A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Quatre lieds, set to the verse of writers Jean Richepin, Catulle Blée and Maurice Maeterlinck. Composed in 1912, the music was published by S. Chapelier (Editions Philippo).

Throughout his lengthy career as a composer, Florent Schmitt would return again and again to the human voice when creating his compositions.  Although Schmitt distanced himself from operatic projects (he created no operas of his own although he  prepared piano-reduction scores of several of Frederick Delius’ operatic scores), Schmitt lavished attention on sorts of other kinds of vocal and choral music, producing an extensive ttove of mélodies over a seven-decade span.

Considering that Schmitt’s first creations date from the late 1880s — and as a composition student of Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré, among others — it isn’t surprising that the composer’s earliest songs exhibit a voluptuous late-Romantic musical style so prevalent during those times.

But even in these youthful efforts, Schmitt was “pushing the envelope” in his choices of verse — setting the words of writers such as Paul Verlaine, Camille Mauclair (Séverin Faust), Maurice Ganivet and Henri Gautier-Villars to music — even as he was also breaking free in noticeable ways from accepted conventions regarding the “rules” of composition.

Edward Rushton

By 1910, Florent Schmitt had broken definitively from the style and manner of his early mélodies.  The British pianist Edward Rushton (resident in Switzerland for the past decade), who has studied, performed and recorded numerous vocal pieces by Schmitt, describes Schmitt’s evolution as follows:

“[Florent Schmitt’s] astonishing songs of the 1910s and 1920s are suffused with darker expressionistic sounds which underscore the cryptic and fathomless poetry. This is a world of nightmares and fantastical visions, typical of Schmitt’s predilection for weird and savage exoticism.”

Florent Schmitt, photographed at about the time he composed Quatre lieds in 1912.

The pieces that make up Quatre lieds, Op. 45, composed in 1912 and published by Philippo (Éditions S. Chapelier), are certainly an exemplar of these darker atmospherics. As Rushton characterizes them:

“The Four Lieds … are saturated in harmonies augmented and diminished to a tonally uncategorizable breaking-point. They are all pitilessly obsessed with death and the death of love.”

Commenting on the specific literary inspirations behind the music, the contemporary English composer and lecturer Robert Hugill states:

“… The songs are a musical reflection of the darker aura of Symbolism. The songs are short and concentrated — intense and with a wonderful sense of period. The lush harmonies [are] balanced by the sometimes sparse accompaniment and the almost expressionist cast to some of the vocal lines.”

Auguste-Jules (Jean) Richepin (1849-1926)

The first two mélodies are set to words by the French poet, novelist and dramatist Jean Richepin. Born in Algeria in 1849, Richepin was considered a brilliant if undisciplined genius who worked variously as a journalist, actor, sailor and stevedore — all while finding his artistic outlet in creative writing.

Settling in Paris’ Latin Quarter in the 1860s, Richepin became acquainted with such personages as Léon Bloy, Paul Bourget, Maurice Rollinat and Raoul Ponchon. He was also a close friend of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, and during the 1880s Richepin was rumored to have had an affair with the famed Sarah Bernhardt — probably the most famous actress of the day in France.

Inspired in particular by the literary works of Paul Baudelaire and Jules Valles, Richepin rejected the so-called “yoke of cultural conventions” in favor of celebrating “virility and instinct.” His first published work, La Chanson des Gueux, landed Richepin in jail under the charge of “insulting good morals” — which only had the effect of guaranteeing his success and fame.

A commemorative plaque affixed to the building where Jean Richepin lived at the time of his death in 1926 (85 rue de la Tour, 16th arr., Paris).

Remaining a writer until the end of his life, Richepin was eventually accepted into “polite society”; when he died in 1926 it was at his home located in the fashionable 16th arrondissement of Paris. But Richepin never fully gave in to social convention; in fact, he never stopped employing the crude slang, popular language and display of an often-vulgar or grotesque sensuality that was very clearly designed to provoke or scandalize.

Richepin’s output attracted musicians of various stripes, and his poetry and libretti were set to music by French composers ranging from Massenet and Chabrier to Gabriel Dupont and Florent Schmitt.

The first of the two Richepin verses selected by Schmitt for his Op. 45 set is Où vivre ? . Its three stanzas are unremittingly sullen in their atmospherics:

Where should I live? … My sadness is darker than the night.

Where should I die? … My sorrow is deeper than the sea.

Where should I flee to? … My pain is stronger than death.

In keeping with the poetry, Schmitt’s music, which is spare bordering on stark, has a yearning quality to it. But in the end, there is no real resolution; instead it is more like “resignation.”

The score to Ou vivre ?, the first number in Florent Schmitt’s Quatre lieds, set to the verse of Jean Richepin.

The second Richepin verse set by Schmitt in Quatre lieds is Evocation.  This poem deals with the disillusionment of “love found and love lost”:

Do you remember the first kiss that I came to claim? You did not know how to refuse it, but you did not dare return it.

Do you remember the last kiss that I came to claim? You did not dare refuse it, but you did not know how to return it.

Here as well, the music has a sorrowful poignancy, tinged with a sense of hopelessness.

The score to Evocation, the second number in Florent Schmitt’s Quatre lieds, set to a poem by Jean Richepin.

A vintage copy of Rimes tendres, a volume of poems by Catulle Blée (nom de plume of Jules Le Roy, born in 1869) and inscribed by the author in 1888.

For the third piece in the set, Florent Schmitt selected a poem by Catulle Blée (the nom de plume of Jules Le Roy), titled Fleurs décloses.  Comparatively little is known today about this writer and theatre director, who was born in 1869 and who seems to have spent most of his time living and working in the Rouen region of northern France. Catulle Blée’s best-known work is probably a volume of poems titled Rimes tendres, published in Rouen in 1888.

Interestingly, Quatre lieds was not the first time that Schmitt had selected the words of Catolle Blée to set to music; the composer’s Chanson, Op 2, No. 2, written in 1894, also incorporates Blée’s poetry. While that earlier song may have been more joyful, in Fleurs décloses the idea of love is revealed as an undertaking that is doomed to failure:

What is the use of our loving … because before autumn arrives our hearts will be tired, for love is so monotonous.

Winter will come; and we will forget closed flowers … past loves.

In this song, the piano has an extended solo passage in between the autumn and winter sections of the verse– as if predicting the final despondency.

The sheet music to Fleurs décloses, the third number in Florent Schmitt’s Quatre lieds, set to the poetry of Catulle Blée (nom de plume of Jules Le Roy).

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

For the fourth and final number in the set — Ils ont tué trois petites filles — Florent Schmitt turned to the work of the Belgian-born Symbolist poet Maurice Maeterlinck, the best-known of the three writers. For someone who was prone to bouts of depression at various periods during his long life (he died at age 86), Maeterlinck’s main themes in his works are wholly predictable — death and the meaning of life — making them important contributions to the writings that came out of the Symbolist movement.

Moving to the Passy District of Paris’s 16th arrondissement in 1895, Maeterlinck and his then-romantic partner, the singer and actress Georgette Leblanc, became friends with other important artists of day including Octave Mirbeau, Jean Lorrain (né Paul Alexandre Martin Duval) and Paul Fort, while also drifting into left-wing political advocacy.

Maurice Maeterlinck’s literary fame has extended throughout the Francophone world. Here he is commemorated on a postage stamp issued in 1977 by the the Republic of Niger.

Although he wrote poetry and dramas throughout his life, Maeterlinck is best-known now for his early plays published before 1900. Significantly, Maeterlinck came to believe that no human actors could adequately portray the lean, spare symbolic figures of his plays due to the hindrance of physical expressions and mannerisms — concluding that employing marionettes were a better alternative. “Poems die when living people get into them,” he was fond of asserting.

Maeterlinck’s writings attracted the attention of numerous composers in addition to Florent Schmitt — the most notable being the libretto to Debussy’s opera Pélleas et Mélisande (Fauré, Schönberg and Sibelius were likewise inspired to pen orchestral works based on the same story).

Other composers inspired by the writings of Maeterlinck were Paul Dukas (the libretto for his 1908 opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue) and the Alsatian-American Charles Martin Loeffler for his symphonic poem La Mort de Tintagiles (along with Vaughan Williams and several lesser-known composers being inspired by the same story) — not to mention other notable composers including Honegger, Rachmaninov, Lili Boulanger, Cyril Scott and Maximilian Steinberg.

A vintage copy of the 1905 printing of Maurice Maeterlinck’s Quinze chansons, the third of which Florent Schmitt set to music in his Quatre lieds in 1912.

The Maeterlinck verse that Florent Schmitt selected for the final number in Quatre lieds — which translates to English as They killed three little girls — is the third entry in a set of Symbolist poems Quinze chansons group under the broader umbrella title of Serres chaudes (Hothouse Blooms).  (The first edition, published in 1900, contained just twelve poems, while later editions expanded the number of poems to fifteen.)

In this particular poem, Maeterlinck paints a bleakly sorrowful landscape, which translates to English roughly as follows:

They killed three little girls to see what was in their hearts:

The first was full of gladness … and three snakes hissed there for three years.

The second was full of sweetness … and three lambs grazed there for three years.

The third was full of sadness … and three archangels kept watch there for three years.

The first page of the sheet music for Ils ont tué trois petites filles, the fourth number in Florent Schmitt’s Quatre lieds, set to a poem by Maurice Maeterlinck.

Indeed, Edward Rushton observes that in this song, “Even the archangels … bring no elevated illumination.”

Yves Hucher, Schmitt’s biographer, has written further:

“What singer, in recital, could decide on this mélodie as compared to Debussy’s carol Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maison [Christmas for children who are homeless]? The knell of the first stanza, the arabesques of the second or the chords of the third? It’s all there with a simplicity of means, enveloped in a poignant melodic line: all the lamentation of human suffering.”

The Quatre lieds is an important “transitional” piece in Florent Schmitt’s catalogue of vocal music. Performed together as a group, the set of four songs clocks in at just eight minutes, but each of those minutes is imbued with a quiet intensity that inexorably draws the listener in and captures the emotions. Resolutions never quite come, but we can’t help but care about the people caught up in the desperation of these private, quietly intense dramas.

Florent Schmitt dedicated Quatre lieds to the French soprano Madeleine Bonnard, who was then a member of the Quartette vocal de Paris. This quartet was formed in 1911 with a mission to perform vocal music from earlier times in addition to contemporary works written for four voices.  Its members included mezzo-soprano Camille Chadeigne, tenor Gabriel Paulet and bass Paul Eyraud in addition to Bonnard. It is likely that Mlle. Bonnard gave the premiere public performance of Quatre lieds at a Quartette vocal de Paris concert in 1912 or 1913.

The repertoire of the Quartette vocal de Paris was interesting and varied. Among the pieces performed at its inaugural concert at the Salle des agriculteurs on February 10, 1911 was Florent Schmitt’s Chansons à quatre voix. Over a three-year period the Quartet premiered numerous new vocal works created by Louis Aubert, Henri Büsser, Clement Robert and Jean Poueigh in addition to Florent Schmitt, but the group would be forced to disband at the onset of World War I in late 1914.

The premiere commercial recording of Florent Schmitt’s Quatre lieds (Resonus Classics label, 2020).

Quatre lieds is barely known, unfortunately. Indeed, it would be more than a century before the piece would receive its first-ever commercial recording (released in 2020 on the Resonus Classics label).

Featuring Swiss tenor Nino Aurelio Gmünder and pianist Fabienne Romer, the premiere recording does these mélodies proud in interpretations that could hardly be bettered — except perhaps delivering a little more “authenticity” in the French diction.

Nino Aurelio Gmünder

The four movements of the Resonus Classics recording of Quatre lieds have been uploaded to YouTube, and can be heard individually via these links:

• Où vivre ?
• Evocation
• Fleurs décloses
• Ils ont tué trois petites filles

The French text to Florent Schmitt’s Quatre lieds with accompanying English translations, reprinted from the CD booklet notes for the 2020 premiere recording on the Resonus label featuring tenor Nino Aurelio Gmünder and pianist Fabienne Romer. The verses are from the poetry of Jean Richepin, Catulle Blée and Maurice Maeterlinck.

Fabienne Romer

In music critic Lynn René Bayley’s October 2020 review of the Resonus release that appeared in the online journal The Art Music Lounge in which she characterized the recording as “an excellent presentation of Schmitt’s songs, one that needs to be heard by anyone who admires this excellent composer,” Ms. Bayley offered these further observations about Florent Schmitt’s vocal scores and their place in the French repertoire:

“This is truly extraordinary music of a sort that no one writes anymore … Although they bear some resemblance to the songs of Ravel and Debussy, these have a profile all their own. Schmitt uses much more pentatonic movement which he mixes in with chromatic movement. Like so many French composers of his time, he is also loath to resolve his chords — sometimes even at the ends of songs.”

To experience for yourself what Bayley is getting at, give Quatre lieds a hearing. If you’re like me, you’ll recognize that the mélodies possess a sort of mesmerizing intensity. The songs draw listeners in, holding them prisoner by their emotional force for those eight spellbinding minutes.

Fleurs décloses, one of the pieces in Florent Schmitt’s Quatre lieds, was featured in The Opus Project’s exploration of 48th opus-numbered creations by 30 composers. The Schmitt performance featured flautist Alan Kingsley playing the vocalist’s part, joined by pianist Mark Alburger (San Francisco, December 2016).

The 2020 release of the premiere commercial recording of Quatre lieds gives hope that its newfound visibility will result in presentations of the music in the recital hall.  If so, that would be starting from zero at the present time, as online research reveals no such performances in recent times with the exception of a 2016 presentation of one of the four pieces — Fleurs décloses — as part of The Opus Project (and that performance featured a flute in lieu of the vocalist).

Beyond the hope for future performances of this music is an even more intriguing proposition: In the catalogue of Florent Schmitt’s compositions as compiled by Yves Hucher in 1960 and published by Durand, Quatre lieds is listed as scored for “voice and orchestra or piano.” Evidently the composer prepared an orchestrated version of Quatre lieds, just as he did with a number of his other vocal sets such as Kérob-Shal, Trois chants and Quatre poèmes de Ronsard.

