タンスマンのピアノ曲を聴く

アレクサンドル・タンスマンといえば，ギターとクラリネットの世界では有名ですが，ピアノやヴァイオリンなどの音楽のメインストリーム？では無名です。

タンスマンに関しては，ギター曲を中心にかなり記事にしました。

ギター作品としていくつかが有名なのみですが，交響曲９曲，ピアノ協奏曲２曲？，他に管弦楽曲，声楽曲等，数百点の作品があり，大作曲家と言っても良いくらいの作品の量です。メインストリームでは無名と書きましたが，ピアニストとしての腕も相当だったらしく，むしろそちらの作品こそ，タンスマンの力量が存分に発揮されたものだろうと思います。

今日タンスマンの音楽は，セゴビアのギターにより聴く事が出来ます。それは素晴らしい事なのですが，どうしても大家のフィルターに掛かった音楽になります。もちろんタンスマンはセゴビアに全幅の信頼を置いていたため，セゴビアの音楽になっても良いのでしょうが，その前にタンスマンが自ら得意な楽器のピアノでどんな音楽をやりたかったのか聴いてみるのも，決して無駄では無いと思います。

ただ，残念ながらその演奏も多くありません。
最近，全曲世界初録音のタンスマンのピアノ曲集のCDが出たので，買ってみました。

タンスマン:ピアノ作品集

• アーティスト:
• 出版社/メーカー: GRAND PIANO
• 発売日: 2019/02/22
• メディア: CD

naxosに試聴があります。
ピアニストのコウクルという人は全然知りませんでしたが，演奏家紹介のページには，
チェコのピアニストでありチェンバロ奏者、作曲家でもあるジョルジオ・コウクルは、フィルクスニーとの交流を通じてマルティヌーのスペシャリストとして知られ、チェレプニン、ルリエ、タンスマンなどの作品でも高い評価を得ています。ここでも得意のタンスマンの知られざる作品の数々を、ピアノのレパートリーとして根付かせたいという情熱のもと、色彩豊かに聴かせています。

とあります。

私が神妙に聴いていると，妻がやってきて，「この曲知らないけど，ちゃんと分かるように弾いている。上手なピアニストね。」とのご託宣です。

ピアノ曲をしっかり聴くのは何年振りでしょうか？
シマノフスキとどちらが好きか？と聞かれると，微妙なところではあります。どちらもそれなりに良いです。
シマノフスキは時期により作風を変えています。ショパン風であったり，バルトーク風であったり，ラヴェル風であったり。タンスマンの場合，ラヴェル風に聞こえるところもありますし，民俗風の書法ももちろんありますが，何でしょうか？複調的であったり，セリーの様な書法も良く聴かれますが，タンスマンの場合，それらの技法が全て彼なりに消化されていて，誰風というよりもこれはタンスマン風だろうと思うわけです。ギター曲にも共通したタンスマン特有の仄暗さが全編に漂っているように感じます。37トラックにおよぶ小品の集合ですが。

ショパンと同じ様に，ポーランドからパリに出で活躍したタンスマンでしたが，ヒトラーの台頭を避けてアメリカに移住しています。戦後パリに戻った頃には，アヴァンギャルドに沸くパリではあまり顧みられなくなってしまったのでした。むしろ，奇をてらったところがない彼特有に消化された作風は新古典風に（もっと直截に言えば古臭く）聴こえてしまうところがあったのかもしれません。

しかし戦後のパリで古臭くても，現代の我々に向かない訳がありません。３世紀も４世紀も前の音楽を化粧直しして聴く時代です。むしろ，一時の流行に流されない彼の音楽をじっくり聴けるのは，現代に生きる我々の楽しみだろうと思います。

以下に曲目，およびライナーノートを記録しておきます。

作曲者のアレクサンドル・タンスマン(1897-1986)

【曲目】
アレクサンドル・タンスマン(1897-1986):ピアノ作品集
11の間奏曲 11 INTERLUDES (1955)
1.No.1. Moderato
2.No.2. Allegro giusto
3.No.3. Lento
4.No.4. Andante
5.No.5. Allegro con brio
6.No.6. Moderato
7.No.7. Allegro con moto
8.No.8. Lento
9.No.9. Andante sostenuto
10.No.10. Moderato
11.No.11. Allegro moderato ma deciso

アルトゥール・ルービンシュタインを讃えて
HOMMAGE À ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN (1973)
12.マズルカのテンポで Tempo di Mazurka
13.トッカータ Toccata

ヘブライ風の2つの小品 2 PIÈCES HÉBRAÏQUES (1955)
14.No.1. インヴェンション Invention
15.No.2. ユダヤの子守唄 Berceuse juive
4つのピアノ・ムード 4 PIANO MOODS (1944)
16.No.1. Andante cantabile
17.No.2. Vivace
18.No.3. Lento
19.No.4. Allegro meccanico

