La Princesse Lointaine by Jean Carzou (1907-2000).

What is it in the French psyche that makes so many of its people attracted to the “dark side” in literature?

Whether it’s the symbolists like Maurice Maeterlinck and Paul Verlaine, the noir novels of David Goodis or the dissolute stories and poetry of Edgar Allen Poe (as translated masterfully by Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé), there has always been an audience in France that is hungry to devour these works.

And in the case of Verlaine and Poe, this interest seeped into the musical world as well. No fewer than three important French composers wrote music inspired by Poe’s literary works.

Claude Debussy wrote an unfinished opera based on The Fall of the House of Usher, while André Caplet composed a “Conte Fantastique” on the subject of Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. And Florent Schmitt created Le Palais Hanté, Op. 49, a symphonic poem based on yet another work by Poe, The Haunted Palace.

Schmitt’s tone poem, which was completed in 1904, is constructed in a Lisztian tradition, which isn’t surprising. The German-Hungarian master was the inventor of the symphonic poem, completing 13 explicitly named works in his composing career along with two large-scale symphonies (Dante and Faust) that could easily be considered extended symphonic poems.

The Lisztian tradition was taken up in France in the late 1800s by such composers as César Franck (Le Chasseur maudit and Les Djinns), Henri Duparc (Lénore), Ernest Chausson (Viviane and Soir de Fête),Ernest Guiraud (Chasse fantastique), and Camille Saint-Saëns (who penned four of them).

Indeed, Schmitt’s essay is one of the very last in the French line of Lisztian-inspired tone poems — although several other less-known French composers like Paul Ladmirault and Philippe Gaubert would produce a few others in the years following.

I find Le Palais Hanté to be a finely crafted piece that is highly effective in portraying Poe’s “haunted palace of the mind” as a symbol of mental illness, with the increasingly manic music representing the breakdown of rational thought and order.

Here are the words to Poe’s poem that inspired Schmitt to write this music:

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace —
Radiant palace — reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion —
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This — all this — was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! — for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travelers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh — but smile no more.

The Haunted Palace received its first recording in 1983, in an EMI release featuring Georges Prêtre conducting L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. That interpretation remains my personal favorite, in part because I find that the conductor brings out the “manic” aspects of the music in a terrifyingly thrilling fashion.

The Georges Prêtre recording can be found here on YouTube. If you listen to it, I think you’ll agree that the conductor is highly effective in bringing forth what the French musicologist Harry Halbreich has written about this score:  ”The musical flow, whipped on by its relentless dactyles, hurls itself like a rushing torrent to a brutal, dramatic conclusion.”

There have been two later recordings of this music made: Yan-Pascal Tortelier with the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, and Leon Botstein with the American Symphony Orchestra. (The Botstein/ASO recording is taken from a live concert performance at New York City’s Lincoln Center in 1999, while the Tortelier/OSESP recording was made in 2011.) Both are well-crafted interpretations, if not quite as exciting (and harrowing) as the EMI recording.

And there’s even a two-piano recording made of this music, played using the composer’s own piano-reduction score. While that version certainly qualifies as an interesting curiosity, there’s no question that Schmitt’s highly inventive orchestration is a big part of what gives this piece its special appeal.

Meeting up with Maestra JoAnn Falletta and Meastro Jorge Mester at the Conductor Training Workshop in December 2012 … and discussing the music of Florent Schmitt.

Last month, I caught up with music directors JoAnn Falletta and Jorge Mester while observing the fine students at the Conductor Training Workshop in Virginia Beach, VA. Maestra Falletta and Maestro Mester are among the eminent conducting faculty who mentor members of the Conductors Guild in workshops held in various cities in North America and overseas.

Both conductors are great proponents of French music of the late-Romantic and early Twentieth Century periods. Maestra Falletta has championed the music of Florent Schmitt in the concert hall, conducting the North American premiere performances of the Antoine et Cléopâtre Suite No. 1 in 2010. Maestro Mester has made noteworthy premiere recordings of compositions by Charles Koechlin, Jacques Ibert and Ernest Guiraud as part of the Louisville Orchestra’s “First Edition” recording series.

I had the opportunity to ask both conductors to talk about the music of Florent Schmitt and its significance in the orchestral repertoire.

PLN: What is your impression of the music of Florent Schmitt, and how would you rate its importance?

JAF: Florent Schmitt is rooted in the French tradition, but he has more of a modern edge than other composers of the time.  His was an individual voice. Florent Schmitt’s music is less impressionistic and more progressive than other composers of his generation.

To me, Schmitt seems to be of a more modern sensibility, and truly individual in his approach to rhythm and phrasing. He’s very dramatic in places, and more theatrical. Of course, the Antony & Cleopatra music was originally composed for the theatre as was La Tragédie de Salomé. And both works are beautifully scored.

PLN: Florent Schmitt’s music has been described as being quite difficult to perform. Is this characterization accurate?

JAF: The Antony & Cleopatra score was a fantastic discovery for me and for the players of the Virginia Symphony and Buffalo Philharmonic, both of which performed it. It’s very subtle, very nuanced. It’s very difficult music rhythmically – hard to play but extremely rewarding.

JM: I remember playing La Tragédie de Salomé as a violist in the Juilliard Orchestra back in the 1950s. I enjoyed it very much. But I also remember that it was difficult for the orchestra to grasp the music. There’s this one theme in the piece that was particularly challenging because it sounded so much like a passage from the Brahms Violin Concerto – I believe it was in 12/8 time. There were a lot of syncopations in the music that were extremely difficult to nail.

JAF: As you can see, Jorge knew Florent Schmitt’s music long before I discovered him!

JM: Yes, that’s true! And I was playing this music under my teacher, Jean Morel. He was a French conductor who was famous for his work with the opera, but he also conducted the Juilliard Orchestra in works such as the Salomé that he knew well. This was at a time when few other conductors were paying much attention to this music.

JAF:  And you know, Schmitt’s music is undergoing a renaissance now. La Tragédie de Salomé in particular has become quite popular.

PLN: Did Maestro Morel explain to the orchestra why he chose Schmitt’s music to perform …?

JM: I wish that he would have explained his rationale, but that wasn’t his style. He never talked to the orchestra about anything! To him, conducting was a silent art.

Jean Morel, French conductor and friend of composer Florent Schmitt, taught Jorge Mester at Juilliard in the 1950s.

[Following this interview, I discovered that the New York Public Library holds more than 50 boxes of archival documents and papers pertaining to Jean Morel’s career at the Juilliard School and the Metropolitan Opera. These include many study scores and full conducting scores with Morel’s own handwritten annotations. Among them are Florent Schmitt’s scores to Psaume XLVII and La Tragédie de Salomé, inscribed to Maestro Morel by the composer himself. Clearly, the two Frenchmen were well-acquainted … and hence Morel’s interpretations of Schmitt’s music were likely quite "authentic."]

PLN: What other observations can you share about Jean Morel and his artistry?

JM: Morel was a percussionist, a pianist and a conductor. He was a person who exacted the utmost precision in thinking and analyzing problems having to do with conducting. He instilled in us the notion that whenever you look at a score, you should think, “What is the first thing I need to do in order to make the orchestra understand this piece?”

Morel was a tremendous technician, and he did not suffer fools. He was also a most elegant man; when he walked out on stage, he never allowed his tails to touch any of the chairs!

I remember the very first time I met Morel. I had a score with me that included the piano reduction and also an analysis by some obscure musicologist. I asked him, “What do you think of this, Maestro?”

His tart reply: “Ah, a rich boy.”

But later on, he used to call me and ask, “What are you doing?”

“I’m studying,” I’d reply.

“Ah, you study too much. Forget that. Let’s have dinner.” I saw him that way for years and years. Believe me, those were very memorable, very rewarding times.

And today, we are indeed fortunate to have great artistic directors like JoAnn Falletta and Jorge Mester who champion the music of Florent Schmitt and other French composers of the era. Along with Leon Botstein, these conductors have done more than their share to introduce this worthwhile music to North American audiences via concert performances and recordings.  We owe them a debt of gratitude.

One of the more interesting compositions by Florent Schmitt is Mirages, Op. 70. This work exists in two versions: its original piano form composed in 1920/21, and a later orchestration prepared by the composer in 1923 and premiered in 1924 by Schmitt’s friend, the conductor Serge Koussevitzky.

I find the Mirages to be one of Schmitt’s most compelling works, even though it doesn’t fall into the composer’s famous “orientalist” group of compositions. Its two highly contrasting movements show two vital sides of Schmitt’s musical personality: ruminatively languid as well as harshly emphatic.

Even in its pianistic form, this music is an implicitly symphonic conception – undoubtedly contributing to the effectiveness of the later orchestration which is so impressive not just on first hearing, but also in subsequent listening.

Contributing to the effectiveness of the music is the inspiration for both pieces, which comes from literature: the French symbolist poet Paul Fort and the British writer Lord Byron.

The first of the two Mirages numbers is titled Tristisse de Pan. It’s a work that is opulent and near-magical in its mood and color. Schmitt does an incredible job evoking in musical terms the themes of Fort’s ballad:

The French symbolist poet Paul Fort (1872-1960).

“… Pan leaned on his elbows deep down in the lunar wheat fields. Then, from neighboring woods, the nightingale sings to a beautiful full moon, which, on the rising tills of its voice … it seems to be resting – better than a flower on a fountain.

Pan falls silent; does not interfere … inattentive to the reed, and sad. Leaning his elbows on the ground, he feels the weight of his entire necklace made of dead moons …

Is he thinking about the dead gods? Is he thinking about the works that his flute revisited: the rivers, the breeze, the forests, the dawn – all works of the dead gods?

… And suddenly, Pan forever throws to the ground the supreme shout of love.”

In its short six-minute duration, Schmitt conveys the full range of emotions suggested by the original ballad.

The French historian and musicologist Michel Fleury makes an insightful point about this compelling musical picture when he wrote these words about it: “With this moving piece, Schmitt closes the magical book opened 30 years earlier by [Claude Debussy’s] Prélude a l-après-midi d’un faune.”

In the second piece making up the Mirages, Schmitt turned to a very different subject: the poem Mazeppa by Lord Byron. Based on a legend and set in the times when the Polish kingdom stretched from the Lithuanian Baltic seacoast all the way to the Black Sea, Mazeppa is a nobleman accused of being the lover of a rival nobleman’s wife. He is sentenced to be tied down on a wild horse that is released into the woods.