Unfortunately, no trace of the orchestrated score could be found in 1960, and I haven’t been able to uncover any newer information about the whereabouts of the elusive orchestrated version of Quatre lieds. But with persistence and luck, perhaps the score will surface someday …

Town Hall in New York City, where the League of Composers recital featuring Florent Schmitt and fellow musicians was held on November 27, 1932.

One of the serendipitous aspects of music history is coming across rare and precious documents that have remained hidden for decades.  Such an occurrence happened this past summer when JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, received a package in the mail containing a collection of documents pertaining to a recital given by Florent Schmitt and fellow musicians in New York City in November 1932.

The items included the program from the Town Hall concert, two vocal scores personally inscribed by the composer to Rita Sebastian — the contralto who sang on the program — plus Miss Sebastian’s own reminiscences of the event.

Rita Sebastian’s score to Florent Schmitt’s Tristesse au jardin was inscribed by the composer to her (November 1932).

Rita Sebastian (1900-1996) (1926 photo)

The cover letter that accompanied the parcel was penned by Tracy Allen, the daughter of Joan Webb Basile, who had been one of Rita Sebastian’s voice students.

The letter reads, in part:

“Enclosed are pieces of sheet music I found while going through my mother’s music library after her death in 2018. They were given to her in the 1950s by her high school voice teacher, Rita Sebastian Latham, and have spent far too long in a file cabinet.  It is my sincere hope that they may be appreciated and valued by you. 

Researching the music … I learned of your work to reintroduce [Florent Schmitt’s] music to American audiences.  The handwritten account of the recital was written by Mrs. Latham … 

Thank you for accepting these items.  As a retired music educator and singer, I could not bear to throw them away or put them back in another file drawer to be ignored for another generation.  Please pass them along to anyone who you feel would enjoy owning and possibly performing them.”

Writing to thank Ms. Allen for sending the documents, Maestra Falletta informed her that she would be passing them along to me for study purposes. Upon reviewing the documents after coming into possession of them last month, immediately I realized their historical value, because very little documentation exists about the Town Hall program apart from a review of the event, written by music critic Olin Downes, that had appeared in the New York Times.

But here, sitting in front of me, were personal reminiscences as recounted by one of the featured musicians in the recital. Reading them brought the Town Hall event to vivid life again — some 90 years after the fact.

Serge Alexandrovich Koussevitzky (1874-1951)

Although he was an inveterate traveler his entire life – his last passport, issued at the age of 85, contains more than 40 visa stamps – Florent Schmitt made only one journey to America.  Serge Koussevitzky, the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra who Schmitt had known from the conductor’s days in Paris after World War I, had commissioned the composer to write a new work for the Boston Symphony as part of the orchestra’s 50th anniversary celebration.

In the event, Schmitt brought forth his striking Symphonie concertante, and then traveled to the United States to play the challenging piano part at the piece’s premiere performances held in Boston on November 25 and 26, 1932.

The world premiere performances of Florent Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante were presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1932. The composer was at the keyboard and Serge Koussevitzky conducted.

Florent Schmitt’s American trip was organized by Bernard R. Laberge, the Québec-born impresario, keyboard artist and music critic who had established an artists’ agency in Montreal in the early 1920s, later opening a second office in New York City.  In addition to organizing and managing the North American tours of such musicians as Clara Haskil, Mischa Elman, Marcel Dupré, Carl Weinrich, the Pro Arte and Roth Quartets plus the Pasquier Trio, Laberge was also responsible for bringing an impressive roster of renowned European composers to the Western Hemisphere including Ravel, Honegger, Milhaud, Respighi, Prokofiev and Alexandre Tansman, in addition to Florent Schmitt.

As part of the itinerary of appearances that Laberge put together for Florent Schmitt’s 1932 American tour, a recital of Schmitt’s music was planned for Town Hall in New York City the day following the composer’s second concert in Boston.  Held on Sunday, November 27th beginning at 8:45 pm, the Town Hall recital took place under the auspices of the League of Composers (now the U.S. chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music).

Paul Claudel (1868-1955), French poet and dramatist, was also in the diplomatic corps. Among other posts, he served as French ambassador in Brazil (1917-18), Japan (1921-27) and the United States (1928-33). Claudel’s most famous literary creations date from before World War I. An ardent Roman Catholic, his private life was nevertheless rather untidy — including fathering at least one child out of wedlock.

It was quite the occasion, attended by music modernists as well as a cosmopolitan audience that included, among other luminaries, Paul Claudel, the French poet, dramatist and diplomat who was then serving as France’s ambassador to the United States.

The Town Hall program was constructed to present a cross-section of Schmitt’s music written over a 30-year period covering 1897 to 1927.  Schmitt himself performed at the piano, joined by a stellar cast of musicians including cellist Alfred Wallenstein (later to become principal conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra) and saxophonist Maurice Decruck of the New York Philharmonic.

The “big program” at the all-Florent Schmitt recital at Town Hall went well into the evening, capped off by a performance of the monumental Piano Quintet by the League of Composers Quartet with Florent Schmitt at the piano.

Following intermission, the program continued with the League of Composers Quartet (made up of violinists Nikolai Berezowsky and Meyer Pollack, violist Mitya Stillman and cellist David Freed) joining forces with the composer to present Schmitt’s monumental Piano Quintet.

Also featured on the program was the young American contralto Rita Sebastian, singing two mélodies by Schmitt — Star (the second of three pieces that comprise the vocal set Kérob-Shal), plus Tristesse au jardin.

The all-Florent Schmitt program featuring the composer at the piano and fellow musicians Maurice Decruck, Rita Sebastian, Alfred Wallenstein, Nicolai Berezowsky, Meyer Pollack, David Freed and Mitya Stillman. Starting at 8:45 pm, the program lasted well into the evening.

It was quite an honor for the young singer, who a quarter century later would write down her still-vivid recollections of the memorable occasion:

Marie Josephine Manice Edgar Mercati (1868-1951) sponsored the November 1932 League of Composers Town Hall concert. Born in Long Island City, Countess Mercati’s rise to social prominence paralleled her activities as a patron of the arts. According to a November 12, 1932 article in the Saturday Evening Post, “Mr. Schmitt … is well-known to the American colony in Paris.” While Florent Schmitt’s appearance occurred before the countess’ return from Europe to the United States for her annual visit, presumably many of the New York socialites who attended the event were there at her prompting. (ca. 1915 photo)

“This concert has a delightful memory.  The audience was mostly French — consisting of French diplomats, prominent French and American socialites, plus impoverished Frenchmen of former aristocratic nobility — a marquis in particular is fondly remembered. 

Florent Schmitt was a white-haired, bearded and thoroughly charming person who understood the artists’ stress in his part as an accompanist.  His countryman adored him, and I never saw — then and since — so much hugging and hand-kissing.  He was an idolized contemporary French composer. 

He had asked me to do his songs, an honor I still cherish. 

… His music is unusual [and] French is not my best language, so I asked every French-speaking person I knew to help me with correct pronunciation.  I wanted so much to please him; he chose me and I did not dare to let him down.  He and the New York critics felt I did him justice.”

Edwin Olin Downes (1886-1955)

Miss Sebastian’s recollections are correct in this last point.  The recital was reviewed by several papers including the New York Times, New York Evening Post and Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In the most extensive of these reviews, Olin Downes wrote in the November 28, 1932 edition of the Times:

“The singer was Rita Sebastian, intelligent and sympathetic in her interpretation of [the] difficult songs.”

Rita Sebastian’s score to Florent Schmitt’s Star (No. 2 of Kérob-Shal) was inscribed to her by the composer (November 1932).

Writing of the other pieces presented, Downes praised both the music and the presentation of the Piano Quintet; indeed, the sub-headline of the review in the Times stated, “Composition, 25 years old, deeply moves an audience of modernists.”

Downes noted further:

“Mr. Schmitt played the piano part of the Quintet not like a virtuoso but like a composer — master of his ideas, knowing what he was doing and why: driving home, with inborn authority, every salient point of the music.  He was excellently assisted by a quartet … these men, accomplished players and thorough musicians, carried out worthily the composer’s ideas.”

Alfred Wallenstein (1898-1983), best-known as the chief conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra from 1943 to 1956, began his musical career as a cellist. He had joined the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at the age of 17 and later became principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic under Arturo Toscanini.

Downes also praised Alfred Wallenstein for his performance of Florent Schmitt’s Final, Op. 77, the most recent work on the program, noting that the cellist “accomplished a difficult task admirably.”

Rita Sebastian’s recollections of Wallenstein were more personal:

“I remember him as being affable, [but] we were both too nervous to hold a conversation of any length.”

As to how Florent Schmitt knew of Rita Sebastian to request her to sing at the Town Hall recital, we can only speculate.  Perhaps it was John Erskine, the emcee at the event, who was responsible for making the recommendation.  A man of letters, a composer and a music critic, Erskine was also the first president of the Juilliard School of Music.

John Erskine (1879-1951), American educator and author, pianist and composer, was a professor of English at Amherst College (1903-09) and Columbia University (1909-37). He was named the first president of the Juilliard School of Music (1928-37) and was president of the Juilliard Music Foundation until his death. He also served as a director of the Metropolitan Opera Association.

Sebastian had made her New York stage debut at the Princess Theatre in 1926, and so was already known to New York audiences.  Born Freida Sophia Sebastian in 1900 and beginning her music studies on the violin at ten years old, later she switched to singing, studying with Ada Soder-Hueck and focusing initially on German lieder and oratorio music.

Amsterdam-born Mme. Soder-Hueck (1874-1936) came to America in 1904 and sang at the St. Louis World’s Fair. A proponent of the Garcia School of bel canto singing, Soder-Hueck opened a  highly regarded voice studio at the Old Met where she imparted her philosophy of singing — an artistic approach she described in some depth in a September 4, 1931 article published in the Daily Sun:

“The secret of the vocal art is relaxation, if production is to result in the true lyric quality (bel canto) or spinning the tone.  Only then is the true timbre brought out, vibration given full play, and the voice enabled to make its strongest appeal. 

A pleasant and pleasing facial expression, stage presence and poise – all so important in holding an audience – result when the vocal apparatus is fully controlled and at ease.  And so it is that the singer attains full artistic freedom and gains command of emotional effects.  Resonance and volume of tone come not from effort, but from relaxation.”

This advertisement for the voice studio of Ada Soder-Hueck appeared in program booklets of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Rita Sebastian studied under Mme. Soder-Hueck and went on to teach the same vocal methods to her own students.

Theodore Cella (1896-1960), principal harp player in the Boston Symphony Orchestra and later the New York Philharmonic, shared the program in Rita Sebastian’s 1926 debut recital at the Princess Theatre in New York City. An accomplished musician who also served as an assistant conductor under Sir John Barbirolli, Cella achieved a different sort of notoriety as the fifth and last husband of the American socialite Mabel Boll Scott Bach Rocha De Porceri Cella (1893-1949). Known as the “Queen of Diamonds,” Mabel Boll’s biography reads like the screenplay for a movie. Claiming to be an heiress, in reality she was the daughter of a Rochester, NY, bartender. Starting out working as a stock clerk at the age of 16, successive marriages to wealthy businessmen raised both her economic and social status. Famously, she possessed a 46.57-carat emerald-cut gemstone that is known to this day as the Mabel Boll Diamond (now in the Harry Winston Collection). During the 1920s and early 1930s Mabel Boll was a well-known aviatrix, attempting several round-the-world flights in her “Queen of the Air” Junkers Flugzeug plane. Abandoning her European home at the outbreak of World War II, she returned to the United States and married Theodore Cella in 1940. Later in the decade she was committed to the Manhattan State Psychiatric Hospital on Wards Island, where she died of a stroke in April 1949 at the age of 55.

Taught this method by Mme. Soder-Hueck, in the 1920s Rita Sebastian was singing on radio, including on NBC’s “The Travelers Hour.”  She also sang on tour and in opera, but by 1932 was planted firmly in New York, including serving for ten years as a vocal soloist at Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El, the first Reform Jewish congregation in the city.

Furthermore, Miss Sebastian’s recital repertoire expanded well-beyond her original focus on German lieder; taking a look at her recital programs reveals selections ranging from early music and Handel to Grieg, Anton Rubinstein, Manna-Zucca and others. Among the admirers of her musicianship was Walter Damrosch, the long-time conductor of the New York Symphony prior to its merger with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, who wrote:

“Rita Sebastian … is not only possessor of a beautiful contralto voice, she has achieved fine artistry and has a genuine and beautiful emotional expression.”

As an interesting parallel to her participation in the 1932 Florent Schmitt Town Hall recital, Miss Sebastian was also a featured vocalist at a League of Composers concert presented during the first American visit of another esteemed composer — Arnold Schoenberg. That event occurred in November 1933 — a year after Schmitt’s recital — and featured an all-Schoenberg program presented by the Pro Arte Quartet, pianists Nadia Reisenberg and Edna Sheppard, along with singers Ruth Rodgers and Rita Sebastian.

Florent Schmitt (r.) and Arnold Schoenberg (l.), together aboard ship (North Sea, 1920).

Reportedly, Schoenberg was pleasantly surprised by the positive response to his music, relaying later to Claire Reis, then-executive director of the League of Composers:

“May I tell you that for me, this was a truly great joy.  I had the feeling during the evening that there are a great many people here who are not altogether without an understanding of my work.”

The interior of Temple Emmanu-El, the first Reform Jewish congregation in New York City. Rita Sebastian was a solo vocalist there for ten years.

After the mid-1930s Miss Sebastian’s activities gravitated towards teaching.  Marrying in 1937 and becoming Rita Sebastian Latham, a year later the couple’s purchase of property in Oswego County upstate presaged an eventual relocation from New York City.  Following in the footsteps of her own teacher, the now-Mrs. Latham opened a voice studio in the small town of Cleveland (adjacent to Costantia) on Lake Oneida, specializing in bel canto singing.

In a pamphlet describing her studio’s teaching methods and philosophy of singing, the focus is clearly on achieving correct vocal technique, artistic interpretation, and style:

“Artists from the Rita Sebastian Latham studio embrace the fields of church, concert, opera, operetta and radio. She looks upon every beginner as a potential artist, nurturing dormant qualities of voice, personality and appearance. 

