Review Daniel Blumenthal recorded two discs of Alexandre Tansman's piano music on Etcetera 2021 (Nov/Dec 1993), including one of the sonatinas on this new Chandos. My comments about that earlier release are applicable also here. Tansman (1897-1986), though born in Poland, lived most of his life in Paris and was very much a product of between-the-wars French culture. His style is neoclassic in the Gallic manner--bright, hedonic, superficial, with rich bitonal harmonies, busy textures, jazzy syncopations, and the tossed-off facility typical of such of his contemporaries as Francaix and Milhaud. Like the man himself, the music is cosmopolitan, relaxed, gregarious, and eager to please. But Tansman goes for quantity over quality; he is not a self-critical craftsman, a memorable melodist, or a penetrating intelligence concerned with the logic of artistic imperatives. The music he wrote in the 1980s sounds much like the music he wrote six decades earlier. Everything on this very well played and well recorded collection spanning Tansman's career (Recueil de Mazurkas, Sonata Rustica, Sonatine 3, Three Preludes in the Form of the Blues, Four Nocturnes, Album of Friends) is fluent, idiomatic, genial, and likable. But not a single piece remains in mind after it's heard. -- American Record Guide, Mark L Lehman, November-December 2009Though known today as a composer, Tansman was trained from his youth as a concert pianist. Winning three top prizes at the 1919 Composers' Competition (organized by Paderewski, and the first of its kind in a newly independent Poland) set his future course. He subsequently moved to Paris, became a French citizen, and crafted a compositional style that combined Gallic neo-Classicism with Romantic sensibilities. But Tansman remained active as a pianist, and wrote music for the instrument throughout his life. Fingerhut has made an interesting selection of it here, dating back to 1915-1928 with his Recueil de mazurkas and concluding in 1980 with his Album d'amis. Continuity is apparent from the start. Though Tansman did intensify the level of dissonance in some of his orchestral works during the late 1940s--his final two symphonies from 1948 and 1958 respectively provide evidence of that--little change is apparent in the spare, Ravelian Quatre nocturnes of 1952, dedicated to Stravinsky. The language and structure of the nine varied miniatures that comprise the Album d'amis are still more approachable and typical of the composer throughout his life: heartfelt or witty, exuberant or melancholy, always elegantly phrased and flawlessly crafted--sufficient to supply the needs of a composer whose imagination was not so impoverished that it repeatedly required reinvention through new musical systems over the years. One would look in vain among these works for the profundity of his best orchestral slow movements, such as those that grace the Second and Seventh Symphonies. The sound world of his piano music was formed from the likes of Ravel and Debussy, with secondary influences that included Stravinsky, Gershwin, and (in the bookend movements of the Sonata rustica) Poulenc. The span of these movements is relatively short, their manner intimate rather than monumental. Their message is meant to touch, and delight. Admirers of Tansman's models could do far worse than discover his aeuvre. Margaret Fingerhut is a consistently sensitive, intelligent performer. There are pieces here, such as the Quatre nocturnes, which could benefit from a more pointillistic approach, and others, among them the Sonata rustica, which might benefit from less gentility and more high spirits. But overall, she brings a strong technique and musicianly instincts to her performances, turning in a fine performance as Tansman's advocate. Some of the highlights on this disc include her playfully stamping third mazurka in the Recueil de mazurkas; the bluesy, slow movement of the Troisième sonatine played with refreshingly straightforward lyricism; and the clarity of cross rhythms and accents in the Étude from the Album d'amis. With good sound, a fine selection of music, and attractive liner notes, this is easily recommended for both its music and its performer. -- Fanfare, Barry Brenesal, Jan-Feb 2010