of modern music language, as well as its instrumental colour and rhythmic variation. However, he did not write straight settings of the folk songs, but followed the path of Bela Bartók and Manuel de Falla, as he states in an interview: "I did not use popular themes per se. I used, however, their general melodic contour. Polish folklore is abundantly rich. I think that, along with Spanish folklore, it is the richest in possibilities. I was familiar with Polish folklore very early. [...] This folklore remained strongly present in my musical sensitivity but only as folklore imaginé. I have never used an actual Polish folk song in its original form, nor have I tried to reharmonize one. I find that modernizing a popular song spoils it. It must be preserved in its original harmonization. But Polish character is not solely expressed through folklore. There is something intangible in my music that reveals an aspect of my Polish origin". As Irving Schwerke accurately concluded: "Deeply Polish, thanks to France Tansman became universal". The key determining Tansman’s artistic stance, was his constantly repeated efforts to create a new classical style. It rather meant a broader concept of being a modern classicist than sticking to neoclassical current or any other exclusive system. Although the discrepancy between Tansman’s composing practice and the basic principles of neoclassicism could be observed in the 1940s, the signs of such an attitude were clearly present in his earlier works. Nevertheless, after World War II, Tansman implemented more radical techniques. The afterwar European premiere of his Sextuor à cordes (1940) heralded a "new Tansman style". He introduced more textural contrasts and metrorhythmical complexity (Musique pour orchestre – Symphony No. 8, 1948), applied clusters (opera Sabbataï Zevi, 1957–1958), experimented with new genres and was interested in purely qualitative characteristics of sounds. The coexistence of various constructing principles in one form – an idea of integrating musical material, which he had applied and developed in his composing practice already before the war – led to the clash of different types of expression, which strengthened the drama, dynamics and power of presentation of his music. All this without breaking up with the ceaseless pursuit of his music: to find a new classical style. When reviewing Tansman's oratorio Isaiah, The Prophet in 1955, Alfred Frankenstein and Herbert Donaldson considered it "should be counted among major works of religious music" and admired "the composer's