Those who have voice problems which require a corrective criticism will find Mrs. Latham’s illustrations and demonstrations beneficial.  As a person, she is tactful and cheerfully patient.  Even if a student is not desirous of a career, singing will offer many individual benefits such as lung development, correct posture and poise; in addition, it will add charm and color to the speaking voice and personality.”

A 1934 concert in which Rita Sebastian sang with the Vrionides Sinfonietta in music of Jacques Pillois and Lazare Saminsky.

Joan Webb Basile (1937-2018), photographed at about the time she was a private voice student of Rita Sebastian Latham, who passed on to her the documents from the 1932 Florent Schmitt Town Hall recital.

According to Tracy Allen, her mother — Joan Webb Basile — studied privately with Mrs. Latham while in high school, and credited her teacher with making possible her acceptance to the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York-Potsdam.  Following her collegiate studies Ms. Basile pursued her own successful teaching career, while also singing in nightclubs and restaurants on weekends and during the summers.

With singing and teaching running in the family, Tracy Allen earned degrees in music education and voice performance from the Crane School as well, followed by a 30+ year teaching career as well as singing in the chorus of the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY for 30 seasons.  Ms. Allen also directed the children’s and youth chorus at Glimmerglass for eight seasons.  Now retired, she continues to live a life filled with music … which brings us back to the beginning with the remarkable story of the 1932 Town Hall recital.

Rita Sebastian’s career took her from performing on New York City stages and on tour to a “second act” as a voice teacher. Her relocation from the “big city” to Oswego County in upstate New York in the late 1930s was followed by a final move to another small community — Mercedes, TX, near the Mexican border and the Gulf Coast — where she passed away in 1996 at the age of nearly 96 years. (1921 photo)

In later life, Rita Sebastian Latham made it a point to write down recollections of her early career milestones.  Little could she know that it would be more than a half-century before the rediscovery of her reminiscences of the Florent Schmitt Town Hall recital would enable a new generation of music-lovers to learn about them.

We owe a debt of gratitude to one of her students, Joan Webb Basile, for safeguarding these historical artifacts — and to Basile’s own daughter, Tracy Allen, for passing them on to JoAnn Falletta — thereby bringing them forth into the bright light of today.

Florent Schmitt, photographed at about the time he was composing the vocal set Kérob-Shal.

Even before the onset of World War I, Florent Schmitt was already known as a pathfinding composer.  Indeed, such works as Psaume XLVII (1904), La Tragédie de Salomé (1907) and the Piano Quintet (1908) had already cemented his reputation as one of the most influential voices among his generation of French composers.

But it was during the First World War when Schmitt would begin stretching polytonality to its outermost limits.  We already notice it in such pieces as Rêves (from 1915), but it became even more pronounced in the piano set Ombres, completed in 1917, as well as the Sonate libre from 1918-19.

These works represented a clear evolution away from the late-Romantic or Impressionistic flavor of Schmitt’s earlier oeuvres; even 100+ years later they strike many listeners as surprisingly modern in their conception.

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Kérob-Shal, Op. 67.

It was during this same period that the composer began working on what would turn out to be one of the most daring compositions in the entire Schmitt catalogue — penning the first of the three mélodies that ultimately became his vocal set Kérob-Shal, Op. 67.  The score (bought out by Durand) carries a publication date of 1925, but the earliest of the pieces actually dates from 1919 while the other two numbers were penned in 1924:

• Octroi (Customs House — 1924 — dedicated to Charles Hubbard)
• Star (1919 — dedicated to Madeleine Greslé)
• Vendredi XIII (Friday the Thirteenth — 1924 — dedicated to Claire Croiza)

Florent Schmitt (l.) pictured with Charles Hubbard, the American-born singer who was active in Paris during the 1920s. In 1921, Hubbard performed the first music by Aaron Copland presented without Copland himself participating (instead, Nadia Boulanger did the honors at the piano). Schmitt dedicated Octroi from Kérob-Shal to Hubbard; this photo, taken at Schmitt’s home in St-Cloud, dates from the same year as  piece’s composition (1924).

But what about the name Kérob-Shal?

What might seem at first blush to be a musical work of Eastern or Oriental inspiration due to its exotic-sounding title turns out instead to be a mash-up of the last names of three writers whose verses were used by Schmitt in the pieces:  René Kerdyk, G. Jean-Aubry and René Chalupt.

Edward Rushton

And this is only the beginning of the strangeness.  Pianist Edward Rushton, who in 2020 participated in the first-ever commercial recording of Kérob-Shal, calls the three pieces “astonishing songs” where “harmonies defy categorization.” Rushton adds:

“This is a world of nightmares and fantastical visions, typical of Schmitt’s predilection for weird and savage exoticism … saturated in harmonies augmented and diminished to [a] tonally uncategorizable breaking point … pitilessly obsessed with death and the death of love. In these dangerously alluring songs, violent actions are performed against a placid backdrop.

[As] my favorite of all the works we present in our recording, it’s so manic and changeable — where Schmitt goes completely crazy!”

In addition to writing poetry, René Kerdyk was a music critic. Perhaps his most notorious commentary was about the composer Francis Poulenc (pictured above). Writing in 1938, Kerdyk referred to Poulenc as “having the personality of a jokester” and contended that Poulenc’s success resulted mainly from the triviality of his music and his desire to write works with a primary goal of pleasing the public. Poulenc was, Kerdyk argued, a composer “attached to homages, to gossip, and the superficial elegance of the society that surrounds him” — indeed, a materialistic entertainer who “only agrees to perform in concert if he is very well-paid, like a diva.”

“Manic and changeable” is certainly an apt way to describe these mélodies.  The first of the three — Octroi — is set to verse by the Belgian poet René Kerdyk (1885-1945), who was also a musician who had been a classmate of Maurice Ravel.

Kerdyk’s poem depicts an empty landscape on the outskirts of Paris at dawn. Impassive calm returns after the violence suggested in the verse, which has been translated from the original French into English below (special thanks to Steven Kruger and Nicolas Southon for providing the English translations for this article):

Tsuguharu Foujita (1888-1968), a noted and sometimes-controversial Japanese-French painter and printmaker, applied Japanese ink techniques to Western-style paintings. A scene or a landscape referred to as a “Foujita” in writings of the period would have been understood as easily by people in France as “Modigliani eyes” are to people around the world today.

An entire landscape of white lines,

The custom inspector’s take on Paris is a Foujita,

With a bird on the branch of a tree

Such as there are heaps of them.

A streetlight is yet illuminating

On the railings that hide the daylight,

Jeusalem artichokes — a member of the sunflower family.

And in this little muted dawn

Is the pathway of Jerusalem artichokes.

A whole drowsy world advances

In this scaffold-like light,

While the toll collector with his lance

Discovers the dumpster’s secret.

The first page of the score to Octroi, from Florent Schmitt’s Kérob-Shal.

Rushton makes particular note of the bird-song in the piano part of the score — and how this anticipates Messiaen gesturally and harmonically but not conceptually, being descriptive of a banal sort of birdsong “such as there are heaps of.”

G. Jean-Aubry (Jean-Frédéric Émile Aubry) (1882-1950)

The second piece — Star — is set to verse by G. Jean-Aubry (1882-1950). Better-known as an arts critic and biographer, Aubry contributed literary criticism to numerous journals in France and Belgium including Le Petit Havre, Le Correspondant l’art moderne plus his own publication, Le Prisme.  Aubry resided in London between 1919 and 1930, during which time he also edited the English-language music periodical The Chesterian.

G. Jean-Aubry (r.) pictured with Maurice Ravel. (1926 photo)

Aubry’s own poetry was set to music by some of the most prominent Parisian-based composers of the day including Louis Aubert, André Caplet, Manuel de Falla, Jacques Ibert and Albert Roussel in addition to Florent Schmitt. Passing away at the comparatively young age of 67, Aubry’s funeral was attended by a great many musical personages including Schmitt, Arthur Honegger, Maurice Delage and others.

In Star, the sight of a brilliant light streaking across the dark sky generates excitement in the eyes of one observer — but quiet dismay in the other:

I hear your laughter peal out

As I was awaiting your avowal,

In the evening when I sigh …

A star passes by.

“A wish! …

Make a wish quickly, for an angel is waiting over there!”

“A wish, but … haven’t you got one spare?”

The star disappears forever.

We are silent,

But an angel passes in vain.

It passes, in fact, to search through space,

For the wish you didn’t make.

The first page of the score to “Star”, from Florent Schmitt’s Kérob-Shal.

In terms of where the significance of the shooting star ends up for these two people, Rushton points to the final bar of the score “where all twelve notes sound in close proximity — an astonishing and obliterative gesture.”

A letter from Florent Schmitt to the soprano Madeleine Greslé, written at about the time of the composer’s dedication of Star to her (ca. 1920).

René Chalupt (1885-1957) (Portrait by Roger de la Fresnaye, 1921)

The third number — Vendredi XIII — is set to the poetry of René Chalupt (1885-1957).  Like Aubry, Chalupt is known for the many mélodies that French composers created using his verses.  According to a listing compiled a dozen years before Chalupt’s death, 83 of his poems had been set to music by 27 composers such as Louis Aubert, Georges Auric, Maurice Delage, Darius Milhaud, Jean Rivier, Albert Roussel, Erik Satie and Germaine Tailleferre in addition to Florent Schmitt.

Similar to Aubry in another respect, Chalupt was an author who also published his own liverary journal — from 1911 until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

In Vendredi XII, the fatal attraction of four ruined fountains in the Jardin de Luxembourg brings out the worst in the four people who come into contact with them:

Claire Croiza (1882-1946), to whom Vendredi XIII was dedicated. Mme. Croiza championed the vocal music of composers such as Roussel, Honegger, Milhaud and Florent Schmitt. Of Schmitt’s vocal music she once said famously, “It’s as though someone said to you: ‘Throw yourself from a fourth-floor window — and mind you, fall gracefully.’” (1934 photo)

In the Luxembourg Gardens

Under the bowers which have already shed their blossoms,

In the Luxembourg Gardens

Four fountains have dried up.

The nuncio untied his mask

In order to admire himself

In the first basin, one evening

on his way back from the festal ball.

This letter dated September 29, 1924 from M. Maquaire, managing director of Durand et Cie., was sent to René Chalupt regarding authorization to reproduce the words to Vendredi XIII in Florent Schmitt’s score. The letter references payment of the 50 Frs. that Chalupt had requested in exchange for the authorization. (Courtesy of Mario Ishiguro)

The princess of Trébizonde,

Walking by the water,

Let her ring fall

And it disappeared in the second.

They say that in the third, one day

The daughter of the king of Poland,

Within sight of the whole court

Bathed without any shame.

And — dreadful fate predicted

In the cards of a fortune teller,

Next Friday the Thirteenth,

I must drown myself in the fourth.

The first page of the score to “Vendredi XIII”, from Florent Schmitt’s Kérob-Shal.

A vintage copy of Florent Schmitt’s Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo, composed in 1951.

Listening to Kérob-Shal confirms that its modernity is actually quite astonishing when we’re reminded that Florent Schmitt composed its three numbers between 1919 and 1924. Indeed, considering the entire catalogue of Schmitt’s mélodies, the daring harmonic language of Kérob-Shal is rivaled only by his Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo — a vocal set that wouldn’t be written until some 30 years later (1951).

The score to Star was published by Durand earlier than the rest of Kérob-Shal — originally as a standalone composition. This vintage copy was inscribed by Florent Schmitt to the American mezzo-soprano Rita Sebastian, who had sung the piece as part of the composer’s Town Hall recital in New York in November 1932.

I have been unable to determine when or where the first performance of the complete Kérob-Shal was presented, but it is more than likely that Star was premiered before the other two because the score was first published by Durand as a standalone piece.

We also know that Star was presented separate from the rest of Kérob-Shal as part of Florent Schmitt’s Town Hall recital in New York City in November 1932, during his only trip to the United States.

Lauriane Follonier and Siwoung Song

As for later performances of this music, they appear to have been few and far between.  Prior to soprano Sybille Diethelm and pianist Edward Rushton going into the Zürich studios of Swiss Radio to record the work in January 2020, I’ve found evidence of just one public performance of the music in recent times — presented by baritone Siwoung Song and pianist Lauriane Follonier in Europe about a decade ago.

Sybille Diethelm

The Diethelm/Rushton reading is the first (and so far only) commercial recording of the music, released on the Resonus Classics label in 2020.  It is a fine interpretation that captures very effectivelythe “quiet desperation” inherent in the poetry.

The premiere commercial recording of Kérob-Shal, released on the Resonus Classics label in 2020.

To hear for yourself, the individual numbers from the Resonus Classics recording have been uploaded to YouTube separately and can be heard via these links:

• Octroi
• Star
• Vendredi XIII

If the original voice-and-piano version of Kérob-Shal is little-known, a version for voice and small orchestra that Schmitt prepared a number of years later is a complete rarity.  Intriguingly — but perhaps unsurprising considering the tone of the poetry and the music — the orchestration is uncharacteristically spare for Florent Schmitt, consisting of just two clarinets plus a flute, piccolo and strings.

Rhené-Baton (René-Emmanuel Baton), French conductor and composer (1879-1940), led the first performance of the orchestrated version of Kérob-Shal in 1931, with soprano Elsa Ruhlmann and the Concerts Pasdeloup Orchestra. (Photo: Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), ca. 1908)

The premiere performance of the orchestrated version was presented at a Concerts Pasdeloup program on January 17, 1931, featuring soprano Elsa Ruhlmann with the orchestral forces conducted by Rhené-Baton.

I have been unable to find evidence of even one additional performance of the orchestrated Kérob-Shal since its 1931 premiere, but hopefully this state of affairs will be redressed in the coming years, now that at least the voice-and-piano version of the music is available for artists to  finally get to know. Who’s willing to step up to the plate?

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Hymne à l’eté, composed in 1913.

Vocal music comprises an important component of Florent Schmitt’s catalogue of works.  Throughout his long career the composer would return again and again to the human voice, creating many sets of songs along with a wide range of secular and sacred choral music.

