For Henri TOMASI, talking about music brought to life a way of life. His work exudes a perpetual gift, linked to an unrelenting desire for freedom, which the Concerto for Guitar and the symphonic poem Chant pour le Vietnam brought to fruition.
Henri TOMASI loved simplicity and discretion: they produced authentic masterpieces, but ones that are still too little known. The spontaneity of his inspiration projected an emotion into his works that was enriched by his sunny writing style. The omnipresent Mediterranean spirit filled his symphonic pages with a shimmering brilliance. Henri TOMASI had an intense predilection for orchestral expression: ‘I feel the orchestra,’ he said. The symphonic language corresponded to his generous nature, the sounds rushing onto the score with remarkable ease. Borrowing from Corsican folklore, which he particularly loved, Henri TOMASI transcended it, freeing it from its purely descriptive character and colouring it with poetry full of vitality.
What is more, he found in the voice the most expressive counterpart to his temperament. In addition to the delicate and picturesque melodies he composed, his operas achieve an intrinsic fusion of his inspiration, symbolism with deeply human resonances, and counterpoint strongly characterised by a rhythm that is both delightfully disjointed and warmly passionate. L’Atlantide, Sampiero Corso, and above all Don Juan de Mañara, a masterpiece that the Paris Opera should add to its repertoire, radiate a serene and sovereign azure light, clouded by a spellbinding harmonic enchantment. Furthermore, the frequent use of brass instruments creates a mysticism in Henri TOMASI’s work that is both ancient and exhilarating. The famous Fanfares Liturgiques, one of Miguel Mañara’s most endearing pieces, maintain this strange mixture of solemnity and suffering, struggle and victory, pain and joy.
Henri Tomasi’s music draws on emotion: ‘I continue to compose according to my sensibility and my aesthetic,’ he said recently. Through his harmonies, we grasp cosmic visions in which the presence of a soul vibrates. Henri Tomasi rejects performance for its own sake. His sound universe does not claim to be a philosophical demonstration; it translates a sensitive expression. It draws its essence from a melody of exalted contrasts, capable of the most secret confidences as well as the most impassioned outpourings. This music of flesh and blood has engraved on the score the powerful breath of a heart that has never ceased to love.
Whether in the Violin Concerto – a tragic and feverish rhapsody – or the Guitar Concerto – the bitter and resigned lament of a dying body – the melodic warmth evolves through the supple vigour of a style that happily combines confident skill with prodigious inspiration. In Henri TOMASI’s work, lyricism combines the brilliance of ardent counterpoint with the modesty of feelings.
Henri TOMASI’s abundant oeuvre proclaims what he was: a man of heart. Open-minded about a world that worried him, but where he knew how to make insightful choices, demonstrating a culture he considered to be an accomplishment of the heart, Henri TOMASI never ceased to exalt life.
Edouard Exerjean,
January 1971