Mazeppa’s tortuous ride nearly kills him, but after the steed falls exhausted, the unconscious nobleman is rescued by the local farmers, eventually becoming the leader of the Ukrainian people.

Florent Schmitt titled this movement La Tragique chevauchée, and its depiction of Mazeppa’s wild ride in the orchestrated version of the piece is overwhelming in its impact. 

[For classical music buffs who know the Mazeppa tone poem of Franz Liszt, that earlier essay doesn't come close to matching the visceral impact of Schmitt's musical picture.]

Personally, I find Schmitt’s original piano version of this movement somewhat ineffective; in my view, the horse’s braying, bucking and galloping rhythm doesn’t seem to be realized too well in pianistic terms. But that is not an issue at all in the  orchestration, where Schmitt is able to deliver an aural experience that is shattering in its impact.

And then again … what makes the piece more than simply an orchestral tour de force is the inclusion of a plaintive theme that represents the suffering and resignation of Mazeppa. This line rises above the pounding hoofbeats to bring a kind of noble beauty to the otherwise horrific atmosphere.

In the end, as the exhausted Mazeppa is rescued from near-death, Schmitt evokes the turn of fate in masterful fashion.  As the French musicologist and fellow-composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud once noted, “Leaning softly on the strings, the oboe, followed by the trumpet, the clarinet and the horn in solo, pour out the sweetness of their balm …”

The Mirages is a piece of music that has grown on me over time. Originally familiar only with the original piano version, I was most immediately drawn to the Pan movement, finding the Chevauchée harsh, awkward-sounding and overly repetitive.

I’ve changed that initial assessment completely now that we have a recording of the 1923 orchestration available — a marvelous interpretation featuring L’Orchestre National de Lorraine directed by conductor and Schmitt advocate Jacques Mercier. You can sample this recording here, courtesy of YouTube.

Interestingly, just as the Pan movement has been described as “closing the book” that had been opened by Claude Debussy in his Afternoon of a Faun, the Tragique chevauchée represents the last in a line of French compositions that depict “wild rides” based on various different literary inspirations.

In addition to Schmitt’s essay, three others that are well-worth hearing are:

• Lénore, by Henri Duparc (1874), after a ballad by Gottfried August Bürger (performed by Michel Plasson and L’Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse)

• Le Chasseur maudit by César Franck (1880), after a different ballad by Gottfried August Bürger (performed by Désiré Defauw and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra)

• Chasse fantastique by Ernest Guiraud (1887), after Victor Hugo (performed by Jorge Mester and the Louisville Orchestra)

Each of these fine compositions is worthy in its own right … but Schmitt’s piece is clearly the most advanced and packs the greater emotional punch.

At least that’s my personal view; see what you think.

The Invencia Piano Duo (Oksana Lutsyshyn + Andrey Kasparov) have recorded all of the duo-piano compositions of Florent Schmitt, including a number of world premieres.

One of the most exciting recent recording projects featuring the music of Florent Schmitt is the complete duo-piano music being released in 2012-13 by Naxos Grand Piano. The four-CD traversal is performed by the Invencia Piano Duo: Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn.

The first of the four volumes in the series was released in late 2012 to positive critical acclaim. The second volume is due for U.S. release in March 2013, with the final two CDs planned for release later in the year.

Beyond its very substantial musical attractions, the project merits particular attention because of the extensive number of world premiere recordings it contains.

Recently, I asked Oksana Lutsyshyn and Andrey Kasparov to share some of their thoughts about Florent Schmitt’s duo-piano music and its importance in the piano repertoire.

PLN: When did you first become aware of the piano music of Florent Schmitt? What attracted you to his compositions?

IPD: It was in the mid 1990s when we started working on a CD called “Hommages musicaux” that contained two cycles: Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy and Hommage à Gabriel Fauré. Florent Schmitt had contributed a piano piece to each of these cycles.

We were captivated by the richness of Schmitt’s multi-layered harmonies and textures, as well as the vitality of the rhythmic structures in the music. We realized we had made an interesting discovery.

PLN: What aspects of Schmitt’s piano music to you find particularly noteworthy?

IPD: Independence. One can easily tell that Schmitt composed as he wanted to at a particular time — and for purely artistic motivations– without needing to please any political group or alliance.

PLN: Alfred Cortot has described Florent Schmitt’s piano music as sounding like “many hands … full of notes.” Do you agree?

IPD: Absolutely. Cortot hit the nail on the head.

PLN: In your recording series for Grand Piano, you are including a number of world premieres. Of these, which ones do you consider to be particularly impressive and worthy of rediscovery?

IPD: Really all of them are impressive — and for different reasons. For instance, Sur cinq notes and the eight Courtes pièces are fantastic as pedagogical repertoire.

Musiques foraines dwarfs Bizet’s Jeux d’enfants in its virtuosity and audacity.

Sept pièces, on the other hand, radiates an incredible coloristic palette, while Trois pièces récréatives would be absolutely wonderful as an encore, and so on. All of these works are worthy of attention.

PLN: Volume 1 of your series contains an unpublished work, the “Rhapsodie parisienne,” which I loved getting to know. What can you tell us about this piece and Schmitt’s intentions for it when he composed it in 1900?

IPD: This is one of two unpublished duets by Schmitt, and we can see pencil notations in the score that clearly indicate the composer intended to orchestrate it. The exuberant energy and brilliance of this composition evoke the manner of Emmanuel Chabrier’s orchestral writing.

Equally striking are the intricate polymeters and intense dynamic development that foreshadow Maurice Ravel’s La Valse by nearly two decades. We agree that it’s a wonderful piece of music.

PLN: In addition to recording the complete duo-piano repertoire, you have performed some of these works in recital over the past several years. What’s been the audience reaction and receptivity to the music?

IPD: It’s been very positive but varies depending on the piece, the overall program, the acoustic environment, the quality of the pianos and the contingent of listeners in the audience.

For instance, we played Reflets d’Allemagne for the German Society of Philadelphia where the work was warmly received and well appreciated. A warm reception is always given to Musiques foraines also, although at times the sheer virtuosity of this work (as well as some other Schmitt works) may catch an unprepared listener off-guard.

And speaking of virtuosity, we think this is a feature of Schmitt’s piano music that may have scared performers away. In fact, we don’t even know if some of the piano duet works were ever given an “official” premiere in Europe before we gave them exposure here in the United States!

PLN: Now that more than 50 years have passed since his death, what do you consider to be Schmitt’s legacy to the world of music — and specifically to the piano repertoire?

IPD: Overall, it has to be its innovation. It’s amazing how many ideas Schmitt came up with that were later passed off by more recognized names as their own innovations – Stravinsky and Ravel, among others.

To the world of piano music, Schmitt’s legacy is the expansion of the textural and sonoristic possibilities of the instrument – both as solo and duet music – well beyond what had been seen and heard before.

For those who wish to explore the wide-ranging, always-interesting duo-piano works by Schmitt, the Grand Piano series featuring the Invencia Piano Duet is a very good place to start.

Volume 1, containing world premiere performances of the Sept pieces, Op. 15 and Rhapsodie parisienne along with the brilliant, glittering Trois Rapsodies, Op. 53, is already available.

Volume 2, to be released in the USA in March 2013, contains two additional world premiere recordings – Sur cinq notes, Op. 34 and the Courtes pièces, Op. 41, along with the Reflets d’Allemagne, Op. 28, one of the composer’s most oft-recorded duo-piano works.

You can also sample the Invencia Piano Duo in recital in this YouTube clip.

For anyone who loves piano music of the late-Romantic or early-Modern era, these compositions and performances are sure to be a welcome discovery.

When Florent Schmitt’s monumental score Psaume XLVII was premiered in December 1906, it burst upon the Parisian music scene in a big way. Nothing this grandiose had been heard outside the opera house since the days of Berlioz.

The French poet and essayist Léon-Paul Fargue echoed the sentiments of many when he wrote of the Psalm: “A great crater of music is opening up.” Ravel declared the music “striking and profound,” and several music critics spoke of Schmitt as “the new Berlioz.”

Perhaps even more interesting for such a singular composition was that Schmitt’s Psalm wouldn’t be a one-off phenomenon, even though the composer himself would set just one other psalm to music – much later in life and employing only an unaccompanied male chorus (the Psaume CXII).

But the Psaume XLVII would influence a number of other French composers to create their own works based on the Psalter – chief among them Lili Boulanger and Albert Roussel.

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), influenced by Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII, composed three psalms of her own in 1916-17.

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), the younger sister of the famous musician and teacher Nadia Boulanger, would prove to be influenced most heavily by Schmitt’s composition. Prone to sickness, the younger Boulanger would live for less than 25 years, but in her short life would set three psalms to music – all of them stunningly effective compositions.

She was an incredible musical talent: a 1913 winner of the Prix de Rome whose untimely death would cut short a promising compositional career.

John Perkins, an assistant professor of music at the American University of Sharjah, has written several articles about Lili Boulanger’s choral music – and particularly her Psaume 130 (“Du fond de l’abîme” – “Out of the Depths”), composed in 1917 and premiered in 1921 by Henri Büsser, three years after her death.

Perkin’s writings were published in the May 2010 and June/July 2010 issues of Choral Journal magazine. In his two-part article, Perkins notes the strong influence of Schmitt’s Psalm on the young composer, citing Boulanger biographer Léonie Rosenstiel who wrote that Boulanger “was extremely excited by the premiere … Lili followed every rehearsal with rapt attention.”

Perkins goes on to note:

“… Except for Schmitt’s choice of percussion … the scores resemble each other in instrumentation. Even an extended soprano solo appears in the middle of Schmitt’s work, as it does in the Psaume 130. The overall, and likely initial, influence of Schmitt’s Psaume 47 on Boulanger is evident, resulting in similar characteristics between the two works: form, instrumentation, and choice of psalmodic text.”

In addition to the Psaume 130, Boulanger composed two other psalms: Psaume 24 and Psaume 129, both written in 1916. These are much shorter in length but similar in style to Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII.

The French conductor Yan-Pascal Tortelier has made highly effective recordings of Boulanger’s and Schmitt’s psalms. His 1999 recording of the Boulanger Psaume 24 is every bit as effective as his 2012 Chandos recording of Schmitt’s Psalm, as you can hear in this YouTube clip.