One of the most intriguing of these works is the a cappella choral composition Hymne à l’eté, Op. 61, written in 1913.  This beautiful — even ecstatic — piece was created for the conductor Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht and his Association chorale professionnelle de Paris.

Members of the Association chorale professionnelle de Paris, photographed at the time of the A.C.P.’s inagural a cappella choral concert in Paris (January 1914).

Gabriel Astruc (1963-1938)

The A.C.P. had been co-founded by Inghelbrecht and a music colleague, Fernand Lamy, in 1912 at the suggestion of the impresario Gabriel Astruc, responding to criticism from a number of Parisian singers that Astruc had been importing foreign choral groups to employ in his Grandes Saisons Gabriel Astruc productions. In his defense, Astruc noted that there was no organized choral group in Paris for him to book, but that he’d be happy to enlist the services of such an organization if one could be formed.

Désiré Inghelbrecht (1885-1965)

Inghelbrecht was a logical choice to head up the new group, as he had recently been named music director and conductor at Astruc’s new Théâtre des Champs-Elysées — and had led the very first concert performances at the theatre in April 1913.

Inghelbrecht and Schmitt were friends and colleagues; in fact, Inghelbrecht had premiered the original version of Schmitt’s ballet La Tragédie de Salomé in 1907. So it’s little wonder that Schmitt would be asked by Inghelbrecht to pen a new a cappella choral composition for the inaugural concert of the A.C.P.

Florent Schmitt, photographed at about the time he composed Hymne à l’eté (1913).

The composer went to work quickly, and the new piece was ready in time for a January 1914 program that also included the Chansons et madrigaux of Raynaldo Hahn plus works by Claudio Monteverdi, Modest Mussorgsky and others.

The inaugural concert, held at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, was a commercial and artistic success, with most of the music press hailing the A.C.P. as signaling “a promising future” for choral artistry in Paris. (A few detractors at the concert appeared to suffer from “a cappella indigestion,” however.)

Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Among the most enthusiastic cheerleaders was none other than Claude Debussy, who offered praises in effusive tones that were quite unusual for this composer:

“In the past month, a significant event has happened: We now have a professional choral society — whereas for too long we have had to content ourselves with merely noting such an existence from abroad.

The close friendship between Debussy and Inghelbrecht blossomed concurently with Inghelbrecht’s formation of the A.C.P. Although Debussy had a reputation for being rather aloof with acquaintances, this was not the case with Inghelbrecht, who would later become renowned for his nonpereil interpretations of Debussy’s music. Their special relationship is immortalized in the warm correspondence between the two musicians, annotated by Debussy scholar Margaret Cobb and published by Eastman Studies in Music in 2005.

Travelers have recounted the great English [choral] festivals, where 300 respectful voices have sung the glories of Handel, Mendelssohn and Elgar … [The A.C.P.], despite being formed only recently, has already performed very beautiful pieces – almost all of them at its first concert.  What must be noted is the difficulty of these very different works. However, nothing was missing [and there was] a perfect homogeneity … 

From every perspective, this endeavor at choral renewal must be encouraged.”

Paul Armand Silvestre (1837-1901)

In Hymne à l’eté, Florent Schmitt chose the verse of Paul Armand Silvestre, a poet, librettist and choreographer who was also a decorated official in the world of finance. (He had been inducted into the Legion d’honneur in 1886 in recognition of his commercial accomplishments.)

Equally successful as a man of letters, Silvestre’s literary creations were set to music by an impressive list of French composers – among them Camille Saint-Saëns, Henri Duparc, Gabriel Fauré, Léo Delibes, Emmanuel Chabrier, Jules Massenet, Ernest Chausson, Cécile Chaminade, Philippe Gaubert, Gabriel Pierné, André Messager, Louis Aubert and Lili Boulanger in addition to Florent Schmitt.  Other composers who set Silvestre’s verse to music included the German Eugen d’Albert and the American Amy Marcy Cheney Beach.

This volume of poetry by Paul Armand Silvestre. written between 1874 and 1878, is representative of his creative output.

Reflective of the fin de siècle period in which it was written, Silvestre’s paean to summer is so over-the-top descriptive as to be almost mawkish in its flowery language.  The verse (translated from the original French into English by the music critic Steven Kruger), is as follows:

Behold, what living gold the sickles pile up from the wounded,

While heaven’s gold streams down the brow of the overpowering oaks,

Everywhere light is celebrating and smiling at us.

And in the radiant cloudless sky that shines upon the completed harvest,

Everywhere brightness spills out in divine waves,

Glory, glory, glory to summer!

Under the sun’s bite all sap shatters bark and comes into bloom,

Its strength in the purple of ruddy fruits,

Throughout the wooded plain, life overflows like a full cup and the blood of the earth rises to the heavens,

Glory, glory, glory to summer!

Under these silent noons, in the burning ardor that passes by,

It is said that the heavens and the earth

Exchange in space a kiss of love,

Glory, glory, glory to summer!

It seems only natural that music set to poetry of this kind would reflect the boundless joy inherent in the words and phrases — and in this sense the text was tailor-made for an imaginative master of sonority such as Florent Schmitt.  Writing for the expert singers of the A.C.P., Schmitt spared nothing in exploiting what was then the outer limits of choral expression, scoring his nearly eight-minute piece for eight-part mixed chorus along with soloists (two sopranos, altos, tenors and basses each).

The first page of a vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Hymne à l’eté, composed in 1913 and dedicated to Désiré-Émlle Inghelbrecht and the Association chorale professionnelle de Paris.

Alistair Hinton (1975 photo)

The result is, in a word, stunning.  As contemporary Scottish composer and Kaikrosu Shapurji Sorabji specialist Alistair Hinton has written:

“Schmitt’s composition is a prime example of an instrumental piece written for choral forces that nevertheless works — a worthy companion to Richard Strauss’ two later (and equally challenging) choral masterpieces Deutsche-Motett and An den Baum Daphne.

It also strikes me as yet another piece of evidence that Florent Schmitt seemed incapable of ever getting it wrong …”

Mark Hayes

Expanding on Hinton’s view, the American choral composer Mark Hayes observes:

“The piece captures beautifully many moods and timbres, and it’s easy to imagine this being transcribed for orchestra. I’m struck by its lighthearted, lilting feel as expressed in the triple meter and high, ornamented lines in the solo parts. The use of ‘la’ throughout allows the listener to have a purely instrumental experience as opposed to concentrating on what the meaning of the words might be. 

But as Florent Schmitt introduces lyrics about a third of the way through the piece, the mood seems more serious and less dance-like. I can sense how Schmitt created images of light and ‘heaven’s gold streams’ in the melodic fragments that he wrote. There is certainly an ethereal quality to the music that is expressed in the poetry of the lyrics — with phrases that speak of things ‘spilling out, rising upward, overflowing, and streaming down.’ The ascension of melodic lines and the rise and fall of harmonic progressions, coupled with the tension and release of consonance and dissonance, bring these poetic images to brilliant life.   

At times, the active and ornamented solo lines seem to shimmer above the blocks of choral sound, content to be in the brightness of E major, whereas the lower choral sounds hint at a dissonant alternative. Schmitt’s use of tension and dissonance is quite effective as he builds toward multiple climatic moments throughout the piece. The last section especially echoes some of the techniques Schmitt used, where solo lines rise and fall to meld with the choral beds below them.”

John McLaughlin Williams

And American violinist and conductor John McLaughlin Williams sums up in this way:

“The piece is unbelievable — a vocal symphony, literally. It’s more evidence that when people utter the names Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen, the name Florent Schmitt should inevitably and effortlessly follow.”

What is also readily acknowledged about this music is the work’s undeniable challenges for singers.  American contemporary composer Kenneth Fuchs notes as much in his comments on the piece:

Kenneth Fuchs

“In a remarkable and highly unusual work, Florent Schmitt executes a virtuosic large-scale contrapuntal vocal vision conjuring the sumptuous imagery of Armand Silvestre’s impressionistic French text. The technical challenges that Schmitt has created for the vocalists are considerable — including wide vocal leaps, effusive and ecstatic melismatic lyrical lines, and quick-changing chromatic harmony — but the musical results, nearly symphonic in proportions, are stunning.   

Simply put, Hymne à l’eté is a major work deserving of serious listening and study by vocal connoisseurs everywhere. I can also easily imagine how impressive this work would be within a setting of strings, winds, and harp.”

Mark Hayes further observes:

“As one who has made my living arranging, composing and orchestrating for over 45 years, my practical and pragmatic side reacted after hearing this work — first thoughts being, ‘This is extremely challenging! Who could perform this with excellence and musicality? How would one maintain good intonation? Would it be destined to have only a few performances and then be relegated to music that is too hard to perform?’ 

I struggle constantly with the tension of writing music for art’s sake (no matter how challenging) and writing music that is accessible to a larger market; as a commercial composer, that makes all the difference since I depend on that for my livelihood. But I’m also glad that Florent Schmitt wrote something like this to offer a prime example of what choral music can be with absolutely no restraints.”

Schmitt’s unrestrained choral writing as characterized by Hayes, Fuchs and Hinton is underscored by the fact that Hymne à l’eté is virtually unknown in the world of choral music.  It has never been commercially recorded in its more than 100 years of existence, and I have found evidence of only one choral group that has performed the piece in recent decades – the Stockholm-based Eric Ericson Chamber Choir.

The Eric Ericson Chamber Choir specializes in a cappella music.

Eric Ericson (1918-2013)

Fortunately for us, a 1983 Ericson Chamber Choir performance is now available on YouTube; even better, it has been uploaded with the score so that we can “see as well as hear” the music.  Special thanks to Jean-Marie van Bronkhorst for preparing the upload and adding it to his estimable YouTube music channel. His own observations about the music are insightful as well:

“It’s such a unique choral work — almost symphonic in nature — with a penchant for creative word painting that brings to life a joie de vivre so typical of the French bucolic mindset of those days. One wonders if Frederick Delius was influenced by Florent Schmitt in his equally marvelous Two Songs to be Sung of a Summer Night on the Water, dating from 1917.” 

Jean-Marie van Bronkhorst

If you give Hymne à l’eté a listen, I predict that its gorgeous sonorities are sure to transport you.  And with its renewed exposure today, we can only hope that more choral groups will now be ready take up the challenge of Florent Schmitt’s extraordinary a cappella composition and present the piece in concert for the benefit of grateful audiences everywhere.

The sign on the door to Fabien Gabel’s dressing room at Maison de la Radio, where our interview was held.

On May 12, 2022, the French conductor Fabien Gabel stepped up to the podium in the auditorium of Maison de la Radio in Paris to lead the Orchestre National de France in two works by Florent Schmitt:  the symphonic picture Rêves, Op. 65 (dating from 1915) and the large-scale choral work Psaume XLVII, Op. 38 (composed in 1904 and premiered in 1906).

The May 12, 2022 Orchestre National de France program, inscribed by conductor Fabien Gabel.

Didier van Moere

I was present at the ONF concert and can personally attest to the fine reception both works received — the audience practically preventing the musicians from leaving the stage at the conclusion of the Psalm.  Reviewing the event for the ConcertoNet.com website, music critic, author and Karol Szymanowski specialist Didier van Moere wrote:

Fabien Gabel, one of the best French conductors of his generation, has had a fine career and his Paris concerts are always satisfying — especially when he presents works that aren’t played frequently. Rêves and Psaume XLVII by the too-neglected Florent Schmitt constituted the main attraction of this program … 

A gathering of artistic Paris at Florent Schmitt’s home in St-Cloud in about 1910. Pictured with Schmitt’s family are Léon-Paul Fargue (center) and Maurice Ravel (far right).

The impressionism of the [Rêves] symphonic poem as inspired by Léon-Paul Fargue, with its delicate shimmering, was flattered by direction that was attentive to the combinations of timbres as to the clarity of the textures. The jubilant brilliance of [Psaume XLVII’s] choral fresco revealed a fiery and masterful builder, his sure arm conjuring up the surges of an aural orgy in a pulsating reading with sharp rhythms. 

Would this French conductor return to direct Salammbô, Antoine et Cléopâtre and Oriane et le Prince d’Amour, not to mention the best-known Tragédie de Salomé?

A poster for the May 12, 2022 ONF concert program.

What Mr. van Moere may not realize is that Fabien Gabel has presented Antoine et Cléopatre in Paris (the second suite) — as well as numerous other compositions by Florent Schmitt with orchestras all over the world. In fact, he along with the American conductor JoAnn Falletta are the world’s leading advocates on the podium today for Florent Schmitt’s music, with no fewer than seven of the composer’s compositions currently in Maestro Gabel’s repertoire:

• Rêves (first presented by Fabien Gabel in 2016)
• Ronde burlesque (2017)
• Antoine et Cléopatre (Suite No. 2) (2018)
• Le Palais hanté (2018)
• Psaume XLVII (2019)
• La Tragédie de Salomé (2020)
• Suite en trois parties (for trumpet and orchestra) (2021)

Indeed, Gabel has directed Schmitt’s music on three continents, including with orchestras in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the United States.

Having come to Paris to see the Gabel’s May 2022 ONF concert, I was able to meet up with the conductor the day of the performance to ask him about his experience in exploring and performing Florent Schmitt’s music. Highlights of our discussion are presented below.

Members of the Orchestre National de France take their seats for the dress rehearsal performance of Florent Schmitt’s Rêves. (Maison de la Radio, Paris, May 12, 2022)

PLN:  You’ve taken a rather unique path in your journey with Florent Schmitt’s music. Typically, conductors start with the most famous pieces like La Tragédie de Salomé or Psaume XLVII – and most never explore beyond those.  Instead, you began with lesser-known Schmitt works. What was the reasoning behind this approach?

FG:  There’s wasn’t a real strategy behind this – it was more a matter of circumstances. La Tragédie de Salomé is a big 25-minute piece and Rêves is just eight minutes. I wanted to do Rêves because it’s a perfect piece to open a concert before playing something a little bit longer, like Daphnis or something like that.  

Rêves is actually a very good introduction to Schmitt’s works, because it’s representative. By contrast, the Psaume is quite different from what he wrote later. Schmitt was young when he wrote it, but it’s interesting how his musical language evolved so quickly after that – and in such a modern way.  

