Aleksander TANSMAN (1897-1986)
Clarinet Concerto (1957) [17:50]
Concertino for oboe, clarinet and strings (1952) [20:01]
Six Movements for strings (1962/1963) [24:28]
Jean-Marc Fessard (clarinet)
Laurent Decker (oboe)
Silesian Chamber Orchestra/Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk
rec. Karol Stryja Hall, Katowice, Poland, 23-24 June 2009; 26-28 August 2009
[6 Movements]. DDD
NAXOS 8.572402 [62:19]
This is now the sixth CD published by Naxos given over entirely to the music
of Polish-born composer Aleksander Tansman, and the second of his clarinet
works - a disc of chamber works for the instrument was well received here.
In a sense, in fact, this is a further volume of the same - the Silesian Chamber
Orchestra consists of only twelve strings, and all three works featured here
were written for chamber orchestra.
The Clarinet Concerto is dedicated to the celebrated French clarinettist Louis
Cahuzac (1880-1960), who gave its premiere in 1959. The first of three movements,
marked Introduction and Allegro, opens very laggardly but springs to life
with the entrance of the clarinet. The highlight of the work is the slow second
movement, a short, very lyrical Arioso, which features a fleeting but beautiful
duet with the oboe. Throughout the movement the orchestra is very subdued,
and in fact is silent for the opening of the finale, which begins unusually
with a cadenza for the clarinet, before launching into a jaunty, almost klezmer-like
Danza Popolare, played Vivace with some virtuosic demands made of the soloist.
Alas, the work ends all too soon.
The clarinet-oboe duo idea of the Concerto's final movement is revisited with
élan in the six-movement neo-Classical-cum-neo-Baroque Concertino,
which was written in 1952, the year Tansman's wife was diagnosed with the
cancer that eventually killed her. On the whole, the music of the Concertino
betrays little of the emotional turmoil Tansman must have been feeling, beginning
with the opening Poulenc-like Overture, which is bursting with sunshine. The
second movement, marked Andante sostenuto, is more chordally mysterious than
downcast, and it soon yields to a Molto vivace Scherzo which reprises the
jollity of the Overture. Tansman's true frame of mind is perhaps revealed
at last in the fourth movement, which is a slow Elegy written - markedly?
- for strings alone. The Elegy is followed by a Canon, which starts off with
solo strings extending the lugubrious mood, before the clarinet and oboe finally
reappear, albeit both wistful - only for them to stop suddenly and the Elegy
return to moving effect for the final two minutes for strings only. Yet for
the brief finale, marked Allegro deciso, optimistic normality is resumed and
the music picks up first the mood, and then the theme of the Overture.
One surprising fact about both the Concerto and the Concertino is that this
is the first time they have been recorded - a shame on clarinettists and music
labels everywhere, but credit to Naxos and the performers on this CD for recognising
this fine music and recording it for posterity.
The Six Movements for Strings was premiered in 1963. The title is a little
misleading - as the liner notes explain, these are not six independent pieces
bound together to make an opus, but "six movements that together form a cycle
whose strong sense of unity derives from a series of deftly conceived internal
relationships." The work begins enigmatically, with an Introduction marked
Andante misterioso, and segues into an Allegro giocoso that is muscly, brisk
and often tonally nebulous, this latter a recurring theme of the work as a
whole. The short Dirge is less pessimistic and more colourful than its title
suggests. The Perpetuum mobile third movement, marked Vivo con fuoco, is a
firecracker of a piece, full of virtuosic techniques, driving rhythms and
more polytonality. The riddles of the Introduction return for the spooky Intermezzo,
which is followed by a pressing Scherzino in which tonality is yet again obfuscated.
The last movement of this superb work - modernist in many ways, yet still
attractive to the general ear - is an exciting chromatic Fugue, which brings
the piece to a satisfying, and once again sudden, end.
In the Six Movements the Silesian Chamber Orchestra under Mirosław Błaszczyk
get a well-deserved turn in the limelight. The Orchestra was founded by Polish
conductor Karol Stryja in 1981, with members drawn from the Silesian Philharmonic,
and it is fitting that they gave this sterling performance, their first for
Naxos, in the Karol Stryja Hall in Katowice, where Stryja died in 1998. Laurent
Decker and especially Jean-Marc Fessard - who was also the clarinettist on
Naxos 8.570235 (review link above) - likewise deserve praise for their own
fine performances.
The quality of sound is excellent, the booklet nicely detailed, and the picture
on the cover is ... the picture on the cover. A quality disc for a quality
composer.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at reviews.gramma.co.uk
A quality disc for a quality composer.