Albert Roussel’s Psaume LXXX, composed in 1928, also owes a debt of gratitude to Florent Schmitt’s earlier Psalm.

Less well-known but equally effective is the Psaume LXXX by Albert Roussel (1969-1937). Roussel’s Psalm was composed in 1928 and features a tenor solo instead of the soprano found in Schmitt’s score. The orchestration differs from Schmitt’s primarily in the omission of the pipe organ.

It’s pretty clear that Roussel was influenced by Schmitt in the composition of the Psalm 80. Indeed, Roussel considered the Psalm XLVII to be the most important of Schmitt’s compositions. As Roussel characterized it, this music was:

“…the work which most faithfully reflects Schmitt’s character, and which gives the most precise impression of his voice as a composer, of the expressive nature of his melody, and the freedom of his rhythms.”

Surprisingly, considering that Roussel’s composition was written nearly 25 years after Schmitt’s, the “modernity” of Psaume LXXX isn’t particularly more pronounced. In fact, the incisive chords and vocal lines seem to stem directly from the 1904 Schmitt composition, underscoring once again how influential Schmitt’s score was on other French composers of the period.

As for Roussel’s Psalm, it’s definitely a choral piece that deserves to be better known, as is amply proven in this performance courtesy of YouTube.

Around the world today, the news is full of stories about bloated government bureaucracies and the inefficiencies of various public agencies. From France and Italy to the United States, there are persistent calls for governments to become leaner and more effective, beginning with eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” from various agencies.

But this isn’t a new phenomenon at all. And we can actually go back to a piece of music composed by Florent Schmitt in the early 1920s to remind ourselves that even in the era before computers and automation, indolent government employees were fair game for satire.

Schmitt published a symphonic picture titled Fonctionnaire MCMXII, Op. 74 in 1923, and it received its premiere performance at the Lamoureux Concerts in 1924, conducted by Paul Paray.

The composition’s subtitle give us an additional clue as to the “inspiration” behind the score: Inaction in Music.

It turns out that Schmitt’s composition skewers the entire French government worker sector. Or, as musicologist Frédéric Decaune puts it, “It is the bureaucracy itself – the men of regulations – that Florent Schmitt makes to look completely foolish.”

Originally envisioned as music to accompany an artistic collaboration between the French writer Charles Muller and the artist Régis Gignoux, Schmitt ended up creating an intriguing musical portrait of the “parasitic civil servant.”

Throughout its ~14-minute duration, we clearly hear the “inactivity in music” in how it portrays a day in the life of a government worker, who engages in such “worthy” pursuits as:

• Yawning and stretching for a long, long time
• Perfunctorily saluting the French flag in the office
• Eating
• Exclaiming that there’s beaucoup work to do … but then doing nary a thing at all
• Looking endlessly at the clock
• Eedling away on a trumpet (out of tune, of course) to pass the time
• Falling asleep

If Florent Schmitt were to live in the United States in today’s times, would he be a Tea Party supporter?

That’s pretty doubtful. But it’s clear from the above scenario – and in the structure of his highly symbolic score that’s very heavy on “episodics” and light on the full development of musical themes – that the composer had little respect, time or patience for the inefficiencies of French bureaucrats.

One wonders if Schmitt ever had to wait for hours at the French equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles … because that alone would have given him inspiration to pen this music!

Fonctionnaire 1912 is not a well-known piece of music, even though it boasts plenty of Schmitt’s trademark colorful orchestral palette. I am aware of just one recording – made back in the 1980s on the Cybelia label – which is long out of print.

That’s a pity, because the Cybelia recording, featuring the Rhenish State Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James Lockhart, is quite fine.

Those with an interest in studying the music score are in luck, however, as it is readily available from Presto Classical and several other sources.

To my mind, Fonctionnaire MCMXII is a composition that several of today’s Schmitt champions could do a fine job in resurrecting – among them the conductors Leon Botstein, Stéphane Denève, JoAnn Falletta and Yan-Pascal Tortelier.  Who’s game?

The chamber music of Florent Schmitt is quite interesting and varied. Among them are wonderfully intimate pieces such as the Sonatine en Trio from 1934 which have a flavor somewhat similar to the chamber works of Schmitt’s compatriots Debussy and Ravel.

But there are numerous other Schmitt compositions for chamber players that inhabit a different sound-world – more full-bodied and containing surprising musical touches.

One of these pieces is Hasards, Op. 96. The title of this four-movement suite, which Schmitt described as a “petit concert” for piano, violin, viola and cello, translates roughly to mean “Chances” in English.

And the “chances” Schmitt takes gives us music that’s wonderfully rhythmic and colorful, but that also possesses a certain “irony” that comes through in wry statements punctuated by chords that push harmonic boundaries while seeming completely apt for the music.

Schmitt’s score, which was dedicated to his fellow French composer Guy Ropartz, was first performed in 1943 by the Pasquier Trio and the American-born French pianist Aline von Barentzen. The suite, which is less than 15 minutes in duration, is a highly engaging work that keeps the listener’s interest from beginning to end.

In characteristic Schmitt style, the four movements of the suite bear highly descriptive and alliterative titles:

I: Exorde – D’une allure rapide:  a fast movement with a light rhythm

II: Zélie-au-pied-leger:  a lively number in 6/8 time and an indeterminate key signature

III: Demi-soupir – Un peu lent:  slow and mysterious with a clear stylistic debt to Gabriel Fauré, one of Schmitt’s composition instructors at the Paris Conservatoire

IV: Bourrée-bourrasque – Impétueux:  liberally translated meaning “brusque bourree”, with definitive rhythms punctuated by striking chords on the piano

Musicologist and Schmitt biographer Yves Hucher had this to say about Hasards:

“The whole work is so youthful and so lithe, which explains its charm: ironical and facetious at the beginning, dreamy in the middle, bolder and more intoxicating at the end. One could search in vain for a flaw or a moment of boredom in this work.

In its desire to please, its only pretense is that of being real music.”

I am aware of four commercial recordings of Hasards. Two of them in particular are very similar in approach – and are quite good. One is a Gallo recording of a 1990 live performance performed by Elizabeth Herbin (piano), Alexis Galpérine (violin), Bruno Pasquier (viola) and Mark Drobinsky (cello).

There is also a 1993 Valois studio recording made by the “newest generation” of Pasquier family members: Bruno Pasquier (again) on the viola, Régis Pasquier on violin, Roland Pidoux on cello, and Haridas Greif on the piano.

If you are unfamiliar with the chamber music of Florent Schmitt, I think Hasards a good place to start your discovery. Yves Hucher is correct: It is highly accessible music that gives witness to some of the more individualistic aspects of Schmitt’s music for small forces – and that also allows ample opportunity for each of the instrumentalists to shine.

For those interested in sampling this music, a recent live performance of Hasards by a Japanese chamber ensemble — the Tarihere Quartet — has been uploaded on YouTube.

Alain Altinoglu

The French-Armenian maestro Alain Altinoglu, along with several other younger-generation conductors, have been traveling the globe in recent years performing Florent Schmitt’s ballet score La Tragédie de Salomé.

Conductors Stéphane Denève and Yannick Nézet-Séguin have both performed the score in Canada and France, while Lionel Bringuier has brought the Salomé to Los Angeles, Sweden, Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom.

In Maestro Altinoglu’s case, he’s been performing it across France and also conducted it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2012 – the first time the music had appeared on the CSO’s concert programs since the days of Désiré Defauw in the 1940s.

Désiré Defauw

Recently, I discovered that Maestro Altinloglu’s May 16, 2012 live performance with L’Orchestre de Paris is available online.  You can catch it here.

While perhaps not quite as polished as the impressive live performance I was privileged to see with Stéphane Denève conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in March 2011, the Altinloglu/OdP rendition is still an effective interpretation that’s well-worth hearing.

Stéphane Denève

… And for those who have never had the opportunity to hear this music performed with the “emotional immediacy” that a live public performance delivers so well, here’s a grand opportunity to do so.

It’s been decades since Florent Schmitt’s La Tragédie de Salomé was last presented as a ballet, even as it’s performed in the concert hall quite regularly.

So it is nice to note that the Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia is including Salomé as part of its 13^th Annual Ballet Festival.

This video clip, courtesy of the Mariinsky Ballet Channel on YouTube, highlights some of the new choreography that has been developed by Emil Faski, danced in rehearsal by Mariinsky company members Victoria Brilyova and Andrei Yermakov.

To my knowledge, the last time The Tragedy of Salome was mounted as a ballet production was in 1954 by the Paris Opéra. That was the sixth time Parisians had had the opportunity to see the ballet, with earlier productions mounted in 1944, 1928, 1919, 1912 and 1907.

Loie Fuller

The first production in 1907 was of Schmitt’s original version of the music, danced by Loïe Fuller who, like Isadora Duncan, was famous for her scarves and lighting effects. Schmitt had composed the nearly one-hour score in under three months, drawing quick inspiration from a dramatic scenario conjured up by poet and theater director Robert d’Humières.

The 1907 Salomé was mounted as a “mimed drama” at the Théatre des Arts in Paris, a smallish performance space that was unable to accommodate an orchestra of more than 20 musicians.

Despite this limitation, Schmitt managed to create a score that is highly effective, even as he must have chafed at the inability to employ his masterful orchestration skills.

Indeed, Schmitt was forced to confine himself to using merely a quintet of strings, a flute, an oboe/English horn, a clarinet, a bassoon, a trumpet, two horns and two trombones, along with harp and limited percussion.

Musicologist and Schmitt biographer Catherine Lorent has written the following about the original version of the Salomé score:

“In spite of the small number of players, [Florent Schmitt] was able to draw from his orchestra astonishing effects … His orchestral commentary, tense and concentrated, quivers with inner life – vibrant in its passion. With an astonishing firmness of style and an incontestable rhythmic force, the composer has translated both the subtleties and brutalities inherent in the poetic text.”

You can sample how effective Schmitt’s scoring sounds in this excerpt from a 1991 Marco Polo recording made of the 1907 original version, with Patrick Davin conducting members of the Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic, courtesy of Jean-Christian Bonnet’s excellent music channel on YouTube.

The 1907 production of La Tragédie de Salomé turned out to be one of the principal artistic events of the Paris season, receiving more than 50 performances (conducted by the then-very-young Désiré-Emile Inghelbrecht).

The critics were glowing in their praise of the choreography and the music. The comments of Henri Gauthier-Villars were representative, who spoke of a “sumptuous symphony that shimmers around” the principal dancer.

