Simon Corley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Bert Bailey wrote:
>
>>I believe he had some contacts with Martinu and Roussel in Paris in the
>>20s/30s.
>
>Indeed.  Wasn't he related to the so called 'Ecole de Paris' ('Paris
>school') during the 1930s? Most of them, except probably Martinu, are now
>almost forgotten: Tibor Harsanyi, Marcel Mihalovici, Vittorio Rieti or
>Alexandre Tansman.  To be true, I'm not sure that all these were 'members'
>of this unformal group, but I also may have forgotten some of their
>names...

Yes, A. Tcherepnin was one of the members of this school, which also
included Swiss composer Conrad Beck.

They were all quite different from each other.  And...  Tcherepnin
himself encompasses a wide stylistic range.  Symphony No. 3 (mentioned
by Karl Miller, although I am not so allergic to the commercial recording)
was subtitled "Chinese" but probably not by Tcherepnin himself.  It is
closer to Respighi, actually...  But Symphony No. 1 caused a kind of
scandal when it was premiered, in 1926, I think.  The "scherzo" is scored
for percussions alone, if I remember correctly!  A very singular and
interesting piece, very redolent of its time and place.  Tcherepnin used
a scale of his own, with a slightly Oriental character, but I could not
say whether he kept it throughout his career.

As for the other members of the Ecole de Paris, Harsanyi was a really
fine composer, and his music is both cheerfully French and Hungarian.
It is somewhat close to composers like Milhaud or Delvincourt, but with
a vigour and brilliant, warm orchestral palette which are all his own.
I missed the beginning of his symphony (completed in 1952, year of his
death) but what I heard was both attractive and deeply satisfying.
Mihalovici also wrote a motoric 2d symphony (giocosa) and a starker, more
lyrical "Sinfonia cantata", along with 4 other symphonies, and a ballet
("Krapp"?) which was very successful in its time.  Rieti is enjoying a
kind of revival these days, some call him the Italian Poulenc, others
the spiritual father of Nino Rota.  He was also close to neo-classical
Stravinsky.  Tansman is almost a household name in France, but only for
very few pieces for young pianists.  On the other hand, he is apparently
being "rediscovered" in Poland (maybe Tadeusz could tell more about this).
I never heard his wartime symphonies, especially No.  6 (No.  5 was
released by Marco Polo), but his late Sinfonietta No.  2 (1978) is
captivating throughout, if surprisingly restrained, in a sense.  One of my
friends considered his violin concerto "the best of the century"...  (I
never heard it myself.) Finally, Beck was very prolific during the early
30s (4 or 5 symphonies completed before he was 30, including a "Concerto
for Orchestra").  He was the closest to Hindemith, and his duos for strings
can be compared to Hindemith's indeed.  Later, he became slightly more
lyrical, but always in a deeply serious vein, contrapunctal and finely
balanced (Symphony Aeneas- Silvius, once available on a CTS LP).

Of course, Martinu seems to be the most universal of all beyond his
unmistakably Czech sense of flow, but A.Tcherepnin seems to have been,
in his eclectism and curiosity, a real citizen of the world.

Best regards,

Thanh-Tam Le
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