Alexander Tansman

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 Polish identity influenced several orchestral and chamber works, such as Rapsodie polonaise and Quatre Danses polonaises, and some guitar works, such as Hommage à Lech Walesa and Hommage à Chopin. His music is often said to be primarily neoclassical, drawing on his Polish Jewish heritage as well as his French musical influences.

Tansman was born and raised in the Polish city of Łódź during the era when Poland did not exist as an independent state, being part of Tsarist Russia.

The composer wrote the following about his childhood and heritage in a 1980 letter to an American researcher:

Though he began his musical studies at the Łódź Conservatory, his doctoral study was in law at the University of Warsaw. Shortly after completing his studies, Tansman moved to Paris, where his musical ideas were accepted and encouraged by mentors and musical influences Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel, as opposed to the more conservative musical climate in his native Poland. While in Paris, Tansman associated with a crowd of foreign-born musicians known as the École de Paris; though Honegger and Milhaud tried to persuade him to join Les Six, he declined, stating a need for creative independence. Tansman later wrote a biography of Stravinsky that was extremely well received.

Tansman used to describe himself as a French–Polish composer; he spoke French at home and married a French pianist, Colette Cras, daughter of the French composer and Admiral Jean Cras.

In 1941, Tansman fled Europe, as his Jewish background put him in danger with Hitler's rise to power. He moved to Los Angeles, thanks to the efforts of his friend Charlie Chaplin in founding a committee visa, where he soon joined the circle of famous emigrated artists that included Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and others. Tansman composed the score for at least three Hollywood movies: Flesh and Fantasy, starring Barbara Stanwyck, and a biopic of the Australian medical researcher Sister Elizabeth Kenny, starring Rosalind Russell. He scored six films in all. For the 1946 Academy Awards ceremony, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, for Paris Underground. There was a huge field of 21 nominations, and the winner was Miklós Rózsa for Spellbound.

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