前奏曲とトッカータ PRÉLUDE ET TOCCATA (1943)
20.前奏曲:Andante sostenuto
21.トッカータ:Allegro molto

6つの奇想曲 6 CAPRICES (抜粋) (1941)
22.No.1. Allegro ben ritmato
23.No.2. Moderato
24.No.3. Lento
25.No.4. Molto vivace
26.No.5. Andante cantabile

ピアノのジョルジオ・コウクル

イスラエル訪問 VISIT TO ISRAEL (1958)
27.I. 夜想曲:神秘の町セファド
Notturno: The Mysterious City of Sefad
28.II. キブツ(集団農場) The Kibbutz
29.III. カペナウムの廃墟 The Ruins of Capernaum
30.IV. ヨルダン川の源流 The Sources of the River Jordan
31.V. 聖なる町 (7枝の燭台)
The Holy City (The Seven-armed Candelabra)
32.VI. ネゲヴ砂漠 The Desert of Negev
33.VII. サン・ジャン・ダクル(アッコ)のモスク
The Mosque of Saint Jean d'Acre
34.VIII. ティベリアス湖 The Lake of Tiberias
35.IX. イエメンのユダヤ人の子守唄 Yemenite Cradle Song
36.X. 大衆舞曲 (ホラ) Popular Dance (Hora)
37.練習曲 (ピアノのための練習曲)

ÉTUDE (STUDIO PER PIANOFORTE) (1967)

世界初録音

【演奏】
ジョルジオ・コウクル(ピアノ/Steinway, Model D)

【録音】
2018年9月9日、Bottega del pianoforte、スイス、ルガーノ

以下，Anthony Short氏による解説。
ALEXANDRE TANSMAN (1897-1986)
PIANO MUSIC

'One of the leading composers of his time, he [Tansman] is among the first ten in the list of contemporary composers whose works are most performed on concert programs today.'

Such a bold assertion seems surprising to us today, but when the Hollywood Citizen-News printed this opinion in 1941, its readers would have accepted it as a simple statement of fact. Indeed, Tansman, who had recently emigrated to America from war-torn Europe, was destined for even greater public recognition.Not only was his music regularly programmed, it also featured in several Hollywood films. Furthermore, as a renowned socialite, Tansman could count Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, George Gershwin and Igor Stravinsky among his many personal friends.

Aleksander Tansman was born in 1897 in the Polish city of Łódź which was still part of the Russian Empire. His family was Jewish, although he claimed never to have practised his religion. He was a musically gifted child and was already composing by the age of eight. His first exposure to a public concert was in 1903, and the occasion proved so momentous that he decided to devote his life to music. The soloist was the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, who was advertised as 'The king of violinists'. Tansman reminisced, 'As a six-year old child I imagined that the soloist would appear on stage with royal crown and mantle. And of course, he was only a gentleman in tails!'

Following the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution, Tansman volunteered for the army, but after his demobilisation in 1919, he decided to leave the newly independent Poland and emigrate to France. Later in life he spoke of this move. 'I had always been attracted to French culture. I had a governess who instilled in us a love of France. My family was very Francophile; we often spoke French at home and we had a vast French library. Ordinarily, Eastern European musicians went to Germany to pursue their careers. As for me, I chose Paris and have never regretted it.'

The Paris that Tansman (now calling himself Alexandre) enjoyed in the 1920s was the playground of Josephine Baker and Maurice Chevalier, Gertrude Stein and American literati such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, plus many other fashionable icons of the age like Picasso and Matisse. As for the world of music, Tansman was now based in a city that was home to Poulenc, Honegger, Milhaud and other members of 'Les Six', not to mention Ravel. Composers from abroad who had also made Paris their home included Manuel de Falla from Spain, Bohuslav Martinů from Czechoslovakia, Sergey Prokofiev from Russia, and (very importantly for Tansman) Igor Stravinsky also from Russia. Tansman left some telling pen portraits of his many musical friends and colleagues in Paris. Prokofiev, for example, was 'the greatest pianist I have ever known ... absolutely fabulous'; Ravel was 'like a father to me'; Martinů was 'a very cultured and refined man as shown in his opera Juliette'.

The malevolent forces of fascism that spread across Europe in the 1930s affected thousands of innocent musicians and artists, including Tansman. They were accused of creating 'degenerate art' (Entartete Kunst), but in reality, their only 'crimes' were a failure to pass the tests of 'racial purity' and a refusal to sacrifice their ethical principles on the altar of expediency. Tansman now found himself in the same state of limbo as countless fellow Polish Jews including the pianist Arthur Rubinstein (also from Łódź). In August 1940, Tansman and his family escaped the immediate threat posed to the Jewish community in occupied France by heading south to Nice in so-called 'free' France. Despite many privations, Tansman continued to be very productive. He later recalled how, stranded between anxiety and hope, he focused determinedly on the business of composing. Among the works that he wrote in Nice in 1941 was a set of six Caprices for piano, the sixth of which is incomplete. These Caprices, bearing the dedication 'To my friend Dr Henry Rosenberg', were some of the last pieces that he penned in Europe before emigrating with his family to America.