But understandably, Schmitt wanted to find a way to give his music fresh light – and added “oomph” – when he prepared another version of the score five years later. Schmitt’s new version expanded the orchestra to full symphonic forces even as it reduced the number of tableaux from six to three dances.

The composition that resulted, now closer to 30 minutes in length, has been the one used to revive the ballet in subsequent years.

La Tragédie de Salomé was included in a memorable evening of ballet in 1912, sharing billing with La Péri by Paul Dukas, Istar by Vincent d’Indy and Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs (better known to music-lovers as Valses Nobles et Sentimentales) by Maurice Ravel.

This Serge Diaghilev/Ballets Russes production of Salomé featured Natasha Trouhanova in the starring role.

Leon Bakst’s costume design for the Ballets Russes production of “Salome.”

In 1919, the Paris Opera staged a new production of Salomé featuring prima ballerinas Tamara Karsavina and Ida Rubinstein, reviving the ballet in 1928 with Olga Spessivtseva.

Considering the impressive roster of ballerina stars who took up the Salome role – along with the dramatic potential the score to Salomé offers – its disappearance from the ballet repertoire after 1954 seems somewhat odd. So it is doubly welcome to see this new Mariinsky production unfold.

Perhaps it will lead to more widespread interest and revival of a work that deserves to be seen on the stage as much as it’s heard in the concert hall.

The catalog of works composed by Florent Schmitt contains numerous chamber works. Among them are three large-scale compositions for string ensemble: a Trio, a Quartet, and the Piano Quintet, Op. 51.

The Quintet was the first of these three pieces to be composed – Schmitt worked on the score for six years between 1902 and 1908.

It’s also the longest of these three chamber pieces, lasting nearly an hour’s time. The outer two movements last over 20 minutes each, while the slow middle movement clocks in at around 14 minutes.

Schmitt dedicated this monumental chamber work to his teacher and mentor, Gabriel Fauré.

Musicologist Caroline Waight has written that Schmitt’s Piano Quintet was well-received by the critics and audiences at the time of its premiere. Indeed, along with the Psaume XLVII and La Tragédie de Salomé, the Quintet helped establish Schmitt’s name as a major composer on the Parisian music scene.

Here’s how Waight characterizes Schmitt’s music in the Quintet:

“Almost orchestral in score, the work strains at the boundaries of its form, encompassing an extraordinary range of textures and emotions, and containing a wealth of melody.”

Similarly, the musicologist Michel Fleury considers the Quintet to be the “absolute apex” in the progression of piano quintets written by French composers from the time of César Franck and proceeding on to Vincent d’Indy, Camille Saint-Saens, Louis Vierne. Charles Koechlin, Gabriel Pierné and others.

Fleury has written of the Piano Quintet:

“Its luxuriant harmony, its rhythmic dynamism and its melodic profusion are very representative of the composer … The Quintet goes through all the nuances of feelings, from tenderness to the most savage violence, from nostalgia to the shores of despair, from voluptuousness to the most fanciful irony. It closes with an energetic and optimistic affirmation of volition, action — and Dionysian joy.”

I am aware of three complete recordings that have made of the Quintet. The first of these was recorded in 1981 and features the Berne Quartet (violinists Alexander van Wijnkoop and Christine Ragaz, violist Henrik Crafoord and cellist Walter Grimmer) with Werner Bärtschi on the piano. Its release was a major recording event at the time, giving listeners their first chance ever to hear the full work.

More than 25 years would elapse before the other two recordings were made – both of them recorded in 2008 and released within months of each other.

One of these recordings, released on the Timpani label and featuring the Stanislas Quartet (violinists Laurent Causse and Bertrand Menut, violist Paul Fenton and cellist Jean de Spengler) with Christian Ivaldi on the piano, is quite similar in interpretation to the Bärtschi/Berne recording.

The third recording, broader and more expansive in style, was released on the NAXOS label and features the Solisten-Ensemble Berlin (Matthias Wollong and Petra Schwieger on violin, violist Ulrich Knörzer and cellist Andreas Grünkorn) with pianist Birgitta Wollenweber.

My personal tastes go more to the Berne/Bärtschi and Stanislas/Ivaldi interpretation, although the NAXOS performance has received positive reviews from music critics and has also been uploaded in its entirety on YouTube.

Interestingly, a recording of the second movement of the Piano Quintet was actually made decades before the complete work.  Some listeners consider this middle movement (marked Lent) to be the emotional high-point of the entire composition.

Indeed, Schmitt’s pupil and fellow-composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud described the beginning of the second movement as reflecting “the scents of the evening and bells sounding on the horizon,” following which “a murmuring tide slowly rises and bears us towards the realms of grief” … before subsiding into a poignant sadness as the movement ends.

The Calvet Quartet

This recording, waxed by Pathé-Marconi back in 1935, features Florent Schmitt himself on the piano, joined by the Calvet Quartet. It’s a very moving interpretation, which may explain its near-constant availability in the decades since – first on 78-rpm records, then on LP, and today on CD.

Another interesting bonus of this recording is a short “vocal autograph” featuring the composer himself commenting on the music.  Schmitt’s remarks come at the end of the movement … and they’ve been included in all but one of the various releases of this recording over the decades.

In recent years, the Piano Quintet has begun to make more headway in the recital hall. For example, it was featured in a French music festival in 2010 at the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice, Italy. Violinists Philippe Bernhard and Loic Rio, violist Laurent Marfaing, and cellist François Kieffer were joined by pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuburger in a passionate interpretation that was a major highlight of the 2010 festival.

At the time of the festival, the performers were interviewed about the music.  That interview – accompanied by musical excerpts from the Quintet’s first and second movements – has been uploaded on YouTube. The 7-minute news clip includes some very interesting observations from the musicians and is well-worth a hearing.

Not all critics have been so admiring of the Piano Quintet:  One who had dismissive things to say was Anne Midgette, who wrote this in the New York Times after hearing a performance of the music at Bard College in August 2001:

“The last of today’s three concerts – seven hours of music – culminated in a piano quintet that lasted a full hour, which may have relieved many people in the audience of the need ever again to hear the music of Florent Schmitt.”

But those sentiments would seem to be in the minority. So that you can judge for yourself, you can listen to the Solisten-Ensemble Berlin recording which has been uploaded to YouTube.

Reserve yourself an hour for listening … give the composition a good hearing … and then post a comment here about your impressions of the music.

The Dionysiaques by Florent Schmitt, composed exactly a century ago, is a blockbuster work for concert band that just gets more and more popular with each passing year.

I’ve blogged before about how this piece has become a staple of the wind band repertoire – particularly in Japan and Europe, but with more performances happening in the United States as well.

But surely the composer of such a band masterpiece as this must have written other works for wind ensemble, right?

Yes … but not extensively. It turns out that the full extent of Schmitt’s band music comprises just a half-dozen works totaling less than an hour’s worth of music between them.

And none are nearly as famous or oft-performed as Dionysiaques.

In fact, until quite recently, most of Schmitt’s other wind band compositions weren’t even available in recorded performances. 

Thankfully, that’s been rectified now with the release of a recording containing all of Schmitt’s wind ensemble music on one CD.  Issued on the Corelia label in 2008 – on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of Schmitt’s death — this recording features L’Orchestre d’Harmonie de la Région Centre conducted by Philippe Ferro.

The ensemble is a group comprising amateur and semi-professional instrumentalists in addition to professional musicians, and so the playing is not completely polished. Still, it’s a welcome addition to the Schmitt discography because it contains a good deal of repertoire that is otherwise unavailable.

One of the more intriguing pieces is Sélamlik, Op. 48, No. 1, inspired by the Turkish ceremonial guard units assigned to the Sultan in Constantinople, and that Schmitt witnessed on parade when visiting the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s.

Schmitt did a masterful job in capturing the guard’s combination of ”pomp and savagery” in his composition, which was completed in 1904 and first performed in 1909 by the Garde Republicaine band in Paris.

Unlike Dionysiaques which takes the listener through a variety of highly contrasting moods, the Sélamlik conjures up an atmosphere of raucous celebration nearly continuously throughout its entire 5-minute duration. You can sample a live performance of this music on YouTube, performed by the combined forces of the Baden-Württemberg Youth Wind Orchestra and the Philharmonic Winds and conducted by Seow Yibin.

The second half of Schmitt’s Opus 48 is his March for the 163^rd Infantry Regiment, which he composed in 1916. This is a longer piece of music and contains somewhat more contrasts and moods within the score.

Invencia Piano Duo (Kasparov & Lutsyshyn)

Unfortunately, only a two-piano reduction of the orginal score has survived … but that version has been recorded by the Invencia Piano Duo in Volume 3 of its complete survey of Schmitt’s music for two pianists, just released by NAXOS Grand Piano. A live performance, also played by the Invencia Piano Duo, is available on YouTube, demonstrating how effective the music is even in the piano version.

At least one attempt has been made to re-orchestrate the March: Désiré Dondeyne, a composer and long-time conductor of the Parisian wind ensemble Musique des Gardiens de la Paix, completed the task, and it is this orchestration that has been recorded by Philippe Ferro and L’Orchestre d’Harmonie.

According to Andrey Kasparov of the Invencia Piano Duo, the Dondeyne effort isn’t completely successful. He writes:

“There are some problems with the orchestration. For example, the middle and the bass registers are not very well supported. Schmitt himself would have never have orchestrated the work this way.

When you compare Schmitt’s orchestration of Sélamlik to Dondeyne’s of the March, the difference is evident immediately: beautifully balanced in the Sélamlik versus top-heavy in the March. Still, Dondeyne deserves credit for actually doing it.”

Kasparov and others are mulling the possibility of publishing a new orchestration of the March, which would be welcome.  And beyond that, we can only hope that in the upcoming years, interest in Schmitt’s music will spread beyond just Dionysiaques to encompass all of his other worthy compositions for wind ensemble.

French conductor Lionel Bringuier has been championing Florent Schmitt’s “La Tragédie de Salomé” all over the world.

I always suspected that French conductor Lionel Bringuier’s interpretation of Florent Schmitt’s ballet La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 would be something special.

After all, this young conductor has been traveling the globe in the past half-decade, performing the work in numerous locations including England, Scandinavia, Germany and the United States (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic).

He’s also commented about his love for this music, dating back to when he studied the score extensively during his conducting classes in conservatory in France.

