I've been a huge Tansman fan for quite some time and the Blumenthal recordings are pretty satisfactory. One must remember that sonatas 2 through 5, the first sonatine, and perhaps also the Suite Variee have no other accessible recordings and are pieces on the borderline of complete neglect. Alongside Diane Andersen's recording of the 36 mazurkas (in four books), that two disc set has helped my study of his work along pretty well. The Fingerhut recording is good also, though I haven't really warmed up to her version of the first mazurka book vis-a-vis Andersen's. Many other piano works, including many preludes, toccatas, etudes, etc... have not yet been recorded.
Tansman's music comes highly recommended, especially if you like chamber music. He tends to touch the same bases in a lot of his works, but the general standard of excellence he adhered to is noteworthy. I'm reluctant to label him a Gershwin imitator, although doubtlessly some portion of his work bears similarity (the works I've heard for piano and orchestra call this to mind). My favorite works of his are the string quartets, the piano trio no. 2 (no. 1 was lost), the sonata for two violins, the Partita for cello/piano, and the 'Musique' pieces for clarinet, strings, and piano. Now is a prime time to really explore his monstrous oeuvre (perhaps on the same magnitude as Martinu), seeing that Chandos recently finished a three-disc series covering his complete symphonies (including an exceedingly-rare performance of the 3rd one, which is a concert-setting of a piano quartet in front of an orchestra).
I've recently been puzzling through his youthful works from the early 1920s, which found him early-on writing in a heavily free-tonal language that often yields end results none-too-dissimilar from dodecaphonic compositions (simply lacking any discernible serial methods). Attempting harmonic analysis of his work requires one to take into account that he often worked on pieces with key centers a tritone apart, a polytonal springboard which renders all twelve notes game. The first sonatine (which I'm currently studying) uses this quite a bit, and plays a lot with harmonies built atop the common B natural that exists in both the keys of C and F#.
All in all, I find him to be a solid, excellent composer, worthy of the level of attention that similar composers like Milhaud and Martinu deserve. Like those two and others of that generation, I feel that he's in need of a slightly better critical appraisal, as snob music enthusiasts are often quick to shelf him as being 'neoclassical' or a Gershwin/Stravinsky regurgitation while they rush to fellate the newest holy-minimalist post-modern bullcrap. On another note, the more I've become downright disgusted in our current variety of budding 'composers', whose scant level of creative output and overwhelming level of Cage-inspired philosophical horseshit hamstrings them and alienates musicians, the more I've come to value composers of Tansman's ilk who actually knew how to work/learn/play with discipline and showed respect to the classical and baroque traditions while keeping up to speed with modern changes.
I also think more musicians need to play his works...not just bassoonists who can't find repertoire.
I hope this is helpful. Sorry for responding to this post a month or so behind.