I love these pieces by Schmitt – La Tragédié, Antoine et Cléopatre, Rêves and all the others – and it’s just a matter of circumstances as to whether I could play a piece of Florent Schmitt somewhere, and how and when I would be able to program the music. 

It’s also a matter of convincing orchestra management to take a chance on repertoire they don’t know.

PLN:  In more recent times you’ve begun presenting Psaume XLVII (in Québec and Paris) and La Tragédie de Salomé (in Spain, the United States, France, and soon Germany). What was it like to study and conduct these marquee pieces after working on the others? Is the more famous Schmitt “better” than those other compositions in certain ways?

FG:  La Tragédie de Salomé is his masterpiece. It along with the Psaume are the pieces that made him famous. Since he’s a neglected composer these days, I think it makes sense that these are the best introduction to his music.

The score to Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII, inscribed by conductor Fabien Gabel and soprano Karina Gauvin. (2019 performance by the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec and Chorus)

Léon-Paul Fargue’s poem, written into conductor Fabien Gabel’s score to Florent Schmitt’s Rêves.

Salomé is modern, with fantastic harmonies.  It’s also very expressive. By comparison, some of Schmitt’s other pieces can be a little more abstract. They are equally important, but perhaps it’s better to start with something that isn’t necessarily more familiar, but one that has this nice combination of modernity and beauty. 

And they are beautiful pieces! In our concert this evening, the Psaume tells a story, but so does Rêves because it derives from a poem — even if it’s a very free interpretation of these lines – a kind of improvisation. 

PLN:  You’ve mentioned in other interviews that Florent Schmitt’s music is quite challenging for musicians. Do you sense this as well with the two pieces that are on tonight’s program?

FG:  With both, I think so. The Psaume is huge, and it’s tiring to practice and to play.  It’s demanding.

The ONF and Fabien Gabel rehearse Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII. Notice an animated Karol Mossakowski as organist in the foreground …

And in both pieces, the musicians are always outside their comfort zone. For example, with Rêves it sounds very French, but there’s also a kind of thickness to the score that’s more Germanic in nature. That’s unusual and therefore uncomfortable. But I think the musicians are playing it very well, and with refinement. At first, it sounded too heavy with all the low brass chords, but now it’s sounding more suspended in the air — and it’s coming off beautifully.  

PLN:  You’ve noted that Florent Schmitt differs from what many people commonly perceive to be a “French style” of writing music.  Can you explain those differences?

FG:  With Schmitt, the harmonies are indeed very elaborate and complicated.  In his scores there’s a kind of clever and complicated counterpoint. We find that in all of his music — all the way from the 1904 Psaume to his very last pieces. It’s very difficult to read it and to learn it, because it isn’t easy to know where you’re going with the musical line. It’s broken up between the instrumentation, and sometimes it seems absolutely crazy. 

Conductor Fabien Gabel leads the Orchestre National de France with soprano Marie Perbost and the Choeur de Radio France in Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII (May 2022).

It isn’t “vertical” writing like much of French music, and some people would say that it seems a little bit like Richard Strauss. They consider him like a French Strauss, and I can understand that. Of course, Schmitt was of the same generation as Strauss – just six years difference in when they were born. But even with those similarities, Schmitt’s orchestration sounds really French.

PLN:  Like Strauss, Schmitt had a long creative career, and we see an evolution in his musical language from the late 1800s through the radical experimentation of the 1920s, and then a return to more neo-romantic characteristics in his later years. You have conducted music of Schmitt from all of these periods; do you find equal worth in his musical output across the entire trajectory?   

FG:  Whether considering early, middle or late Schmitt, it’s uniformly well-crafted.  The music is always clear, precise — and difficult. But the pieces from the twenties and thirties are probably the most challenging – quite radical, in fact. But we can even see a significant evolution in his musical language in the short span between La Tragédie in 1907 and Rêves in 1915.

The orchestral score to Florent Schmitt’s Rêves, inscribed by French conductor Fabien Gabel.

PLN:  In addition to Florent Schmitt, you have become a champion of numerous other composers from France’s “Golden Age” going beyond Debussy, Ravel and Faure. In recent seasons you’ve conducted pieces by Aubert, Bonis, Chausson, Dukas, Holmès, Honegger, d’Indy, Lalo, Poulenc, Roussel, Tomasi and others. How does Florent Schmitt fit into this constellation of composers?

A Fabien Gabel program featuring music from France’s Golden Age (the Orchestre de Paris’ Reves d’Orient program, presented at the Philharmonie de Paris in June 2018).

FG:  Schmitt is the modernist among the composers you mention.  But each one of them has their distinct personality and their own style or language. Even if it’s all French, I think that each work is representative of the sound of each composer. 

Having now worked with more Schmitt scores, I can easily recognize Schmitt’s style and language today. Comparing all the major French composers, I think that Ravel was probably the most talented.  Roussel is clearer and more direct, but Schmitt is more elaborate — and  almost at the same level as Ravel in many ways.  Debussy is a little bit different. 

But the key point is this: We need to perform each of them — and appreciate each of them — equally.

PLN:  When you program lesser-known pieces by these composers, what sort of reaction to you get from the musicians and audiences?

FG:  It helps when you have a big, loud ending like in the Psaume.  Not all of the pieces are like that — Soir de fête by Chausson, for example, which ends quietly. Because of this, might people be a bit disappointed sometimes.  

Curtain call for soprano Marie Perbost and conductor Fabien Gabel with the Orchestre National de France and Choeur de Radio France performing Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII. (Maison de la Radio, Paris, May 12, 2022)

The other thing is that since the music isn’t played that much, musicians and audiences need to take the time to properly appreciate it. But by and large, audiences like these works. A work like the Roi d’Ys Overture by Lalo is a glorious work, and so it’s very entertaining. A more challenging piece like the Honegger Fourth Symphony is quite polytonal, and yet the audience in Spain where I played it accepted it. (I’m not sure if they appreciated the piece itself, or more particularly the effort that the orchestra had obviously put into preparing it for performance.)

PLN:  We thank you for your tireless dedication to cultivating interest in the French musical patrimony! Are you seeing a resurgence of interest in this music? Is the “needle moving”?

Alain Altinloglu (Photo: ©Ben Knabe, 2021)

FG:  I think so, and the good news is that I’m not alone in this quest!  Alain Altinoglu is also doing a lot of French music, for one.  But a challenge with young conductors is that they start with known repertoire – constructing their programs with blockbusters like the Beethoven symphonies.  We’ve all done that. But once you’ve done those symphonies, the better conductors should seek to broaden their spectrum — and that’s how a personal repertoire is built.  

Speaking for myself personally, I love French music — but it’s also a question of acquaintance.  For many, it’s easier to fall in love with Mahler or Shostakovich because it’s familiar music, even if it was composed much more recently than a Beethoven symphony. With Florent Schmitt, we have a period of some 60 years during which he’s been nearly forgotten.  But now there’s a kind of revival of his music. I feel it — and I’m not the only one to be participating in it! 

I’m also pleased to be able to record some of Schmitt’s music for the big Napoléon film project – which will include excerpts from La Tragédie, Antoine et Cléopâtre and more.

One of the glories of early cinema is the Abel Gance movie Napoléon, a silent film that tells the story of the iconic French leader’s early years. This epic film is recognized as a masterpiece of fluid camera motion, produced at a time when camera shots were static. Among the innovative techniques employed in making the film included location shooting, handheld camera shots, extensive closeups, superimposition, and kaleidoscopic images. The nearly seven-hour film was premiered in 1927 at the Apollo Théâtre in Paris. In the decades since, numerous alternative (shortened) versions have been released, but a full restoration of the original movie is now being undertaken by the Cinémathèque Française with financial support provided by the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, and for which Fabien Gabel will be conducting a score that includes the music of Florent Schmitt and other French composers. The restoration is expected to be completed in 2023.

PLN:  Lastly, do you have plans to conduct more Florent Schmitt scores beyond the seven pieces that are already in your repertoire? 

Conductor Fabien Gabel and cellist Nicolas Altstaedt (2018 photo, Detroit, Michigan, USA)

FG:  I would love to do Oriane et le Prince d’Amour, the Symphonie concertante, excerpts from Salammbô, as well as the cello piece Introït, récit et congé with someone like Nicolas Altstaedt who has expressed interest in playing it. And I’d also like to present some of Schmitt’s songs, which are so very special.

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True to his tireless advocacy for the composer, Fabien Gabel has more Florent Schmitt concerts on tap for the 2022-23 season, including presenting La Tragédie de Salomé with the Deutsches Symphone-Orchester in Berlin and with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in the United States. We hope that he will also have the opportunity to present works from the Schmitt catalogue that are new to him.

Conductor Fabien Gabel leads the Orchestre National de France with soprano Marie Perbost and the Chœur de Radio-France in Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII. (Maison de la Radio, Paris, May 12, 2022)

A sonic “experience”: Psalm 47 by Florent Schmitt.

On the evening of May 12, 2022, an unforgettable performance of Florent Schmitt’s monumental Psaume XLVII, Op. 38 was presented at Maison de la Radio in Paris.  For those of us who were lucky enough to attend the concert, it was a performance that will long stay in our memories — so fine was the committed playing of the musicians.

Among the nearly 200 people on stage for the Psaume were the following performers:

• Orchestre National de France
• Chœur Radio-France (Martina Batič, director)
• Marie Perbost, soprano
• Luc Héry, violinist
• Karol Mossakowski, organist
• Fabien Gabel, conductor

Here’s good news: For those music-lovers who could not attend the concert, the next-best thing is now available. For the first time ever, a live performance of Psalm 47 has been captured not just in audio, but also on film.

That video has just been released by France-Télévisions for all to enjoy.

Having now viewed the video, I can report that it is magnificent — replete with endlessly interesting camera shots of the musicians delivering a terrifically exciting performance of the Psaume.

Maestro Gabel, who first performed this piece in 2019 in Québec City, has turned in a stunning interpretation that attests to his complete mastery of the score. In his efforts, Gabel is ably supported by the ravishing soprano solo of Marie Perbost, the full-bodied sound of the Radio-France Chorus, and the consummate artistry and near-flawless playing of the orchestral musicians.

René Dumesnil (1879-1967),  music critic for the Le Monde newspaper from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.

Experiencing the ONF performance live in concert, I was reminded of these telling words from Le Monde music critic René Dumesnil written more than a half-century ago:

“Regarding the Psaume, what can we say that hasn’t already been said a hundred times? Each new hearing increases the reasons we have to admire it — and to love it. Years go by without depriving this musical monument of its nobility and power.  On the contrary, it seems to shine with brighter radiance than when it was new.”

Manuel Rosenthal (1904-2003)

Closer to our own day, the great chef d’orchestre Manuel Rosenthal would say these words to his students:

“If you conduct just one French choral work in your career, it should be this Psalm.”

With the passage of more than a century’s time since the Psalm’s creation in 1904, it is easier than ever to recognize the piece’s artistic significance — and to understand why Florent Schmitt was declared “The New Berlioz” by the musical press when the work was premiered at the Paris Conservatoire two days after Christmas in 1906.

Of course, critics will say what critics say; in the end, it’s how the music sounds that counts most. On top of that, there’s something extra-special in seeing as well as hearing a performance of Psaume XLVII. Those of us who were privileged to be at the May 12th concert were treated to an unforgettable personal experience. Here’s what one attendee, the pianist Bruno Belthoise, wrote afterwards:

Bruno Belthoise

“Though some may dispute it, in the firmament of the greatest French composers lies Florent Schmitt: This has been my firm belief for more than 30 years. Between the Requiem of Berlioz and the mystical dimensions of the Turangalîla-Symphonie of Messiaen, Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII unfolds an extraordinarily expressive palette — at once grandiose, striking, moving, and deeply human. This music reaches to the deepest recesses of the soul; it is at once violent, tender, jubilant, sublime …

For those who have never heard the piece, it will come as a shock — its science of orchestration and development reaching new pinnacles. Florent Schmitt was a composer who knew best how to make the orchestra and voices vibrate with such magnitude and such colors. But going beyond its purely orchestral, vocal and formal dimensions, Psaume XLVII is a work through which the intimacy of feeling and the deep compassion that is expressed, reaches a symbolic force that unites men and women beyond time.

Fabien Gabel

The Orchestre National de France, Chœur de Radio-France and soprano Marie Perbost under the direction of Fabien Gabel have given us a masterful interpretation …”

And now, thanks to the new France Télévisions video, the next best thing to being present in the auditorium is available to everyone. To see and hear the performance for yourself, click here to access the ONF’s Psaume XLVII video — and get ready for the thrill of a lifetime.

The May 12, 2022 Orchestre National de France program, inscribed by conductor Fabien Gabel.

In addition to multiple presentations of Schmitt’s best-known composition La Tragédie de Salomé, music-lovers will be treated to two mid-career works — In Memoriam and the Symphonie concertante.

Florent Schmitt’s mid-career music gets marquee treatment in the 2022-23 concert season. (Portrait: Pierrette Lambert, 1992)

It comes as no surprise that in the upcoming 2022-23 concert season, various conductors and orchestras will be presenting Florent Schmitt’s ballet La Tragédie de Salomé. Not only is this the composer’s best-known orchestral work, it’s a piece that’s been on a distinctly upward trajectory in popularity in the past decade — and the beneficiary of more frequent performances.

Ryan Bancroft

In the coming season, not only will Salomé be conducted by a trio of its most ardent current champions — Sylvain Cambreling, Stéphane Denève and Fabien Gabel — the piece is also entering the repertoire of Ryan Bancroft, the up-and-coming American conductor who was recently named music director of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

But perhaps more significant than the trendline for Salomé is the news that several additional compositions by Florent Schmitt are on tap for the coming season — two pieces that haven’t appeared on concert programs anywhere in more than a quarter-century.

JoAnn Falletta

Both of the works come from the composer’s middle period — a particularly fecund time in Schmitt’s career that also found him at his most artistically daring. In November 2022, JoAnn Falletta will lead the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in the diptych In Memoriam — a piece composed by Schmitt in 1922/35 in tribute to Gabriel Fauré, his beloved teacher and mentor.

