Tansman's Piano Music

I love teaching 20th Century and Contemporary music because primary, elementary and intermediate repertoire is so diverse and abundant.
Tansman is one of my favorite composers and yet, I do not hear a lot of students performing his pieces.
Tansman has a very diverse background (I will post a few links about him at the bottom of this article). It would be a shame not to expose students to his music.

If you want to keep students interested in sight-reading, I believe you should give them beautiful music to read. Modern harmonies are more attractive to students then transcribed folk or classical.

I recommend Tansman's collections: On S'Amuse Au Piano
Je Joue Pour Papa
Je Joue Pour Maman
Ten Diversions for the Young Pianist
Novelettes Pour Piano
Vingt Pieces Faciles Sur Des Melodies Populaires
Polonaises.
Pour Les Enfants

Happy Times or On S'Amuse Au Piano is my student's favorite! Even adults cherish these books. They offer progressive technique development since they are somewhat contrapuntal, and therefore help students develop independent hands.

Book I (Primary): levels 2 and 3
Common Tones (#3) is wonderful for sight-reading allowing students to spot connections between two beats.
These are so popular with my students that I am starting to get tired of them :)

Book II (Elementary):levels 4 and 5
I love these pieces!!! The melodies are so beautiful that students learn phrasing with no afford at all.

Book III (Intermediate): levels 6 and 7
Some pieces were inspired by Gershwin, Schumann and Bach
If you don't own it, order it right now!

You can find more detailed explanations about all of these pieces on The Pianist's Guide to Stand Teaching and Performance Literature by Jane Magrath. . You can also find descriptions for all Pour Les Enfants on Marath's book.

A great collection for SIGHT-READING is Vingt Pieces Faciles:
These 20 pieces are very short and go through lots of different keys. Most of them are written in 4 voices. I use them to test levels 6 and above. They are not, however, as easy as the title suggests. Intervals are wide and they are very chromatic. Harmonies are sophisticated making hard to predict what is coming next. The sight-reader has to be paying lots of attention.

Another favorite is Ten Diversions for the Young Pianist (level 7):
Very beautiful slow pieces (adults also like them) requiring lots of introspection. For mature students. The fast pieces, on the other hand, are exciting and somewhat virtuosic.

Novelletes: This is also a precious set that I bumped into while working on this project. I can not believe I did not know it before :( I will list their titles bellow in order to illustrate how diverse in style they are.
- Caprice
- Etude
- Exotique (Danse Javanaise)
- Danse Tzigane
- Obertas (Danse Polonaise)
- Blues
- Prelude Et Fugue
- Improvisation

Je Joue Pour Papa and Je Joue Pour Maman (beginners):
Tanman wrote "douze morceaux tres faciles et en grosses notes" (12 little pieces very easy and with big notes).
Measures go from 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 and 2/2.
Key signatures are: C,a,G,e,D,F,d.
There are many dances that explore ties, broken intervals and chords, balance, the C Major scale and sequences.
Because of the size of the notes, they are great to teach how to read intervals and to recognize "chunks".
Low points: a) melodically they are the least attractive pieces Tansman has written; b) the edition I have (Esching) does a good job with the large print but the fingering is bad and the teacher has to add phrasing. There are none.

I have bumped into a lot more of Tansman's piano music during the past months. They are not suitable for student's sight-reading because of their higher level.

I will write more about repertoire in future postings.

www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Tansman-Alexandre.htm
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Tansman
www.musimem.com/tansman_eng.htm