So it comes as welcome news to discover that Maestro Bringuier’s February 2009 performance with the Stockholm Radio Symphony Orchestra has been uploaded to YouTube.

The conductor was all of 23 years old at the time of this performance. But I find this interpretation to be among the finest I’ve heard, including the exciting live concert performance I was privileged to see done by Stéphane Denève and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2011.

Bringuier’s interpretation has all of the “immediacy” one would expect to hear in a live performance of Schmitt’s exciting and vital score. It also delivers fine control as well as great shaping to the work as a whole, which in the hands of some other conductors can some across as episodic (or even sluggish).

In short, Bringuer turns in a thrilling performance that captures all of the imagery, immediacy – and yes, savagery – of the Salome story as envisioned by theater director Robert d’Humières and composer Florent Schmitt more than 100 years ago.

Speaking for myself, I’d love for Maestro Bringuier to bring us a new commercial recording of Schmitt’s most famous score. Based on the evidence here, I think it would immediately rise into the top tier of available interpretations.

Do you agree? Give a listen and share your thoughts below.

French Pianist Elizabeth Herbin

The French pianist Élizabeth Herbin has long been a champion of the music of her father, the composer René Herbin (1911-1953). This includes making recordings of his music, including one featuring Herbin’s Quartet #1 for Piano & Strings, composed in 1949.

That celebrated recording, on the Gallo label, also contains two works by Florent Schmitt: the Légende, Op. 66 in the 1918 version for viola and piano, as well as Hasards, Op. 96, dating from 1939.

Recently, I asked Mme. Herbin to share her views about the music of Florent Schmitt, as well as to talk about the relationship between Schmitt and her father. (Her observations below are translated from French into English.)

PLN: What are your thoughts about the music of Florent Schmitt and of his influence as a composer?

EH: I find his music very interesting and original – certainly as a pianist, but in broad terms as well. Schmitt forms an important link in a chain that connects classical music of the past with the truly modern. Unfortunately this link has been largely missing in France. For various reasons, this era was strongly boycotted for years in favor of the more revolutionary or avant-garde music.

PLN: It seems that this has finally begun to change, thankfully! Do you have any particular works of Schmitt that you enjoy particularly?

EH: I love the two compositions I’ve recorded [the Légende and Hasards]. The piano music for four hands is also very interesting, but I haven’t played them very often.

His music is very difficult to perform, you know! Works such as the Piano Quintet.

PLN: The four-hand piano music of Schmitt is finally getting its due – with some works getting their first recordings only now, thanks to the efforts of the Invencia Piano Duo. Have you enjoyed playing these and other music of the era in recital?

EH: I love the recital because it offers very intimate and special moments of sharing – unique sensations, even flight! Chamber music concerts are a little different, but they also have their joys – and for the musicians, they provide the possibility of wonderful “exchanges.”

French Composer Rene Herbin (1911-1953)

PLN: Did Florent Schmitt and your father, René Herbin, know each other? Were they friends?

EH: They did know each other! Schmitt, being much older than my father, was very fond of the young composer who came to him to present his work – but I don’t know the dates of those meetings.

It seems that Schmitt had something of an intemperate disposition; he could be intimidating, which made it somewhat difficult for younger musicians to have good relationships with him. This is what made his positive opinion of my father so appreciated!

(I do not remember my father — he died before my second birthday — so this information comes from my mother, who passed away recently at age 94.)

PLN: Do you know what your father’s opinion was of Florent Schmitt’s music?

EH: He liked the music of Schmitt very much, as he did the music of other composers such as Alexandre Tansman and Henri Dutilleux, who were more of his contemporaries and who also greatly admired my father’s music. In fact, Dutilleux, who is nearly 100 years old today, is the honorary president of the René Herbin Association.

PLN: Do you have any particular favorite compositions of your father’s?

EH: I find the music of my father to be very expressive – even visionary. I love and play his sonatas for violin and cello, and the quartets. In fact, in September 2013 I am planning to record one of the sonatas with the violinist Patrice Fontanarosa.

My father’s Piano Concerto, which was premiered by Vlado Perlemuter in 1956, is beautiful.  The Ballade is also very impressive. His last orchestral work – Trois Reveries – hasn’t been scored yet. Orchestral scores are very expensive to produce, so we are looking for a patron!

I have sampled some of René Herbin’s music, and it’s easy to understand why Florent Schmitt held his fellow composer in such high regard.

For those who may be interested in learning more about this fine French composer, who died tragically young (at age 42) in an airplane crash which also claimed the life of the renowned violinist Jacques Thibaud, you can visit the René Herbin Association’s website at www.ReneHerbin.net.

The Invencia Piano Duo (Andrey Kasparov + Oksana Lutsyshyn) are recording the complete music for piano duet and duo by Florent Schmitt.

As the complete music for piano duet and duo composed by Florent Schmitt continues to be released NAXOS Grand Piano in its series featuring the Invencia Piano Duo, it’s becoming clear that this is music of immediate appeal … and also of substance.

Three of the four planned CDs in the series have now been released in the United States.

I’ve had the opportunity to listen to the first two volumes.  Simply put, the music is a delight. (This isn’t just my view, but also the opinion of numerous music critics.)

As it turns out, generous portions of the music in the first two volumes are devoted to world premiere recordings of four works by Florent Schmitt:

In Volume 1 …

• Seven Pieces, Opus 15 (1899)
• Rhapsodie Parisienne (1900)

In Volume 2 …

• On Five Notes, Opus 34 (1906)
• Eight Short Pieces, Opus 41 (1908)

According to Andrey Kasparov of the Invencia Piano Duo, it is unclear if some of these works ever received “formal” premiere performances in public — let alone recordings. This, of course, makes the music even more intriguing to explore.

Another interesting aspect of the music: A number of the works appear to have been composed by Schmitt with piano study in mind – particularly the two world premiere recordings in Volume 2.

In his highly informative booklet notes for the CD release, Mr. Kasparov provides insights into Schmitt’s approach to these works:

“Beginning in 1906, Schmitt experimented with a method of composition based strictly on the first five pitches of the diatonic scale in melody. Once introduced in a particular movement, each five-note set would remain unchanged, with the composer masterfully disguising this self-imposed limitation by a variety of other available means. This approach later proved to be very useful for numerous others, including Stravinsky in both his Five Easy Pieces for piano duet (1914) and The Five Fingers for piano (1921).”

To my ears, the Schmitt works don’t sound at all like “preparatory exercises” for students. They are musically quite meaty, and invariably interesting.

As an example, this YouTube clip shows the Invencia Piano Duo performing three excerpts from the Opus 34.

Stylistic influence: Gabriel Faure, one of Florent Schmitt’s teachers at the Paris Conservatoire, was himself a masterful composer of piano music.

As these piano works were composed relatively early in Schmitt’s career as a composer, perhaps it’s not too surprising that the music is remindful – at least in places – of the piano music of Schmitt’s own teacher, Gabriel Fauré.

Fauré – and by inference Schmitt – seems to have been forgotten by a good many people when the great piano music composers of the period are considered. (Nikolai Medtner seems to have suffered a similar fate.)

Perhaps that’s being rectified now. One stated mission of the Invencia Piano Duo’s recording project is to bring these rich and vital scores to light – not only for the benefit of music lovers but also for fellow pianists and musicians.

It’s my prediction that this four-volume series will do just that: expand the piano duet and duo repertoire with some fine new material … and bring many of these “newly rediscovered” piano works into the recital hall.

It may have taken 100+ years … but it’s finally happening. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Invencia Piano Duo, and to the musically astute management of NAXOS for providing the means to make it happen.

Opera-Comique, Paris

The popularity of large-scale works like Psalm XLVII, La Tragédie de Salomé and Dionysiaques would make one think that Florent Schmitt cared little for intimate subject matters as inspiration for his compositions.

But the reality is different.  While it’s true that the more grandiose and dramatic scores of the composer tend to be the ones that are best-known and oft-performed, it’s also that case that Schmitt was inspired by subjects that were the polar opposite of these.

A case in point is the music Schmitt composed for the ballet Le petit elfe Ferme-l’oeil, Opus 73, which was mounted at the Théâtre de la Opéra-Comique in 1924.

Actually, the music dates back a decade before, when Schmitt composed a suite for piano duet he titled Une semaine du petit elfe Ferme-l’oeil.  This suite of seven piano pieces (Schmitt’s Opus 58), drew its inspiration from a Hans Christian Andersen book called The Songs of Hialmar.

In this fairy tale, a boy (Hialmar) is visited each night of the week by a sandman-like character (Ferme-l’oeil – freely translated it means “sleepy-eyes”), who helps the boy to sleep while conjuring up a series of seven “dream sequences” – one for each night of the week.

Like several of his other piano duet works, Schmitt intended this suite for students to perform with their piano instructors.  Accordingly, it is a didactic composition wherein the student plays the primo part and the teacher performs a far more elaborate and complex secondo part.  In fact, the primo part was written by Schmitt so that students never need to shift their fingers away from the starting position.

The Canadian pianist Leslie De’Ath has reported that the original piano duet score was composed for Schmitt’s own son to perform, as well as for the composer’s other pupils.

Despite these intentional “limitations” in terms of piano virtuosity, the 1912 piano duet score does not suffer from any dearth of musical invention.  In accomplishing this, Schmitt was helped along greatly by the fairy tale’s “phantastic action,” which gave Schmitt the opportunity to compose seven movements of highly contrasting moods and colors.  They are:

• La noce des souris  (The Nuptials of the Mice)
• La Cigogne lasse  (The Dyspeptic Stork)
• Le Cheval de Ferme-l’Oeil  (The Sandman’s Horse)
• Le Mariage de la poupée  (The Marriage of the Doll)
• Le ronde des lettres boiteuses  (The Round of the Obtuse Letters)
• La promenade à travers le tableau  (The Promenade across the Picture)
• Le parapluie chinois  (The Chinese Umbrella)

  First recording: Robert & Gaby Casadesus for Columbia Masterworks (1956).

The Opus 58 piano suite, which is approximately 20 minutes in length, has proven to be one of the more popular of Schmitt’s piano scores.  Its first recording was made by Robert and Gaby Casadesus in 1956.  This exciting and highly effective performance, full of muscular vitality, stayed in the catalog for a number of years, but to my knowledge it has never been reissued on CD – at least not in North America or Europe.