Yan-Pascal Tortelier

Then in February 2023, pianist Tomoki Sakata, conductor Yan-Pascal Tortelier and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra will present Schmitt’s complex, über-brilliant Symphonie concertante — a can’t-miss performance that presages the preparation of a new commercial recording of the piece (the second one ever of this stunning composition).

Thus, the upcoming concert season contains much to whet the appetite and entice Schmittians around the world to mark their calendars and make plans to attend them. Listed below are details on the upcoming concerts, including web links to read additional information and to reserve tickets. (Note: More concerts are likely to be announced in the coming weeks, with this listing updated accordingly.)

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October 21-22, 2022

Schmitt: La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (1907/10)

Esmail: Vishwas: Testament

Poulenc: Stabat Mater 

Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites: Final Scene

Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra & Chorus; Stéphane Denève, conductor

Jeanine De Bique, soprano

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October 29-30, 2022

Schmitt: La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (1907/10)

Bizet: L’Arlésienne Suites Nos. 1 & 2

Jolivet: Concerto No. 2 for Trumpet & Orchestra 

Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra; Sylvain Cambreling, conductor

Selina Ott, trumpet

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November 12-13, 2022

Schmitt: In Memoriam, Op. 72 (1922/35)

Elgar: Concerto in E Minor for Cello & Orchestra

Kodály: Háry János Suite

Walton: Portsmouth Point Overture

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta, conductor

Asier Polo, cello

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February 1, 2023

Schmitt: La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (1907/10)

Hilli: Miracle

Stravinsky: Concerto for Violin & Orchestra 

Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra; Ryan Bancroft, conductor

Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin

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February 14, 2023

Schmitt: Symphonie concertante, Op. 82 (1932)

Chausson: Symphony in B-Flat Major, Op. 20

Fauré: Penélope: Prélude 

Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra; Yan-Pascal Tortelier, conductor

Tomoki Sakata, piano

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March 17-18, 2023

Schmitt: La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (1907/10)

Brahms: Tragic Overture, Op. 81

Stravinsky: L’Oiseau de feu: Suite

Tomasi: Trumpet Concerto

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra; Fabien Gabel, conductor

Håkan Hardenberger, trumpet

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May 24, 2023

Schmitt: La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (1907/10)

Poulenc: Concerto in D Minor for Two Pianos & Orchestra

Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales

Richard Strauss: Salome: Dance of the Seven Veils

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Fabien Gabel, conductor

Lucas & Arthur Jussen, duo-pianos

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More information on these upcoming concerts can be found on the web pages of the various arts organizations (click or tap on the links above).

The new BIS recording, released in June 2022.

In June 2022, the BIS label is releasing an important new recording that features French trumpet repertoire performed by the noted soloist Håkan Hardenberger along with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Fabien Gabel.  The recording is realization of Mr. Hardenberger’s goal to record the trumpet concertante works of Henri Tomasi, André Jolivet, Betsy Jolas … and Florent Schmitt’s Suite en trois parties, Op.133 which he composed in 1955.

Suffice it to say, it’s high-time that this dream has come true, considering that Mr. Hardenberger studied at the Paris Conservatoire in his early years and has presented most of these pieces in concert on a regular basis in the decades since.

I was privileged to interview Messrs. Hardenberger and Gabel at the time of the recording sessions in Stockholm this past August. And now, with the release of the new BIS recording (which proves to be a stellar artistic achievement upon listening to it), Pierre-Jean Tribot of Crescendo Magazine has interviewed Maestro Gabel about the recording project.

Fabien Gabel and Hakan Hardenberger confer with a member of the production team at the recording session with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. (August 2021)

Pierre-Jean Tribot

In the Crescendo interview, in addition to asking Maestro Gabel about the repertoire on the recording, Tribot also asks him to discuss aspects of Florent Schmitt’s artistry that goes beyond the 1955 Trumpet Suite to encompass the composer’s wider musical legacy.

The Crescendo interview was published on April 15, 2022. For those who know the French language, you can click or tap here to access the article. If you would prefer to read the article in English, a translation of the text is presented below.

André Jolivet (1905-1974)

Conductor Fabien Gabel is making a splash with the release of an album in which he accompanies the formidable trumpet player Håkan Hardenberger in concertante works from the French repertoire, including concertos by Tomasi and Jolivet. This BIS album, recorded with the excellent Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, is a great success that reimagines the [artistic] approach to these scores. The musician answers questions from Crescendo Magazine.

P-JT:  How was this new recording project conceived?

FG:  I accompanied Håkan Hardenberger for the first time a few years ago in Helsinki in Zimmermann’s Concerto [“Nobody Knows da Trouble I See”]. Naturally, he and I talked about repertoire! We observed that the “Finale” of Tomasi’s concerto was too short and that the “reference” numbers [in the score] did not logically follow each other. 

Henri Tomasi photographed with his son, Claude Tomasi, at St-Valery sur Somme, France. (1969 photo)

I did research with Claude Tomasi [Henri Tomasi’s son], who sent me a copy of the trumpet and piano manuscript. It soon became clear: the “Finale” was longer and written almost in one go! 

From there came the idea of ​​”recreating” it (none of us know if the Dutch trumpeter who premiered the concerto had played it in its entirety). Since the orchestral material couldn’t be found, the missing parts had to be orchestrated. For this, Franck Villard has done a remarkable job. We played the piece in Québec, in Paris [and in Malmö], then recorded it in Stockholm.

P-JT:  The program features works for trumpet and orchestra. You yourself studied the trumpet and you are also the son of the great trumpet player Bernard Gabel. Does accompanying a trumpeter for a recording of great works from the repertoire (about which you must know the smallest details) have particular significance?

Like father, like son: Fabien Gabel as a young teen, performing alongside his father Bernard Gabel, principal trumpet player at the Paris Opéra Orchestra. Young Fabien would later move on to a global conducting career.

FG:  It is above all the culmination of a common purpose. Håkan Hardenberger and I have forged strong artistic and personal ties through this adventure. Surprisingly, Håkan had never recorded any of the great [twentieth century] French concertos with orchestra before. So we had a strong desire to do this together — both of us being aware of our love for French music!

A musical family lineage: Fabien Gabel’s grandfather was principal cellist of the Lamoureux Concerts Orchestra, pictured here (first-stand cello, at left) with conductor Paul Paray at the podium. (Photo: ca. 1950)

P-JT:  Listening to the disc, we are struck by your wonderful collaboration with the soloist. Jolivet and Tomasi’s concertos are performed with an incredible sense of style and nuance. What was it like to work with Håkan Hardenberger?

In the office of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Håkan Hardenberger and Fabien Gabel confer about the music selected for the new BIS recording of trumpet concertante works. (August 2021)

FG:  In the simplest way possible, actually – both of us having a deep knowledge of this repertoire. We spoke very little, knowing that we understood each other musically. But we have broken away from certain “traditions”! These concertos are all-too-often approached as competition pieces, with little freedom in the end.

P-JT:  I, too, have the impression that you make real music with works that we tend to consider “obligatory passages” of the repertoire – too often treated as competition pieces and reduced to their virtuoso aspects. For you, what is the stylistic richness of these scores?

Betsy Jolas at age 92. (2018 photo)

FG:  Tomasi and Jolivet are great melodists. The slow movements of the concertos are absolutely beautiful! Schmitt is a master of form (even though the Suite is relatively short) – as is the score by Betsy Jolas [Onze lieder]. 

I would say that the consummate sense of color, articulation and orchestration are common threads between these four composers.

P-JT:  This album presents [the Suite en trois parties] score by Florent Schmitt, whose Psaume XLVII [1904] you recently conducted in Paris with the Choir of Radio France and the Orchestre National de France. Please tell us about this experience – which must have been a challenge since that score is as unclassifiable as it is fascinating.

The Concerts Pasdeloup program for an Inghelbrecht performance of Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII. coupled with Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien (November 1929). (Courtesy: Dominique Bloch-Berthié and Gérard Fallour)

FG:  Psalm XLVII is a colossal work. It is the major French choral work of the twentieth century and was regularly performed in Paris by the greatest French conductors (Inghelbrecht, Paray, Martinon, Rosenthal, etc.) until the beginning of the 1970s. But I discovered with amazement that Karajan, Krips and Ormandy had also conducted it, and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf had sung it in Paris under the direction of Markevitch! 

The score is fascinating because we switch very subtly from the nineteenth to the twentieth century when moving through the score. It has “Germanic” dimensions in its form while having a very refined orchestration. The choir part is sometimes “inhuman” [in its difficulty], and you have to deal with many balance challenges, especially in a modern performance space.

Conductor Fabien Gabel leads the Orchestre National de France with soprano Marie Perbost and the Choeur de Radio France in Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII. (Maison de la Radio, Paris, May 12, 2022)

P-JT:  Do you think the time has come for a Florent Schmitt revival in France?

FG:  Florent Schmitt’s salvation comes more from abroad; none of his orchestral pieces are being scheduled in France next season. There are always preconceptions and, above all, misunderstandings that have more to do with Schmitt’s personality than with his music. We only remember the controversial remarks, certainly very regrettable, that he made in 1933 at a concert of the music of Kurt Weill – while he was also the friend of Schoenberg and his greatest defender in France. 

Florent Schmitt, photographed at about the time he composed the Suite en trois parties. (Photo: © Lipnitzki/Roger-Viollet)

Florent Schmitt was an “independent” [musician] all his life, imbued with a strong personality and a formidable, caustic humor (the radio interviews are irresistible!). I have no hesitation in saying that his music is just as important as Ravel’s.

He was very prolific and his orchestral works are masterful. They were admired by composers from Ravel to Dutilleux via Stravinsky. The latter recognized how essential La Tragédie of Salomé (dedicated to him) was in his own creation of Le Sacre du printemps.

The time of purgatory is over and Schmitt’s music is played on all continents. I would like France to restore to him the place he deserves in the Pantheon of great French musicians.

Composers Florent Schmitt (age 87) with Igor Stravinsky (age 75) and Vera de Bosset Sudeikine Stravinsky at a social gathering at the American Embassy in Paris. A young Henri Dutilleux )back to camera) is pictured between both men. (1957 photo)

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The new Hardenberger/Gabel BIS recording of French trumpet concertante works is being released internationally this month and will soon be available at all major online music retail outlets including Amazon, ArchivMusic, Presto Music, and others. I recommend that you acquire these definitive performances, and can confidently predict that you will be very pleased by what you hear.

George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos

Recently, an upload appeared on American composer George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos‘ estimable YouTube music channel that features Florent Schmitt’s late-career choral work Quinque cantus, Op. 121, presented along with the score.

It’s one of more than 2,300 score-with-audio uploads that Mr. Gianopoulos has assiduously prepared for the benefit of performing artists and music-lovers the world over — with a major emphasis on new classical music along with little-known rarities from yesteryear.

[The worthiness of the channel is underscored by the fact that it has attracted a subscriber base of more than 26,000 people.]

“Rarity” is certainly a term that can be applied to Quinque cantus, a piece which is little-known even among those choral directors who pride themselves in seeking out and performing unfamiliar repertoire.

Jean-Paul Kreder

To my knowledge, the piece has never been commercially recorded, and for that reason Mr. Gianopoulos has had to rely on a 1963 broadcast performance that features the Chorus of French Radio & Television directed by Jean-Paul Kreder.

Interestingly, Quinque cantus isn’t an isolated work in Florent Schmitt’s catalogue of compositions.  In fact, during the last decade of his life the composer wrote a goodly number of sacred compositions for choral forces.  They include the following seven creations:

• Trois liturgies joyeuses, Op. 116 (1951)
• Psaume VIII (Domine, Dominus Noster), Op. 119 (1956)
• Quinque cantus, Op. 121 (1952)
• Laudate, pueri, Dominum, Op. 126 (1952)
• Oremus pro Pontifice, Op. 127 (1952)
• Psaume CXII (Cantique de Siméon), Op. 135 (1956)
• Messe en quatre parties, Op. 138 (1958)

With the exception of the 1958 Mass (Schmitt’s final composition), all of these sacred works were written for a cappella chorus, with most also including ad libitum organ parts in the score.  As such, they differ from Schmitt’s significantly more flamboyant choral pieces with sacred texts that he had composed earlier in his career (Psaume XLVII, Op. 38 from 1904 being the most famous example, but also the Cinq motets, Op. 60 from 1917).

Florent Schmitt seated at the doorway to his study at his home in St-Cloud. This photograph was taken shortly after the December 1952 premiere of Quinque cantus. (Photo: © Lipnitzki/Roger-Viollet)

It’s intriguing to speculate on why Florent Schmitt may have been drawn to creating such a copious amount of sacred choral music during the final years of his life.  Was it a newfound sense of spirituality developed in his twilight years … or was the inspiration more practical, such as fulfilling commissions to bring forth the pieces?

I can find no evidence of the latter, so perhaps the notion of a man coming face to face with his own mortality may be a plausible explanation. But we should also remember the fact that Schmitt created vocal music throughout his seven-decade career — where we find him returning again and again to the human voice.

As for the Quinque cantus from 1952, the piece carries the subtitle Ad benedictionem sanctissimi Sacramenti (“to the blessing of the most holy Sacrament”).  The five items that make up the set, scored for mixed chorus with ad libitum organ, are as follows:

I.    Ave verum

II.   Sub tuum

III.  Tu es Petrus

IV.  Tantum ergo

V.   Benedictus Dominus

The first page of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Quinque cantus. The composition was premiered in December 1952 in Paris and was published by Durand the following year.

Taken as a whole, the piece is approximately 12 minutes in length, during which the composer employs an unusual and rather remarkable use of chords that, while not polytonal in the classic sense, do not possess the logic of conventional tonality, either. For this reason, it is music that may not reveal itself completely to the listener initially, but rather reveals its substance and beauty over successive hearings.

The Tantum ergo is perhaps the most immediately accessible number, comparatively straightforward in its musical argument. By contrast, the other four items take us on more complex journeys — that also happen to be richly seductive ones despite their serious and sometimes austere nature.  (Note also the use of contrapuntal, fugue-like writing in various places in the score.)

Speaking personally, I found that the music settled into my head after about the third hearing — helped along by focusing on the sacred Latin text as well.

