the most beautiful mazurka, an excellent scherzo, and a bravura fugue and toccata at the end.’ Scored for orchestra with single woodwinds, brass, and piano, it is dedicated to an American composer, Louis Gruenberg, who shared Tansman’s East-European roots and interests in jazz. Sinfonietta No.2 was commissioned by the Polish Radio and composed in 1978. It received its premiere as part of his 80th birthday celebrations in Poland, during the composer’s triumphant return to his homeland. The celebrations were extensive with Poland making amends for having disowned Tansman for three decades.

The two Sinfoniettas are coupled by Sinfonia piccolo (1951-1952), a title which belies the scale of the composition. The Sinfonia was commissioned by the French Ministry of Education and dedicated to a famous surgeon, Dr Jean-Louis Lortat-Jacob. It adheres to a standard four-part outline of a classical symphony, and is recognised as ‘one of the most enjoyable orchestral works in Tansman’s oeuvre and the entire symphonic repertoire of the period’. The symphony’s secret may lie in the youthful exuberance of jazz, and the sonorous sheen of the Balinese gamelan.

Sinfonia de chambre completes the programme in this its premiere recording. Written in 1960, the work comes from a period of stability in Tansman’s life after the war, but still reflects the turmoil of those years. The dense textures and distant echoes of Bach’s Kunst Der Fuge are among the work’s most prominent neo-Baroque features.

“ …for the premiere recording of the terrific Chamber Symphony alone, this Chandos CD is an indispensable acquisition for all dedicated Tansmanians.”

Paul A Snook

Fanfare - May/June 2010

“…The music is enthusiastically played, and the sound is up to Chandos’s standards. The notes are helpful too…”

Roger Hecht

American Record Guide - March/April 2010

…”The orchestra della Svizzera Italiana clearly knows Tansman’s style inside our and relishes it…”
“…this concluding volume of Tansman’s symphonic works is definitive…”

Ivan Moody

International Record Review - February 2010

“First-rate recording quality and authoritative documentation support a more than worthwhile issue.”

David Fanning

Gramophone - March 2010

*****

A Dziembaj

Tansman: Symphonies, Volume 4 - Chamber Symphonies

Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana

Oleg Caetani

Auditorio Stelio Molo, Lugano, Switzerland

Christian Gilardi

Michael Rast

Orchestral & Concertos

ALEXANDRE TANSMAN

Symphonie de chambre (1960)

Sinfonietta No. 1 (1924)

Sinfonietta No. 2 (1978)

Sinfonia piccola (1951-52)