The Casadesus recording would be the only one available until duo-pianists Claude Confaloni and Odile Poisson released their version in 1986, 30 years later.

In the CD-only era, we have been treated to several other renditions, including the Heidelberger Klavier-Duo (Adelheid Lechler and Martin Smith) recorded in 1993, one by duo-pianists Timothy and Nancy LeRoi-Nickel from 2003, as well as a recording by Leslie De’Ath and Anya Alexeyev, released in 2011.

The Invencia Piano Duo (Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn) has also recorded the score as part of its survey of Florent Schmitt’s complete music for piano duet and duo; that recording will be released later this year by NAXOS Grand Piano as part of the fourth and final volume in that series.

Interestingly, the 2011 De’Ath/Alexeyev performance is not of the Opus 58 … but of Opus 73.  This version is not a 20-minute work, but rather one that runs nearly twice as long.  It contains additional sections such as an extended prelude, along with a series of musical transitions between the seven original movements.  The score also calls for a mezzo-soprano soloist in one of the numbers.

What’s going on with this De’Ath/Alexeyev recording?  It turns out that this interpretation represents an arrangement prepared by Mr. De’Ath from the orchestral score that Schmitt created when he expanded the original suite into a full-length ballet.  The new ballet score was first performed in concert in 1923 … then mounted on the Opéra-Comique stage in 1924.

Unfortunately, no enterprising conductor or record label has seen fit to record the full-length ballet.  But having looked at the score, I can attest to the fact that it is replete with musical riches and would be a dynamite composition to bring before the public.

Big-orchestra treatment: The instrumentation for Schmitt’s Opus 73 ballet is lavish.

The instrumentation called for in the ballet score hints at the opulence of the piece:  In addition to the usual complement of woodwinds and strings (the latter frequently divided into sub-parts), the score calls for an English horn, a contrabassoon, two harps, plus a full battery of percussion including a lineup of “tuneful percussion” instruments like concert bells, xylophone, celesta — even a grand piano.

We can also get a hint of the larger work’s flavor by hearing Mr. De’Ath’s two-piano arrangement of the full-length ballet.  Just as in Maurice Ravel’s ballet Ma Mère l’Oye, where Schmitt’s musical compatriot added highly effective new material when be orchestrated and expanded his score from the original piano version, the additional music in Schmitt’s ballet adds depth, richness and variety to the original piano suite.

And what of Schmitt’s ballet?  What sort of success has it enjoyed?  Clearly, it hasn’t achieved the popularity of Ravel’s children’s ballet, despite certain similarities in terms of their years of composition, the subject matter, and how the music expanded and migrated from piano duet to the orchestra pit.

[Perhaps an equally strong correlation exists with Ravel’s opera L’Enfant et le Sortilèges in terms of the subject matter ... but with Schmitt’s sandman being replaced by Ravel’s sorcerer.]

Despite its unfamiliarity today, Schmitt’s ballet did enjoy success in its early years.  In fact, the music figured prominently in a children’s book published in 1924 by A. Tolmer in Paris, recounting the Hans Christian Andersen story and featuring the strikingly colorful illustrations of the artist André Hellé.

The English-language version of the children’s book, printed by A. Tolmer in Paris for American publisher Duffield & Co. (1923).

The book, published in French as well as in English for the American children’s book publisher Duffield, has become a sought-after collector’s item.  I am fortunate to have a copy of the book in my possession.  It’s one I acquired quite a few years ago … but copies today sell for upwards of US$500 at auction.

To my mind, the ballet version of Le petit elfe, which still awaits its first-ever recording, represents is a gaping hole in the discography of Florent Schmitt.  But hopefully … we may not have to wait much longer.

Two conductors in particular should seriously investigate this score:  Stéphane Denève, who made an award-winning premiere recording recently of the two suites from Albert Roussel’s opera-ballet Padmâvatî … and JoAnn Falletta, who led the North American premiere performances of one of Schmitt’s two Antoine et Cléopâtre suites.

Justly recognized for their highly effective interpretation of French music of the early 20^th Century, either conductor would be well-nigh perfect for bringing Schmitt’s ballet to the microphones.  Here’s hoping that one of them will be inspired to perform and record Schmitt’s Opus 73.  Rich musical rewards await us all!

Dionysiaques, Op. 62 is unquestionably Florent Schmitt’s most famous work for wind ensemble.  It was composed exactly 100 years ago, but it would take decades for this 11-minute tour de force to become part of the core repertoire of concert bands. 

First in France … then in Europe and the United States and now in the Far East … this composition has shown a slow-but-steady rise in popularity — along with the growing acknowledgement that it is one of the very finest works in the band repertoire.

L’Orchestre d’Harmonie de la Garde Republicaine, the Parisian-based concert band that premiered Florent Schmitt’s “Dionysiaques,” will perform the piece on concert tour in Japan in November 1913, exactly 100 years after the work was composed.

Japan in particular has embraced Dionysiaques in a big way.  Countless wind ensembles from middle school and high school up through college, as well as professional groups, program the piece regularly, and there have been dozens of recordings made by these Japanese ensembles.

[I own a good number of Japanese “school” recordings, and the quality of the playing on many of them is nothing short of amazing.]

And now, Japan is playing host to L’Orchestre d’Harmonie de la Garde Républicaine, the Parisian-based wind ensemble for which Florent Schmitt composed this music 100 years ago. 

The Garde Républicaine band will be performing a series of concerts in Japan in early November 2013, conducted by its music director François Boulanger.  Included on these programs are concert band works by Hector Berlioz and Henri Tomasi, along with wind arrangements of orchestral music by fellow French composers Paul Dukas, Maurice Ravel and Emmanuel Chabrier.

But the biggest draw on the program will undoubtedly be Dionysiaques, a piece so well-known (and loved) by Japanese audiences.

Actually, Japan isn’t alone in this popularity.  Over the past 20 years, there has been a clear increase in the number of performances of Dionysiaques. 

I’ve witnessed this happening in my own home region of the United States, wherein the Peabody Wind Ensemble (Baltimore, MD) under the direction of its music director, Harlan Parker, has programmed the work in no fewer than three seasons over the past decade.

The music has also been performed at the University of Maryland in College Park within the past several years. 

Speaking about that performance in particular, I love the comments of Andrew Lindemann Malone, a music reviewer for the Washington Post and several other publications.  In his DMV Classical blog, which chronicles concert performances in the DC/Maryland/Virginia region, Malone had these fascinating if irreverent words to say about the stunning piece of music that is Dionysiaques:

“And then it was the orgy we were all waiting for!  In the form of Florent Schmitt’s Dionysiaques, also written for a truly giant group of winds, making equally earthy noises to less terpsichorean ends.  

[The] program notes outlined a vague program for the Schmitt, but given the low fumbling-around chords at the beginning, followed by stabs at coordination with continued awkward interruptions – progressing ultimately to a loud climax almost immediately succeeded by utter collapse – I felt I knew exactly what Schmitt had in mind.”

If that description doesn’t make someone want to investigate this music more, I’m not sure what would … !

Helpfully, it’s quite easy to explore Dionysiaques further, thanks to a goodly number of studio and live concert performances that are available on YouTube.  You can listen to several representative examples here and here and here (the second of these being a Garde Républicaine performance).

Let us know if you’re totally spent, à la Andrew Lindemann Malone above, when you’re through!

Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit” was the precursor to Florent Schmitt’s “Ombres.”

Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit is justly recognized as that composer’s most towering achievement in piano keyboard writing.  Composed in 1908, this set of three pieces (Ondine, Le Gibet, Scarbo) which take their inspiration from a book by Aloysius Bertrand, are the most technically demanding and revolutionary of Ravel’s piano works.

Far less well-known but equally impressive is a similar set of three piano pieces by Florent Schmitt, composed between 1912 and 1917.  This suite is Ombres, Op. 64 (Shadows) — and likewise, many musicians regard it as Schmitt’s most complex, demanding work for solo piano.

The Canadian pianist Leslie d’Ath has written this about Ombres:

“This ambitious score shows Schmitt at the height of his impressionistic style, outdoing Debussy and even Ravel in the complexity of the texture, harmony and configuration. 

The music is a phantasmagoria of despair, defiance, terror, poignancy, evanescence and tenderness – a fiendish protean counterpart to Ravel’s Scarbo and, in the latter’s own words, ‘a caricature of Romanticism.’”

To produce such sounds, one would think that Florent Schmitt must have drawn inspiration from equally rich and fervent sources – and that turns out to be case in two of the movements.

Comte de Lautreamont (Isidore-Lucien Ducasse), the Uruguayan-born French author, penned just two works before dying at the age of 24 during the Prussian siege of Paris (1870).

The first piece in the set is titled “J’entend dans la lointain …” and draws inspiration from a passage from Comte de Lautréamont’s 1869 violent, nihilistic novel Les Chants de Maldoror (“I hear in the distance drawn-out cries of the most poignant grief.”).

The French musicologist Marc Vignal characterizes this movement as “a very audacious piece,” noting that the musical notation is on three staves throughout.

Schmitt titled the third piece in his set “Cette ombre, mon image …” and the score bears an epigraph from Walt Whitman (“That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro.”).  Although less complex than the first movement, it too is written mainly on three staves.

Sandwiched in between is a shorter movement titled “Mauresque.”  This piece was composed the earliest of the three and does not have any direct literary connection that we know of.  It is a highly representative example of Schmitt’s “orientalist” writing, and listeners will recognize the second theme as one the composer interpolated into the first suite of Antoine et Cléopâtre which he composed nearly a decade later.

Visual and aural attraction: Much of Florent Schmitt’s score for “Ombres” is written on three staves.

Unlike Ravel, who dedicated each movement of his Gaspard de la nuit to pianist friends (Harold Bauer, Jean Marnold and Rudolph Ganz), Schmitt dedicated each movement of Ombes to literary or social acquaintances:  lecturer/writer Paul Loyonnet; Linette Chalupt, daughter of the poet René Chalupt; and Yvonne Müller, soon to become the wife of Italian composer Alfredo Casella.

This may explain partially why Ravel’s composition is better known, as its dedicatees made the suite part of their recital programs.

For those who may think that Florent Schmitt’s compositional talents weren’t cutting edge for his time, they need to listen to Ombres! Speaking personally, I find this music to be every bit as forward-looking as Leslie De’Ath claims it to be.

First recording: Werner Bartschi (1982).