Église St-Eustache, Paris

Completed in December 1952, Quinque cantus had its first public performance during the Christmas season that same year. The premiere was at Église Saint-Eustache in Paris, where the piece was sung by Les petits chanteurs à la Croix de Bois (The Little Singers of the Wooden Cross), to whom the score was dedicated. As one of the leading youth choirs in all of France, these young men and boys were surely capable of mastering the musical challenges of Schmitt’s complex score, but in reality it would be far more typical for the piece to be presented by (seasoned) adult singers.

Members of Les petits chanteurs à la Croix de Bois, photographed in Montreal during a concert tour of Canada in 1955, three years after premiering Florent Schmitt’s Quinque cantus in Paris.

But even among adult choirs, I’ve found scant evidence of Quinque cantus being performed in the years since its creation. Underscoring this, the 1963 performance by the RTF Chorus led by Jean-Paul Kreder appears to be the only time the work has been broadcast over French Radio, and I haven’t found even one performance done by the BBC Singers — an ensemble that has presented a number of other sacred choral pieces by Florent Schmitt over the years.

One of several CDs issued on the Brain label that feature prizewinning performances at the 2008 Harmony Festival (61st All-Japan Chorus Competition). I have been unable to confirm that the Quinque cantus excerpts were included in the 2008 series of recordings.

More recently, excerpts from Quinque cantus have been presented by several Japanese choral groups, including the Chugye Madrigal Singers and the Mitsubishi Shoji Chorus Club, both in 2008.  (The latter group won a Silver Award at the 2008 Harmony Festival [61st All-Japan Chorus Competition] for its performance of the Ave verum, Tu es Petrus and Tantum ergo portions of the score.)

Jérôme Polack directing Ensemble Exprîme (France).

In the present day, I am aware of just one choral group that keeps Quinque cantus in its repertoire — Ensemble Exprîme in France.  Led by its intrepid music director Jérôme Polack, this group has made it a special mission to present numerous rarities of the choral repertoire in addition to standard offerings. As a further example of its exploration, Ensemble Exprîme has sung Le Chant de la nuit, Florent Schmitt’s tribute to Frédéric Chopin, in concert as well.

Members of Ensemble Exprîme led — figuratively and literally — by their director, Jérome Polack (r.)

David Wordsworth

Additionally, David Wordsworth, music director of the London-based Addison Singers, has been long-interested in presenting Quinque cantus along with several other late choral works by Schmitt — but to my knowledge no performances have materialized to date.

Undoubtedly, one of the main reasons for Quinque cantus’ obscurity has been the lack of any recordings to help give the piece exposure. The new upload of the music along with the score — which can be viewed here — now provides that exposure. It’s an important first step; hopefully, additional performances (and perhaps a commercial recordings) of this very worthy musical creation will follow.

“It’s as if someone said to you: ‘Throw yourself from a fourth-floor window — and mind you, fall gracefully.’”

— Claire Croiza, French mezzo-soprano, on Florent Schmitt’s vocal music

Claire Croiza (1882-1946), championed the vocal music of French composers such as Roussel, Honegger, Milhaud … and Florent Schmitt.  (1934 photo)

Music-lovers who are familiar with Florent Schmitt’s catalogue of works know that vocal compositions comprised an important part of his creative output over a seven-decade creative career.

In fact, his very first opus-numbered piece was an 1891 work for voice and piano (O Salutaris), while his final composition was the Messe en quatre parties for mixed chorus and organ, completed in May 1958 just a few months before his death at nearly 88 years of age.

In between these bookend compositions is a rich trove of music created for solo voice or groups of vocalists — as well as for male, female and mixed choirs — based on sacred and secular texts alike. We can literally trace the trajectory of Schmitt’s artistic development via these vocal scores — beginning with mélodies that are very much in the “salon” style of the late nineteenth century (reminding us that Jules Massenet was one of Schmitt’s composition teachers), then moving into far more “modern” and complex idioms in the ensuing decades.

The 2020 Resonus Classics release of vocal music by Florent Schmitt.

Illustrating this evolution in style, in 2020 a recording was released on the Resonus Classics label that offered a representative sampling of Schmitt early, middle and late-period works for voice and piano. Several of them are world-premiere recordings, thereby helping to fill some significant gaps in the discography of the composer’s works.  Still, there remain a goodly number of vocal scores by Schmitt that await their first-ever commercial recordings.

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Kérob-Shal, composed in 1919-24.

On the 2020 Resonus recording is a particularly fascinating set of three mèlodies dating from 1919-24 titled Kérob-Shal. The exotic-sounding title of this work is, in reality, just a mash-up of the names of the three poets whose texts were selected by Schmitt to put to music (René Kerdyk, G. Jean-Aubry and René Chalupt). More significant than the work’s unusual title is its startling modernity. It’s easily the most harmonically complex of all the works on the Resonus release, which covers a span of nearly 50 years of Schmitt’s creativity.

Is Kérob-Shal actually the most radical example of Schmitt’s musical style among his mélodies?  In a word, no.  Or at least it’s fair to contend that the composer created a second trio of pieces some 25 years later that exhibit a similar degree of harmonic complexity and daring.  That vocal set, composed in 1949 and published in 1951, is Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo, Op. 118.

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo, composed in 1949 and published by Durand in 1951.

In choosing texts for his secular vocal works, typically Florent Schmitt drew on inspiration from contemporary poets rather than writers from yesteryear (there were exceptions, of course). Moreover, the composer was often attracted to writers harboring a leftist/anarchist bent. In this regard we find Schmitt setting the verse of writers such as Charles Vildrac, Laurent Tailhade, Charles Sanglier (Charles Vallet), Comte de Lautréamont (Isidore-Lucien Ducasse) and others.

Robert Ganzo (1898-1995)

Robert Ganzo was in the same mould as these writers. Born in Caracas in 1898 to an Egyptian father and a French mother, in 1910 Ganzo and his family departed Venezuela due to financial difficulties and ended up settling in Belgium. There, he exhibited an early talent for writing; a youthful play of his was even presented to an audience that included the Belgian king.

Migrating to Paris in 1920, Ganzo worked as a bookseller while slowly building his reputation as a poet and writer, along with translating the works of others — his fluency in Spanish being a major asset in this regard.

The frontispiece of a book of collected poetry by Robert Ganzo. The portrait of Ganzo was created by noted peintre-graveur Jacques Villon (1875-1963).

Ganzo was also known for his pro-communist sympathies. This plus his Jewish heritage placed him in considerable personal danger during the German occupation of Paris in World War II. For a time Ganzo worked with the French Resistance, which ultimately led to his arrest and interrogation by the Gestapo. But in a fortuitous twist of fate, one of Ganzo’s captors who recognized the literary figure and knew his writings helped him escape from detention.

In the postwar period, Ganzo shifted away from poetry and other creative writing; by the 1960s he was focusing his energies almost exclusively on exploring the period of time before recorded history.

The first illustrated edition of Domaine by Robert Ganzo. Including eight original etchings by Oscar Dominguez, this limited edition of fewer than 75 copies, printed on Imperial Japanese paper, was published in Paris in 1942.

Blessed with an extraordinarily long life, Ganzo died in 1995 at the age of nearly 97. In accordance with his wishes, the Robert Ganzo Foundation was established under the aegis of the Fondation de France, which in turn established the Robert Ganzo Poetry Prize to be awarded to “a French-speaking poet of importance, an adventurer of the word and of life, a ferryman of emotions and challenges, a surveyor of the open sea and the unknown.”

Since 2007, a prize of 10,000 euros has been given annually to recipients who are, in the words of the award criteria, “in touch with the movement of the world, far from the closed field of formalist laboratories and postmodern affectations …”

As for Florent Schmitt’s work with Ganzo’s verse, the three poems the composer chose to set to music were:

I.     … de pleurs s’égrène (Tears Erupt)

II.   Les diners se font en courant (Dinners are Made while Running)

III.  C’est l’heure (‘Tis the Hour)

The poems dwell on aspects of love and loss, and are characterized by a general sense of melancholy or even desolation. They are also characterized by the use of a complicated syntax, often making the meaning of the words and phrases difficult to decipher.

The first poem speaks of “the humid summer of tears” and a “dying evening” with the “long-silent quivering of a soul caught in its foliage” …

A score page from … de pleurs s’égrène, the first of Florent Schmitt’s Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo.

The first of Florent Schmitt’s Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo was dedicated to the Belgian-born soprano Marcelle Gerar (née Marcelle Marguerite Augustine Regereau), 1891-1970). Gerar was best-known for her artistic collaboration with Maurice Ravel, whose Shéhérazade she recorded with Piero Coppola in 1928. That same year Gerar organized a large reception in Ravel’s honor at his home in Montfort-l’Amaury to celebrate the composer’s return from a successful four-month tour of North America. This photo of Ravel’s greeting party at the returning ship was taken on April 27, 1928 at the port of Le Havre. Pictured (l. to r.) are the composer’s brother Édouard Ravel, Marcelle Gerar, music scholar and author Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, Maurice Ravel, and Nelly and Maurice Delage (a fellow composer). Gerar’s first marriage had been to the noted French cellist Jean Bedetti, who gave the premiere performance of Schmitt’s Chant élegiaque at the Concerts Colonne in 1917 and who later served as principal cellist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for three decades. Gerar was then married to the puppeteer Marcel Temporal with whom she had two sons — Jean-Loup and Ariel Temporal — both of whom followed in their father’s footsteps by becoming noted puppeteers. Interestingly, Gerar also collaborated with writers René Kerdyk and René Chalupt, whose poetry Schmitt had selected for his 1924 vocal set Kérob-Shal. I have been unable to ascertain if Gerar ever presented either Kérob-Shal or Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo in public.

The second poem describes the waning fortunes of a person enveloped in a descending dusk, where “the night becomes a forest as an indefinable old desire passes, like a flight in a sky of sand” …

A score page from Les diners se font en courant, the second of Florent Schmitt’s Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo. Schmitt dedicated it to Mme. Frédéric-Moreau, his close companion following the death of his wife Jeanne in 1944. After departing his longtime home in St-Cloud in 1956, Schmitt resided with Mme. Frédéric-Moreau on the Quai de Passy (now Avenue du Président Kennedy) in the 16th arr. of Paris for the final two years of his life.

In the final poem, the reader is exhorted to abolish the memory of old dreams with their “shards and flowers,” going “upright in reason, arms outstretched between two worlds” …

A score page from C’est l’heure, the third of Florent Schmitt’s Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo. A note on the piano part states (reduct. de l’orch.), an indication that Schmitt had also prepared — or was planning to prepare — an orchestrated version (the only one of the three in the set so noted). I have been unable to locate the orchestrated version of the music.

Soprano Denise Duval (1921-1916) photographed with Florent Schmitt at a reception celebrating the release of the premiere recording of Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII, on which Miss Duval was the featured soloist. Schmitt dedicated C’est l’heure, the third of his Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo, to Denise Duval. (1952 photo, courtesy of Emmanuel Jourquin-Bourgeois)

Considering that the three Ganzo poems share similar “atmospherics” with the verses that Schmitt had selected for his Kérob-Shal set some 25 years earlier, it stands to reason that the flavor of both works is similarly unsettling.  Schmitt’s complex writing is darkly polychromatic and conveys the impression of a bleakness dispelled only occasionally. As such, each of the mélodies requires concentrated listening; I found that the musical rewards grow with repeated hearings.

According to Florent Schmitt’s biographer Yves Hucher, Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo was «une oeuvre que le compositeur chérissait tout particulièrement» (“a work particularly dear to the composer”) — although Schmitt also joked about the piece’s “lachrymal dissonances.”

Geneviève Moizan (1923-2020)

Composed in 1949, the piece was published by Durand in 1951.  As for the premiere performance of the work, that would have to wait until  February 13, 1953, when soprano Geneviève Moizan and pianist Claudie Martinet presented it at the Salle de Caen of l’Institut de France (Académie des beaux-arts). The premiere was part of an all-Florent Schmitt program that also included the Pasquier Trio performing several movements from Schmitt’s recently completed String Trio, as well as duo-pianists Robert and Gaby Casadesus performing his early-career Trois rapsodies.

Florent Schmitt photographed in 1953, the year of the premiere performance of Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo. (Photo: © Lipnitzki/Roger-Viollet)

The Trois poèmes de Robert Ganzo premiere was notable in another way, too: The poet himself recited the words to each poem as part of the recital.

The Ganzo Poems were presented again in Paris in 1956, sung by Marguerite Myrthal with pianist Claude Bêche.  Both the 1953 and 1956 performances were broadcast over French Radio, but in my research I have been unable to find evidence of the composition being performed anywhere in the world in the past half-century.

George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos

… Nor has the music ever been commercially recorded. But we are fortunate to have audio documentation of the 1953 premiere performance which has now been uploaded to YouTube along with the score, courtesy of George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos’ exemplary music channel.

Mr. Gianopoulos, who is also one of  America’s notable younger composers, was particularly keen to bring this music to the attention of the music world, explaining to me:

“It’s a wonderful cycle — very unique and interesting. Schmitt’s harmonic structure just blows me away.”

Thanks to Nick Gianopoulos, everyone now has access to hear this music. Give it a listen; see if you don’t agree that the piece presents a fascinating glimpse into the darker corners of the human experience, brought to us courtesy of Messrs. Ganzo and Schmitt.

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Musiques de plein air, one of the envoi submitted by the composer during his Prix de Rome period (1900-04).

As Florent Schmitt’s star has continued to rise in recent decades, one happy result has been the growing number of recordings helping to fill gaps in the composer’s discography.

The trajectory has been real: At the turn of this century, only about half of Florent Schmitt’s compositions had been commercially recorded, but that number is now nearing 75 percent.

Still, there remain a number of significant works that still await their first-ever recordings. Among them are orchestral works from Schmitt’s middle period (Cançunik, Op. 79 – 1929), later career (Scènes de la vie moyenne, Op. 124 – 1950) … and one from the composer’s early efforts in preparing orchestral pieces: Musiques de plein air, Op. 44 (Outdoor Music).

This all-but-unknown three-movement suite is one that Florent Schmitt appears to have started working on (at least in portions) before he won the Prix de Rome first prize for composition in 1900.

