The Rhapsody is hit-and-miss but the Tansman is revealed as a hidden gem After Alexandre Tansman performed his own Second Piano Concerto, George Gershwin embraced the pianist/composer backstage, called him a genius, and launched a lifelong friendship. When, upon Ravel’s recommendation, Gershwin asked Tansman’s friend Nadia Boulanger for composition lessons in 1928, she turned him down, in fear that he’d risk spoiling a fully formed musical personality. That’s the Tansman/Boulanger/Gershwin triangle in a nutshell, and the basis for this disc’s programme.

One can hear why Tansman’s concerto bowled Gershwin over. The work gushes with punchy orchestrations (especially in the brass and percussion departments), while the piano writing is built to sizzle and project like crazy across the footlights. Although one might superficially glean stylistic allusions to Ravel, early Prokofiev, Milhaud, Honegger and the like, some of the Scherzo and finale’s antiphonal passages seem to foreshadow Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie. At the same time, the Lento touchingly demonstrates Tansman’s gift for lyric simplicity.

Although Nadia Boulanger was far less known for her creative efforts than her pedagogy, the three-part Fantaisie certainly demonstrates the young composer’s assured craft and ability to fashion orchestral textures that are richly varied and opulent without sounding thick. As you listen, don’t be surprised if Franck, d’Indy, late Fauré and even traces of Reger come to mind.

Ferde Grofé’s Whiteman Band orchestrations for Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue inspire an appropriately loose-knit ensemble sensibility within the Radio France Philharmonic’s members, especially in the first-desk solo licks. As for the solo piano part, Greilsammer hits and misses. Sometimes he’s right on the idiomatic money (his first unaccompanied cadenza), other times he imposes push/pull rubatos and tapered phrases that have more to do with the interpretative gestures of generic Romantic piano music than the music’s direct, forward impetus. In any event, pianist, conductor and orchestra make a compelling case for both the Tansman Second Concerto as a minor masterpiece well worth reviving, and the Boulanger Fantaisie as a fascinating glimpse into this justly revered teacher’s “other life”.