Alexandre Tansman - Complete Music for String Quartet (Silesian Quartet)

Information

Composer: Alexandre Tansman

CD1:

• (01) String Quartet No. 2
• (05) String Quartet No. 3
• (09) String Quartet No. 4
• (12) String Quartet No. 5

CD2:

• (01) Triptyque
• (04) String Quartet No. 6
• (08) String Quartet No. 7
• (12) String Quartet No. 8

Silesian Quartet

Date: 1992

Label: Etcetera

https://www.etcetera-records.com/album/407/complete-music-string-quartet

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Review

The story is that Alexander Tansman (1897-1986) was severely criticized for early avant-garde tendencies in his native Poland, and found a far more congenial base in Paris (after 1919) as the friend, among others, of Ravel, Milhaud and Stravinsky. There he remained, apart from the war years in America, and composed prolifically in all genres, including these eight works for string quartet—the official 'No. 1' is lost.

'Congenial' is also a reasonable label for the music. It inhabits the middleground between Ravel and Stravinsky, though too enamoured of neo-classical counterpoint for the former and too prone to resort to pseudo-impressionistic harmony for the latter. The fluency and charm are likely to wear thin if several of these works are heard in a single sitting, for, although the eight compositions span a period of more than 30 years (1922 to 1956), Tansman's style shows no radical upheavals, no startling changes of direction. Repeated listening soon shows up the predictable ostinatos, rhythmic repetitions and emphatically protracted cadences to which Tansman resorted with almost complacent consistency. He developed a particular line in busy, quite brief fugues preceded by extended slow introductions, and another, more appealing feature is the frequent use of quiet endings to fast movements and finales. None of this disguises the rather routine reliance on traditional formal models, but Tansman was never less than an efficient craftsman.

It is easy to argue that, with a stronger folk-music imput, Tansman might have been able to match the dramatic power of Bartok, or that with a more self-critical approach to slow cantabile writing he might have achieved as much as Prokofiev, or even the mighty Stravinsky. I must confess that all this rather featureless parallel harmony, still beholden to the bad old principle of the all-controlling bass line, leaves at least one listener thirsty for atonality and fragmentation. But this is not to deny the appeal of Tansman in small doses, nor to ignore his occasional achievement of greater depth. In this respect I would single out the Sixth Quartet, composed in 1944, and expressing, it's tempting to assume, a painful longing for Europe in general and Paris in particular.

The Silesian Quartet go about their advocacy of this unfamiliar repertory with considerable flair. Only rarely does the playing acquire that stolid quality suggesting that the sight-reading stage is not too far in the past, and the recordings are uniformly good.

-- Arnold Whittall, Gramophone

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Alexandre Tansman (12 June 1897 – 15 November 1986) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of Jewish origin. He spent his early years in his native Poland, but lived in France for most of his life, being granted French citizenship in 1938. His music is often said to be primarily neoclassical, drawing on his Polish Jewish heritage as well as his French musical influences. Tansman wrote more than 300 works, including 7 operas, 11 ballets, 6 oratorios, 80 orchestral pages (with 9 symphonies), and numerous works of chamber and piano music. Almost all his works have been now recorded on CDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Tansman

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The Silesian String Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1978 by the graduates of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, Poland. They participated in masterclasses with such artists as, among others, the musicians of the LaSalle Quartet, Amadeus, Juilliard, Smetana and Alban Berg string quartets. The Quartet has performed at numerous festivals and has given over 1000 concerts, attracting enthusiastic critical response. Its repertoire includes over 300 works, of which almost 200 were written by 20th-century composers. More than 100 works were premiered by the Silesian String Quartet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_String_Quartet
http://www.silesian-quartet.com

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