Alexandre Tansman’s Ballet Music: Sources and Research Perspectives

Łukasz Kaczmarowski

Abstract

After decades of absence from Polish musical culture, the music of Alexandre Tansman is now returning to the country’s concert halls. Orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists are eagerly turning to his rich and varied output, which is also increasingly being explored in academic research and studies of various kinds. Despite this growing interest, there are still some areas of Tansman’s legacy that have not been adequately researched. They certainly include his ballet music. This brief report aims to systematise existing knowledge concerning Tansman’s ballets, list the key sources for their study, and outline research perspectives. There are numerous arguments to support the thesis that ballet was an important field of work for this composer. Among other things, he collaborated with eminent choreographers (Rudolf Laban, Kurt Jooss, Jean Börlin), and his ballets were staged at famous venues (Metropolitan Opera, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées). Some of them, such as Sextuor and La Grande Ville [The big city], gained immense popularity and were repeatedly performed in Europe and the United States. Apart from composing original ballet music, Tansman worked with choreographers to adapt his symphonic works for dance spectacles. His enduring friendship with Igor Stravinsky may also have been significant in the context of his ballet output.

Preliminary archive research conducted thanks to the support of the composer’s daughters has turned up sources that may serve as the basis for further studies. Music autographs kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (both sketches and engraver’s manuscripts), as well as score editions, recordings and such historical records as letters, reviews and iconography may, despite some gaps, make a full-scale study of Alexandre Tansman’s ballet output possible in the future