After settling in Los Angeles, Tansman likened Hollywood to a 'modern Weimar'. While there, he found himself in the company of many other European émigrés forced into exile by the war, including Arnold Schoenberg, Darius Milhaud and Thomas Mann. But it was with Igor Stravinsky (whose biography he would later write in 1948) that he struck up the deepest friendship, describing it as 'one of the greatest privileges' of his life. His American years were dominated by the writing of three symphonies, one of which is dedicated to Stravinsky and his wife, but he still produced many shorter pieces, such as the Prélude et Toccata for piano of 1943 and Four Piano Moods of 1944, dedicated to Eugène Berman, an émigré Russian painter and stage designer whose work epitomised the neo-Classical style.

When he returned to Europe in 1946, Tansman's first sight of his beloved France was painful, for what he saw was a country devastated by the ravages of war. But he quickly pulled himself together and resumed his career, receiving commissions for several large-scale works. These included the oratorio lsaïe le Prophète of 1950, which commemorates the lives of the six million Jews exterminated during the war, while also celebrating the birth of the state of Israel.

Throughout the 1930s, Tansman had become increasingly drawn to the music of his Jewish heritage. His first avowedly Jewish work was a set of twelve Chants hébraïques, dating from 1933, and he continued to produce similarly inspired works over the next few decades. In early 1955, for instance, he completed Deux Pieces hébraïques for organ or piano. This work is dedicated to Alice Halphen, the widow of the French Jewish composer Fernand Halphen, who died from diphtheria in the First World War. In November 1955, Tansman performed the premiere of his own Onze interludes in a French radio broadcast. The pieces are dedicated to René Dumesnil, the eminent literary critic and enthusiastic Wagnerian, and his second wife, Jeanne. Another work that received its first performance on the radio, again at the hands of the composer, is Visit to Israel, a suite written in the autumn of 1958. Each of its ten movements beautifully evokes Tansman's impressions of his first visit to Israel during that summer.

Beginning with a cadenza, the Étude or Studio per pianoforte is a single-movement work, divided into eight contrasted sections. It was composed in December 1967, and is dedicated to the Italian film composer, Franco Mannino. In 1974, the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition was inaugurated in Tel Aviv, and for this event Tansman composed a two-movement work which he called Hommage à Arthur Rubinstein in honour of his famous Polish compatriot and old friend.

Following his return to Europe, Tansman's career continued to flourish, but the critical reception afforded his music was now radically different from what it had been in pre-war days. His distinctly French neo-Classical style, characterised by lightness and spirituality, was no longer in vogue. In fact, it was anathema to the emerging Darmstadt School of avant-garde composers, whose uncompromising views shaped the general musical aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s. Unbowed, Tansman offered his critics some cautionary words: 'Modern music tries too hard to be aggressive and avant-garde. It uses non-musical elements which can certainly be brought into the structure, but ought not to be an end in themselves.' He also warned about falling into the trap of 'mistaking anarchy for freedom.' This is a pitfall that Tansman himself always avoided.

Anthony Short

コメント 2

タンスマンのカヴァティーナ組曲は昔から好きでした。最近はカヴァティーナと言うと村治さんが弾く違う曲が有名ですが。
ピアノの曲は全く知りませんが、このブログで教えて頂き聞いてみようかと思っています。
私も学生時代にクラシックギターを覚え、就職してからはほったらかし最近になってようやく再開しましたがもはや還暦も過ぎ指も動かずながら何とかカヴァティーナを一部でもモノにしたいなと思って頑張っております。

by kaz (2019-03-12 23:44) 

kazさん，コメントありがとうございます。
カヴァティーナ組曲は名曲だと思います。以前記事にしました。
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-02-02
録音入りは，以下のものです。
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-02-16
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-02-22
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-03-10
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-03-16
ダンサ・ポンポーサに関しては，
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-08-25
録音は，こちらです。
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2013-07-06

ただ，食い足りず再度やり直す必要があると思いながら，そのままになっています。

昨年から，やさしい小品，ポーランド組曲などに取り組んでいます。
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2018-05-07
からと，
https://classical-guitar.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2018-11-04
です。ご参考になれば。
「カヴァティーナ」じたいは「アリア」や「レチタティーヴォ」とかのような曲の一般名称ですが，最近ではマイヤーズのディアハンターのテーマが有名ですね。
by Enrique (2019-03-13 07:08)