Margaret Fingerhut - Tansman- Works for Solo Piano (2009/2022) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

We now embark on the piano music and a deeply personal project for soloist Margaret Fingerhut. ‘My curiosity about the piano music of Tansman began over 20 years ago when I encountered the delightfully languid Berceuse he wrote for the album of Hommages to Roussel, and which I recorded for Chandos. The fact that he was born in Lodz, Poland, where my great-grandparents also came from, spurred me on to find out more about him, and since then I have been assiduously collecting his piano works - quite a task as it turns out that in the course of his long composing career Tansman was nothing if not prolific!’

‘I feel his music deserves to be revalued and heard by a new generation of listeners, and so I wanted to create a CD to present an overview of his unique style and musical language. While the influences of Ravel, Poulenc, Milhaud and Stravinsky are apparent, along with jazz-inspired techniques, he himself professed his music to be rooted in his native Polish culture. So the starting point for this disc had to be his Mazurkas – after all, he wrote more of them than almost any other composer except for that other famous Polish exile-in-Paris, Chopin! Listen to his 2nd Mazurka to be transported to a world filled with gentle sweet melancholy. For me his piano music abounds in lyrical expression, tenderness, elegance, grace, good humour and exuberant virtuosity (he loved writing on three staves with huge leaps at great speed!). It seems such a shame that the forces of dogma and experimentalism which ruled Paris since the Second World War left so many casualties in their wake, composers like Tansman who determinedly stuck with neoclassicism and who were not afraid of melody. It is my hope that his individual voice can speak to us afresh’.

TRACKLIST

1. Margaret Fingerhut - I. Oberek. Vivo
2. Margaret Fingerhut - II. Moderato - Più lento
3. Margaret Fingerhut - III. Oberek. Molto vivo
4. Margaret Fingerhut - IV. Andante espressivo
5. Margaret Fingerhut - V. Modéré
6. Margaret Fingerhut - VI. Moderato
7. Margaret Fingerhut - VII. Moderato
8. Margaret Fingerhut - VIII. Moderato
9. Margaret Fingerhut - IX. Oberek. Molto vivace - Molto meno mosso
10. Margaret Fingerhut - X. Berceuse. Lento
11. Margaret Fingerhut - I. Allegro agreste - Un poco meno vivo
12. Margaret Fingerhut - II. Cantilena. Largo
13. Margaret Fingerhut - III. Danza festiva. Molto allegro - Un poco meno mosso
14. Margaret Fingerhut - I. Pastorale. Animé
15. Margaret Fingerhut - II. Hymne. Lento
16. Margaret Fingerhut - III. Rondo. Presto
17. Margaret Fingerhut - I. Lento cantabile
18. Margaret Fingerhut - II. Moderato
19. Margaret Fingerhut - III. Moderato
20. Margaret Fingerhut - I. Moderato
21. Margaret Fingerhut - II. Moderato
22. Margaret Fingerhut - III. Moderato
23. Margaret Fingerhut - IV. Lento
24. Margaret Fingerhut - I. Notturno (à Béatrice Decamps). Moderato
25. Margaret Fingerhut - II. Tempo di Blues (à Philippe Marietti). Andante cantabile
26. Margaret Fingerhut - III. Tempo di Mazur (à Janusz Cegiella). Allegro con moto
27. Margaret Fingerhut - IV. Canzonetta (à Pierre Hasquenoph). Lento
28. Margaret Fingerhut - V. Caprice (à Eugène Indjic). A piacere
29. Margaret Fingerhut - VI. Pastorale (à Irène et Tadeusz Zielinski). Lento
30. Margaret Fingerhut - VII. Étude (pour Monique et Marcel Mihalovici). Allegro vivace
31. Margaret Fingerhut - VIII. Hommage à Liszt (à Lulu et Vladimir Jankelevitch). Andante cantabile
32. Margaret Fingerhut - IX. Berceuse Polonaise (à la Direction et au Personnel des Éditions Max Eschig). Très lent



Thanks to the Original customer.