Fortunately for us, it’s easy to hear the music because there are three recordings currently available.  To my knowledge, pianist Werner Bärtschi made the world premiere recording in 1982 (on the ACCORD label).  His strong, vital interpretation made a tremendous impression on me then … and it still does today.

More recently, the French pianist Vincent Larderet recorded the set for NAXOS in 2009.  Mr. Larderet’s interpretation is more broadly expansive — particularly in the outer movements.  It is every bit as legitimate as Mr. Bärtschi’s approach to the music, and for this reason both recordings are well-worth hearing.

Broadly expansive: Vincent Larderet’s interpretation of Florent Schmitt’s “Ombres.”

[A third recording, made by pianist Laurent Wagschal on the Saphir label in 2010, is one I have not had the opportunity to hear yet.]

Perhaps because of its musical “heft,” the first movement of Ombres was treated to additional arrangements by Schmitt.  The composer created a version for piano and orchestra that was premiered in 1930 by the pianist Jacques Février, with conductor/composer Gabriel Pierné directing the Colonne Concerts Orchestra.

Unfortunately, we have no recorded performance of what must be an incredible piece of music in this arrangement, but we do have a two-piano version that was recorded in 2011 by the duo-piano team of Leslie De’Ath and Anya Alexeyev (on the Dutton Epoch label).

Listening to that recording makes it clear that this is music that fairly cries out for orchestral treatment.  Here’s hoping that an enterprising pianist, conductor and orchestra will explore Schmitt’s piano-and-orchestra score to J’entends dans le lointain … and bring it to life.

Bruno Belthoise

The French pianist Bruno Belthoise has been performing Florent Schmitt’s piano duet composition Une semaine du petit elfe Ferme-l’oeil, Op. 58 since 2006. 

Not only has he become a champion of the music score, he has also created a special presentation incorporating Schmitt’s music, story line narration and imagery that helps introduce children to the world of classical music.

A respected pianist and chamber musician, M. Belthoise studied at l’École Normale de Musique in Paris.  His teachers included Françoise Buffet-Arsenijevic and Madeleine Giraudeau-Basset.

A winner of the Charles Oulmont Prize in 1988 and the Fondation Laurent-Vibert Award in 1991, M. Belthoise has gone on to build a noteworthy reputation for his rich and varied recitals and programs. 

Recently, I asked Bruno Belthoise to share his views about the music of Florent Schmitt and what he finds most compelling about it, as well as his work with the Petit elfe score.  (His observations below are translated from French into English.)

PLN:  How did you discover the music of Florent Schmitt?

BB:  My first contact with Florent Schmitt’s music was in 1987 when I was a student at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.  I had already started to give chamber music concerts with members of the Paris Opera Orchestra.  I recorded a CD of Bach’s music with Cybelia, a recording label that focused primarily on French composers.

At that time, Cybelia was releasing CDs of Schmitt’s orchestral works such as Antoine et Cléopâtre and Oriane et le prince d’amour, as well as a CD of beautiful Schmitt piano pieces performed by Pascal Le Corre.

I must say, I was amazed by the richness of Schmitt’s writing, particularly for the orchestra, and Oriane in particular remains one of my favorite compositions.  I also studied and played some of Schmitt’s chamber works with my music colleagues, but public performances never took place.

I regret to report that the works of Florent Schmitt are not often performed by our national orchestras – which is also the case for Roussel, Pierné and other French composers of that period.

PLN:  How did you learn about ‘Le Petit elfe’ suite for piano duet?

BB:  I especially like working on themes of children’s stories.  When seeking out new works, I discovered this suite that I did not know before.  It was composed at the same time as Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye, and I liked the Hans Christian Andersen story line.

This music offers a rich variety of timbres and has a very special elegance.  To play this work gives me intense pleasure!

One very interesting aspect of the music is that the primo piano part is composed on a fixed position of five notes.  The position varies from one movement to another, but is always in a series of five fixed notes.

By contrast, the secondo part is written with maximum virtuosity, suggesting an orchestral space woven into a highly sophisticated harmonic language. 

With this ingenious device, Schmitt creates a sound that is highly natural.  But it also takes special preparation to overcome the “imbalance” inherent in the two parts.

The music is actually quite challenging for both players.  The primo part is not easy to achieve for young piano students because of the musical context and rhythm.  And the secondo part requires demanding technical abilities because of the complex intersections of the four hands that must be successfully nivigated and resolved — without leaving anything to chance!

PLN:  When and where have you played Florent Schmitt’s score?

BB:  The first time I performed the suite was in 2006 at the Festival de Música de Alcobaça in Portugal, with pianist António Rosado.  After that, I played the work with the Brazilian pianist Christina Margotto for two years. 

Duo-pianists Bruno Belthoise and Claude Maillols.

Most recently, I have performed the suite with Claude Maillols in Paris, and we will be performing the music again in September 2013 in a recital in Belgium.

There are plans to release my 2006 performance with António Rosada as part of a 2-CD set containing all of my live recitals for the Portuguese national radio network.

PLN:  What inspired you to create a new version of the ‘Ferme-l’oeil’ story?

BB:  I have been working on a project called Concertos Narrados, [Narrative Concerts] which aims to bring young audiences to classical music.  Carefully selected stories and texts are an essential vehicle for the success of this project.  The programs are prepared in different languages – French, English, Portuguese, Spanish and German.

Combining stories with the music allows children to construct their own ‘dream world.’  I am involved in a collaboration of writing, storytelling and musical interpretation to produce programs that encourage children to approach and explore the world of music.

I deconstructed the original Andersen Ferme-l’oeil fairy tale, rewriting it in order to draw out the most significant elements, in a modern idiom that gives suitable importance to the words, situations and colors.  The story is much longer than the original text.

PLN:  How does Florent Schmitt’s score fit within the presentation?

BB:  The music is actually the same, but the movements of the original suite are performed in a different order now.  I act as one of the pianists as well as the narrator for the French version.

PLN:  And how do you present the story …?

BB:  The music is the core of the show.  The story is a pretext to get children to be open to listening to the music.  In our first public presentation, we called on an illustrator to create drawings which were projected on a large screen behind the performers.  This is a technique I have also adopted for other programs in the Narrative Concerts series.

PLN:  Where have you performed ‘Le Petit elfe’ in this Narrative Concerts version?

BB:  The first presentation was given in March 2013 in Portugal, at the Conservatory of Porto.  This production also featured the pianist Christina Margotto. 

We presented different versions of the program in Portuguese, French and English for high school, college and conservatory student audiences.  The English version of the story was translated by Jed Barahal, an American cellist and a professor of music at the Porto Conservatory.

In general, my concerts for young audiences are targeted to schools, festivals and other events where students are given the opportunity to enter the world of classical music.  In addition to Le Petit elfe, these programs have included Poulenc’s Babar, Bizet’s Jeux d’enfants, Saint-Saens’ Carnaval des animaux, Hansel & Gretel (with new original music by Emmanuel Hieaux), and others.

Bruno Belthoise with Sebastien Marq, baroque flutist with Les Arts Florissants and collaborator on “Les Adventures de Poucette” in its adaptation by Raymond Alessandrini.

I collaborate with a number of performers in these programs:  pianists Laurent Martin, Christina Margotto and Hélène Josse, as well as Sébastien Marq, a flautist from the Baroque ensemble Les Arts Florrissants.

PLN:  What other composers do you enjoy performing?

BB:  My great interests are oriented toward French music, Portuguese music of the 20^th century, other contemporary music, and chamber music in general. 

For my solo programs I program Debussy, Poulenc and Messiaen along with works by contemporary composer such as Bernard de Vienne, Emmanual Hieaux, Sébastien Beranger and Sérgio Azevedo.

My chamber group – the Trio Pangea – performs the classic repertoire of Schumann, Beethoven and Fauré, but also Shostakovich and other modern composers. 

I also perform many concerts with Le Concert Impromptu, a woodwind quintet that performs many eclectic ‘arts-fusion’ programs.  Our next performance will be in Paris in December 2013.  Titled ‘BHK,’ it is a tribute to Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Paul Klee, and will also feature the soprano Ana Barros.

PLN:  Do you have plans to perform any other works by Florent Schmitt?

BB:  My next goal is to perform the quartet Hasards.

PLN:  Finally can you share any thoughts about your philosophy of performing?

BB:  In my view, the life of an interpreter should be more than simply taking the ‘standard’ approach to recitals and performing.  We should be perpetually questioning, we should be open to new experiences, and we should strive engage in our own creation and improvisation!

Bruno Belthoise is an interesting artist who is doing some very laudable work bringing young people to classical music, in addition to his solo piano recitals and chamber music performances. 

Unfortunately, North American audiences have not had many opportunities to see him perform; his appearances in this hemisphere have been limited to French Canada mainly.  Still, one can get a flavor of this musician’s very interesting and active schedule by visiting his website here.

One of the most memorable aspects of French composer Florent Schmitt’s musical output is his artistic work in the “orientalist” realm.  In fact, it could be claimed with some justification that Schmitt had no peer, notwithstanding the efforts of other fine composers in France (Saint-Saens, Roussel, Ravel, Bizet, Lalo, etc.) and elsewhere – particularly the Russians.

In a string of compositions that started with the Psalm 47 in 1904 and continuing through many other impressive musical scores like La Tragédie de Salomé, Antoine et Cléopâtre and Salammbô along with numerous smaller tableaus like Danse des Devadasis and Danse d’Abisag, Schmitt was the major orientalist composer of his time.

His last foray in this realm also happens to be one of the least known:  Oriane et le Prince d’amour, Op. 83 (Oriane and the Prince of Love), a ballet Schmitt composed in 1932/33 for the famed Russian prima ballerina Ida Rubinstein.

Russian prima ballerina — and creator of the “Oriane” role — Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960).

Mlle. Rubinstein was one of the dancers who had made Schmitt’s Salomé ballet a staple on the Parisian stage, having starred in the 1919 production at the Paris Opéra.  It was only natural that in seeking another suitably exotic subject for a ballet in which she would be the femme fatale star, Rubinstein would look to Florent Schmitt again.

The manner in which the composer came to learn of the commission is amusingly recounted in Vicki Woolf’s biography of Ida Rubinstein, Dancing in the Vortex.  In it, the author quotes Florent Schmitt in his own words.

