Evocation of Dance

EVOCATION
OF DANCE
DANCE ON IVORIES
A spray of Broadway melodies, a fantasia of blissful Viennese waltzes, an impressionistic
habanera, a “doubted Polka” – all together on one recording, completely in harmony with
possibly the most infamous musical scandal: Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “THE RITE OF SPRING”!
How does all this go together? At first glance, not at all. However, the piano duo TWO4PIANO
creates more connecting references on its debut CD than are noticeable at first.
First of all, there is the fixed musical star of Igor Stravinsky that everything else to revolves
around. The other composers circle around this ingenious, style-defining Russian exile in one
way or the other – with Claude Debussy leading the way. It was Debussy, after all, with whom
Stravinsky personally played the first performance of the “Rite” in a piano version; however, in
a version for piano four-hands (the present recording is played on two pianos). The delicate,
poetic musician is said to have called this experience a “beautiful nightmare” later on. His own
onomatopoeia is represented in the piece “LINDARAJA”.
Alexandre Tansman (1897–1986), a Polish exile, was a friend and admirer of Stravinsky too. He
was even acquainted with him to such an extent that he wrote his biography; it was published
in Paris in 1948. Tansman was in contact with other famous colleagues, too, such as Béla Bartók
and Darius Milhaud. In addition to that, Tansman succeeded in writing nine symphonies, a
“magical” number. Being a multi-talented composer, Tansman wrote quite a number of pieces
of film music, too, when living in Hollywood. It fits, therefore, that in 1941, after spending some
years in Paris, the Polish exile immigrated to the United States with the assistance of Charlie
Chaplin. Nevertheless, it is those years in Paris that are most audible in his “FANTAISIE SUR LES
VALSES DE JOHANN STRAUSS” (comparing it to Ravel’s “La Valse”, for example).
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