[When Ida Rubinstein] came to tell him, she found he was far away in his country retreat at Artiguemy in Hautes-Pyrenees.  Schmitt remembered: 

“It was a beautiful summer afternoon. I was in Artiguemy lying under the apple trees facing an incomparable southern peak untouched by snow – completely at peace, thinking no evil thoughts – when a sound like an earthquake shattered the quiet.  A motor car, foolishly tackling the goat path, had smashed itself around a great oak and hurled its two lady passengers onto the ground.

The oak tree had only a few scratches. As for Mme. Rubinstein, everyone knows she is above such calamities: Tracing the line of the oak tree, as erect, as high and still smiling, she scarcely realized that she had escaped the most picturesque of deaths.  By her side, no less unscathed, was Mme. Fauchier-Magnan, a friend of Ida’s.  They came 873 miles to offer me this ballet.”

And what a ballet it was:  Originally to be called Oriane la sans-egale (Oriane the Incomparable – perhaps an indication of the high regard in which Mme. Rubinstein held herself), the story line went several steps beyond the “passion and blood” of even Salomé, Cléopâtre and Salammbô.

An overview of the ballet’s action suggests a tale similar to Mikhail Lermontov’s poem about Tamara, the bloodthirsty Circassian queen who availed herself of lovers nightly — only to dispatch them into the Daryal’s river gorge by the next morning – and which the Russian composer Mili Balakirev portrayed so effectively in his tone poem of 1882.

But I also see similarities to several of the ballets and operas of Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, two Viennese composers who were famously attracted to plot lines that were laced with psycho-sexual overtones.

In the Rubinstein/Schmitt ballet, the action, which is billed as a “choreographic tragedy” taking place in the 15^th century near Avignon, is as follows:

Oriane is a noblewoman whose desire for carnal liaisons is insatiable:  now a poet, next a rich Mongolian merchant, then others. 

But she soon tires of these lovers, always seeking the thrill of the next conquest – and always attended to by a dwarf, her ever-loyal though completely ignored companion.

Oriane’s next target comes in the form of a handsome, mysterious knight-prince from the east.  Once again, the “call of love” sounds in Oriane’s heart.  But unlike her other liaisons, this man is different.  Learning of her licentious lifestyle and unspeakable excesses, the prince rejects Oriane’s attentions and departs the palace.

And now comes the final denouement:  Seeking to blot out this rejection, Oriane organizes a wild evening of revelry – replete with levels of debauchery heretofore unknown at the palace.  As an angry mob descends on the castle, roused to action by the vile transgressions taking place therein, Oriane dances with her final partner – death. 

In the end, it is left to Oriane’s ever-faithful dwarf to be the lone soul to mourn the princess’ demise.

Clearly, the Oriane ballet gave Florent Schmitt rich material with which to create a musical fresco of powerful drama, musical color and effects … and he does not disappoint!

Schmitt began with a full orchestra to which he added extra woodwinds, expanded percussion and keyboard instruments, along with a mixed chorus and tenor solo, in the process of creating a ballet score that lasts nearly an hour.

The instrumentation for Florent Schmitt’s ballet “Oriane et le Prince d’amour” is lavish – and it also includes a mixed chorus with solor tenor voice.

The premiere stage performance of Oriane et le Prince d’Amour wouldn’t happen until five years after its composition – on January 7, 1938 in a Paris Opéra production that also featured Serge Lifar as choreographer and ballet-master.  The famed flautist and composer-conductor Philippe Gaubert directed the production.

But a concert suite Schmitt had prepared from the ballet had already been premiered the year before — in a February 12, 1937 Paris performance conducted by Charles Munch.

It is in this form that the music has had its one and only recording, made in 1987 by Southwest German Radio featuring the Rhineland-Palatinate Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Stoll and released on the Cybelia label.

While the orchestra is not first-rank, the Cybelia recording gives ample proof of the power and effectiveness of Schmitt’s score.

The distant fanfares that open the suite are some of the most ominous I’ve ever heard in any piece of classical music.  They proclaim — in no uncertain terms — that this is going to be no ordinary musical experience!

What follows is an achingly beautiful “dance of love” … and then a ferocious “Dance of the Mongols,” portraying at once the voluptuous color and barbaric savagery of the rich Mongolian merchant’s retinue.

The French musicologist Michel Fleury has described this music in poetic terms:

“The languorous emanations that traverse the score – the Mongol coloring, the mystery of the night – in fact place Avignon in the Orient of the Arabian Nights.  And 25 years later, Oriane reaches out to Salome, that other voluptuous lady equally marked by fate.  Oriane is … a witness to the exemplary mastery of one of the greatest magicians in sound.”

And consider this observation from the French pianist Bruno Belthoise:  He counts Oriane a favorite among all of Florent Schmitt’s works, expressing complete amazement at “the richness of his writing for the orchestra.”

The dearth of recordings of Oriane et le Prince d’amour represents a huge gap in the discography of Florent Schmitt.  The 1987 Cybelia CD documentation of the suite is long out of print — and that performance suffers from less-than-polished ensemble work in any case.  Plus … the fact that the full ballet score has never been recorded is even more unfortunate.

To my mind, several of Schmitt’s most ardent advocates in the conducting world today could do great things with the Oriane score:  Stéphane Denève, JoAnn Falletta, Jacques Mercier and Yan-Pascal Tortelier.

Clearly, a work such as this would be “right in their wheelhouse.”  Here’s hoping one of them will take up the cause of Oriane before long.

Florent Schmitt’s Legende, Op. 66 is one of the most compelling concertante pieces ever written for the saxophone.  Composed in 1918, it’s a work that exists in versions for saxophone and viola soloist, along with orchestral or piano accompaniment. 

Simply put, it’s an unforgettable piece of music:  Within the span of just ten minutes, Schmitt presents a rhapsodic ballad that is amazing in its breadth and depth of atmosphere, with a masterfully colorful orchestration coexisting with the solo saxophone.

I characterize the music as remindful of an unsettled, fitful dream … and I also hear more than a little of the “orientalisms” that were common in Schmitt’s scores of the period.

Over the years I’ve heard many performances of the Legende – and in every combination of instruments.  To my mind, the most effective version is the one for saxophone and orchestra. 

Recently, a singularly fine performance of the Legende was uploaded on YouTube that features saxophonist Christopher Bartz performing with the USC Thornton Symphony.

Saxophonist Christopher Bartz: His fine performance of Florent Schmitt’s “Legende” is on YouTube.

I find myself particularly drawn to this performance because of Mr. Bartz’s moving — even mesmerizing — interpretation.  

To my ears, he gets to the heart and soul of this music in a way few others have done. 

I was curious to learn how Mr. Bartz came to know the Legende and to make it part of his repertoire — and in the process of my research discovered that he won a concerto competition playing this very piece. 

Mr. Bartz was kind enough to share his thoughts about the music with me.

PLN:  When did you first come to know the music of Florent Schmitt?

CB:  I first discovered Florent Schmitt on Arno Bornkamp’s “Saxophone Sonatas” recording.  Bornkamp’s album was one of the first classical saxophone recordings I ever heard.  On it, he plays Schmitt’s Legende wonderfully.  

Early inspiration: Arno Bornkamp’s “Saxophone Sonatas” album.

That CD was given to me when I was about 15 years old.  I remember being especially drawn to this particular piece, listening to it over and over.

PLN:  When did you start studying and performing the Legende?

CB:  I got hold of the sheet music when I was in high school.  I remember listening to the music many times while following along with the score.  I spent a great deal of time dissecting and absorbing the music before I ever played a note of it, in fact.

As an undergraduate saxophone student in college, I finally felt I was ready to tackle the demanding ensemble preparation needed to perform the piece.  I rehearsed it with a pianist a few times but never actually performed it publicly.  

I played the piece as part of the University of Southern California’s annual Concerto Competition.  As a winner of that competition, I had the wonderful opportunity to perform it in concert with Sharon Lavery directing the USC Thornton Symphony.  I’ve had the chance to present the piece a few times since, with piano accompaniment.

PLN:  What attracted you to the music, and what aspects of it are particularly memorable or moving?

CB:  Most impressive are the magnificent colors the composer draws from the orchestra.  Also, the beautiful melodic lines in the saxophone part, which vacillate between calmness and overwhelming bursts of emotion.  

I really appreciate the way Schmitt treats the saxophone as a soloist in partnership with the orchestra; the interplay between the two is uniquely special. 

My favorite moment in the piece is the saxophone flourish right at the very end.

PLN:  How would you rate the Legende compared to other concertante music for the saxophone?

CB:  Without a doubt, it’s one of the best works ever composed for the saxophone.  I’m very thankful to have it in my repertoire!

PLN:  Tell us more about the various music competitions you have entered.

CB:  In addition to winning the USC Concerto Competition, I was named the Grand Prize Winner of the 2012 Hennings-Fischer Young Artists Competition.  I played Heitor Villa-Lobos‘ Fantasia for Soprano Saxophone & Chamber Orchestra for that competition.  

As the competition’s winner, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to play the Hindemith with Steven Kerstein and the Burbank Philharmonic Orchestra.

More recently, I was awarded Third Prize in the 2013 Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Young Artist National Competition.

PLN:  Have you studied or performed Schmitt’s other works for saxophone?

CB:  Like many university-trained saxophonists, I have studied and performed Schmitt’s Saxophone Quartet. That work is clearly one of the core repertoire pieces for classical saxophone players.  

Recently, I’ve become interested in performing Schmitt’s Songe de Coppelius as well.

PLN:  What is your musical background, and what are you doing currently?

CB:  I joined the Department of Music faculty at California State University Fullerton not long ago, where I teach saxophone. I graduated from the University of Southern California where I earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. I studied with renowned Los Angeles Philharmonic saxophonist James Rötter, as well as jazz performance with Bob Mintzer.

I hold a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan, where I studied with Donald Sinta. I also have two Bachelor of Music degrees from Bowling Green State University, in Saxophone Performance and Jazz Studies. There, I studied with John Sampen and Gunnar Mossblad.

As for upcoming concerts, I have two concerto performances scheduled in the Los Angeles area and play solo recitals regularly at various venues. I will, of course, jump at any chance to perform the Legende again!

Fortunately, we can hear Christopher Bartz’s prize-winning performance of Florent Schmitt’s Legende, courtesy of YouTube. 

Judging from the passion as well as the technical brilliance of his playing, here’s hoping that Christopher Bartz will have many more opportunities to showcase his very special interpretation of this “perilously seductive” music.