A photo showing the eleven candidates for the Paris Conservatoire’s Prix de Rome composition prize in 1900. Among the candidates were Jean Roger-Ducasse (far left, sitting on railing), Maurice Ravel (in the center in trench coat and bowler hat), Gabriel Dupont (standing next to Ravel on right), Florent Schmitt (reading the newspaper), and Aymé Kunc (sitting at right on the bottom steps). Florent Schmitt was judged the winner based on his secular cantata submission Sémiramis. (Photo taken at Castle Compiègne, May 1900.)

Villa Medici, Rome

It was while staying at the Villa Medici in Rome that Schmitt worked further on the composition and finally submitted it as part of his final year’s envois to the Paris Conservatoire. (It was delivered along with the orchestration of his duo-piano suite Feuillets de voyage plus the monumental choral blockbuster Psaume XLVII.)

Florent Schmitt and fellow French composer Maurice Ravel made their U.K. performing debut in 1909 on the very same program at Bechstein Hall (now Wigmore) Hall in London. Both composers performed their own piano works and accompanied vocalists. The event was organized by the Parisian impresario T. J. Guéritte, who was the dedicatee of Schmitt’s Musiques de plein air when the suite was published in 1914.

The Musiques de plein air score is marked “Rome — 1900” although the music wouldn’t be published until 1914 (by Durand). Moreover, the evidence indicates that the orchestrated piece — originally prepared in a piano version which was also published — wasn’t ready in finished form until 1903 or 1904, thereby explaining it being among the last grouping of compositions sent to Paris by Schmitt.

The composer dedicated the suite to T. J. Guéritte, an important Parisian impresario who was responsible for organizing concerts of French music in England, and who had brought Claude Debussy to London to conduct his own works. Guéritte was also the person who organized joint appearances by Ravel and Schmitt performing their own piano works at Bechstein Hall (now Wigmore Hall) in 1909, which may explain Schmitt’s dedication of gratitude.

Musiques de plein air is in three movements, as follows:

The Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino in Italy was the inspiration for the first movement of Schmitt’s Musiques en plein air. The peaceful nature of the music stands in stark contrast with the destruction of the abbey by bombing during World War II. Happily, the abbey would be rebuilt, and was reconsecrated by Pope Paul VI in 1964. (Photo: ©Koram Photography)

• La Procession dans la montagne (The Mountain Procession) — Marked Lent, the first movement portrays a solemn procession among the trees at the base of a mountain. Reportedly, the scene portrayed was inspired by a visit Florent Schmitt had made to the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino in Italy during the early days of his Prix de Rome stay.
• Danse désuète (Outmoded Dance) — The second movement is marked D’une allure assez paisable (“at a very easy pace”), in three-quarter time but in a minor key.
• Accalmie (A Momentary Calm) — Marked Lent, the final movement evokes a unsettling calm just before the arrival of a storm.

Frederick Delius (1862-1934). Florent Schmitt prepared piano/vocal transcriptions for four of Delius’ operas between 1894 and 1902.

Regarding the final movement of the suite, the British composer and author David Eccott finds similarities between it and certain stylistic trademarks of Frederick Delius, with whom Schmitt had been working in preparing piano-reduction scores of several of Delius’ operas.  Eccott writes:

“In the last of the suite’s three movements … the uneasy stillness before a storm is evoked by continual reiteration of a simple five-note figure which weaves its way through ever-changing harmonies, with some Delian touches in the orchestration.”

Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht (1885-1965)

According to the musicologist and author Octave Seré (Jean Poueigh), all of the chief works sent by Florent Schmitt from Rome were performed in concerts at the Paris Conservatoire during December 1906. But we lack definitive evidence of exactly what was played when.

We do know that the first two movements of Musiques de plein air were also performed the same month at the Salle Érard, with Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht leading the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux.

The Salle Érard in Paris was the site of many premieres of works by the major French and Belgian composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These premieres included compositions by Caplet, Chausson, Debussy, Delage, Duparc, Franck, Hahn, Honegger, Jongen, Ravel and others, in addition to Schmitt. Small in size but boasting fine acoustics, it was a particularly appropriate venue for chamber music performances. Before construction of Maison de la Radio in 1963, the hall also served as a recording studio for French National Radio.

Thereafter the piece was taken up by Louis Hasselmans and his Association des Concerts Hasselmans, presented at the Salle Gaveau in January 1909 — and later still at a joint Colonne-Lamoureux Concerts presentation in December 1914.

Henri Rabaud (1873-1949)

In America, Musiques de plein air was first heard at two Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts in March 1919 under the direction of the French composer-conductor Henri Rabaud.

I have been unable to find evidence of any other performances of the work by American orchestras in the 100+ years since then — nor have I found any instances of the piece being performed anywhere else in the world in recent decades.

Florent Schmitt’s fellow French composer Henri Rabaud came to Boston to present Musiques de plein air in March 1919.

The 1919 Boston Symphony performances of Florent Schmitt’s Musiques de plein air appear to have been the only ones ever presented of this music in the United States.

Perhaps unsurprising for such a rare work, Musiques de plein air has never been recorded commercially, either. However, we are fortunate that the first movement of the suite — La Procession dans la montagne — was selected by Maestro Inghelbrecht as one of five of Schmitt’s compositions the conductor led at a French National Radio Orchestra memorial concert presented on October 9, 1958, approximately two months following Schmitt’s death.

What’s more, we are able to hear that ORTF broadcast performance here.  (For better audio quality, the performance has also been released by Forgotten Records as part of a disk that includes other music by Florent Schmitt as well as Claude Debussy.)   

When you listen to this movement, the music clearly sounds like early Schmitt — yet it also exhibits a number of the “trademarks” that would come to characterize the composer’s recognizable style — from the opening English horn solo to the chromatic orchestral writing and the passionate tutti climaxes. As the American music critic Steven Kruger has remarked:

Steven Kruger

“Early pieces reveal temperament. We don’t always associate serenity and affection with Florent Schmitt’s blockbuster reputation; yet this music is loving and mild-mannered, swirling and daring, and convincingly Teutonic by turns — all parts of the Schmitt recipe to the very end.”

Clearly, Musiques de plein air is a composition that is worthy of revival — particularly now that the score has gone into the public domain and is available for purchase or rental at a very reasonable cost.

It’s also a piece that cries out for its first commercial recording. One conductor who has expressed interest in doing so is the American music director JoAnn Falletta. In fact, this work had been selected for inclusion on Maestra Falletta’s second recording of Florent Schmitt’s works on the NAXOS label — a plan that couldn’t be realized due to the timing limitations on the CD. She says of the music:

JoAnn Falletta

“Musiques de plein air is a piece that has intrigued me for a long while. I am always moved by the evocative beauty Florent Schmitt creates when inspired by nature — a strong force in his creative output — and in this work he sets three beautiful scenes inspired by his Prix de Rome period that must be heard in their orchestral garb.  

Schmitt lavished his color magic, including his particular love for the English horn, on the music. The result is three gorgeous landscapes which capture that special period in his life. I continue to look for the opportunity to perform and record this unjustly neglected jewel.”

Here’s hoping that in addition to Maestra Falletta, other advocates for Florent Schmitt’s music — Leon Botstein, Lionel Bringuier, Paul Daniel, Stéphane Denève, Fabien Gabel, Sascha Goetzel, Jacques Mercier and Yan-Pascal Tortelier among them — will be inspired to investigate this score and finally bring Musiques de plein air into the bright light of today.

The music world owes a debt of gratitude to two rival organizations that were at the center of the Parisian arts scene during France’s “Golden Age” of music.  

A May 4, 1914 Société musicale indépendante recital program featuring music by Spanish composers, presented by French and Iberian musicians at the Salle Pleyel in Paris.

Well into the latter part of the nineteenth century, the symphonic tradition continued to be regarded as the near-exclusive domain of the Austro-German school of music. There had been attempts to broaden its geographic scope (Berlioz in France comes to mind), but late into the 1800s Central Europe continued to be considered the center of the instrumental realm — even as Italy meant “opera” and France laid claim to ballet along with opera.

Announcement of a January 12, 1922 SMI memorial concert devoted to the music of Achille-Claude Debussy.

In France, we do see evidence of certain composers attempting to establish a “pure music” tradition, as illustrated by the early symphonies of composers like Gounod and Bizet.  Even so, these and others were to find their greatest success in their stage works, while composers such as Meyerbeer, Auber, Delibes and Massenet were the beneficiaries of substantial artistic (and monetary) success due to devoting the bulk of their attentions to creating music for the stage.

Still another group of French composers devoted themselves to “pure” music with a seriousness that was more pronounced. Yet those composers didn’t totally eschew operatic works, either; even César Franck composed operas.

Société nationale de musique (1871-1939)

The Franco-Prussian War contributed mightily to the perceived need to cultivate a specifically French instrumental tradition. France’s defeat was as much a psychological blow as it was a military one, and one consequence of this “wounded pride” was the founding of the Société nationale de musique. It was an organization established with the express purpose of promoting French music and giving rising French composers a vehicle to present their works in public.

The logo of the Société nationale de musique. Notice the Latin motto adopted by the organization: “Ars Gallica.”

The Société nationale came into being in February 1871 during the brief lull between the end of the siege of Paris and the rise and fall of the Paris Commune, riding a wave of French national (and anti-German) sentiment. (Before the war with Prussia, Beethoven and other Austro-German repertoire had dominated orchestral concerts in Paris, but unsurprisingly that state of affairs had become intolerable for many concert-goers.)

Romain Bussine (1830-1899)

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns and Romain Bussine (a professor of voice at the Paris Conservatoire) led the formation of the new society, joined by other founding members Gabriel Fauré, César Franck, Jules Massenet, Henri Duparc, Théodore Dubois, Ernest Guiraud and Paul Taffanel.

French composer Marie-Alexis de Castillon (1838-1873) didn’t live long following the formation of the Societé national de musique.

Fellow founding member Alexis de Castillon drafted the nationalist principles of the Society, which stated in part:

“The proposed purpose of the Society is to aid the production and popularization of all serious works, whether published or not, by French composers. To encourage and bring to light, as far as lies within its power, all musical attempts, whatever their form, on condition that they give evidence of lofty artistic aspirations on the part of their author.  

Fraternally … the members will unite their efforts, each in his own sphere of action, to the study and performance of the works which they shall be called upon to select and interpret.”

Significantly, another clause in the Society’s constitution stipulated:

“No one can be part of the Society as an active member unless he is French.”

The first concert of the Societé nationale, held in November 1871, drew on repertoire from the founding members, including chamber music and vocal pieces by Dubois, de Castillon, Franck, Saint-Saëns and Fauré.  (Programs in the early years leaned heavily towards chamber music, with restricted finances precluding all but just a handful of orchestral concerts.)

Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931) (1911 photo)

But within 15 years of the Société nationale’s founding, dissension in the ranks had began to build. A faction of the Society determined that its French nationalistic character had become too limiting. Led by Vincent d’Indy, who had been appointed a joint secretary of the Society in 1885, this faction enlisted the support of Franck to open the Society to non-French music and musicians. By 1886 the first music by a non-French composer had been presented (a composition by Edvard Grieg), and in 1890 d’Indy himself had become president of the organization.

This May 1897 Société nationale de musique concert program included the premiere performance of Paul Dukas’ L’Apprenti sorcier.

The opening of the Societé musicale to non-French musicians, coupled with its increasingly close connections to the musically conservative Schola Cantorum (where Franck and d’Indy taught), led to the organization losing some of its luster among the younger generation of composers then coming of age in Paris. And this is where the story takes its next major turn.

Enter Les Apaches (1902-1915)

To be a young composer, painter or writer in Paris at the turn of the last century meant being among a group of avant-garde artists for which the future promised seemingly limitless possibilities. To these fresh-faced creative artists, nothing could stand in their way — except the hidebound conservatives who held sway in the city’s established arts and academic institutions.

One can imagine the sense of breathless excitement that swirled around these “bright young things” as they talked of the future — even as they cast aspersions on the stuffy establishmentarians in the academy and in society. Florent Schmitt found himself at the center of this intoxicating brew.

It seemed only natural that such an artistically electric atmosphere would eventually turn into something of a movement, and the catalyst was the 1902 premiere of Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande — a stage work that essentially threw out the old operatic playbook. Shortly after the premiere of Debussy’s opera, the most precocious of these non-conformist artists would establish a loose confederation that they dubbed the Société des Apaches.

Why that name? Reportedly, this term (an early twentieth century term describing European street gangs as “hooligans”) had been used as a slur against the group as they departed noisily from the premiere performance of Debussy’s opera. Finding the sobriquet amusing, the young creatives also saw the term as affirming their art being directly at odds with conservative, establishmentarian tastes.

Among the founding members of Les Apaches were the following young creatives:

• Édouard Bénédictus (painter)
• Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (author and critic)
• Maurice Delage (composer)
• Manuel de Falla (composer)
• Léon-Paul Fargue (poet)
• Lucien Garban (editor)
• Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht (conductor)
• Tristan Kingsor (poet and painter)
• Maurice Ravel (composer)
• Albert Roussel (composer)
• Florent Schmitt (composer)
• Paul Sordes (painter)
• Ricardo Viñes (pianist)
• Émile Vuillermoz (music critic)

Members of Les Apaches, pictured in Georges d’Espagnat’s painting of 1910. Florent Schmitt is at far left, Maurice Ravel on the right, Ricardo Viñnes is at the piano and Albert Roussel stands to his immediate left.

From 1903 onward, the group would meet each Saturday at members’ homes. Such meetings were lively affairs, often lasting long into the night (to the consternation of neighbors, necessitating the eventual move to rented quarters of Maurice Delage in an industrial section of the city). Invariably, discussion among Apache members centered on the arts, contemporary issues of the day, plus performing music and reading poetry along with imbibing copious quantities of alcohol, strong coffee and smoking products.

Symbolism, Russian composers, Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande, Javanese music, Stéphane Mallarmé, Edgar Allan Poe and Paul Cézanne — these were among the varied topics of fascination at Apache get-togethers.

Igor Stravinsky (l.), photographed with Florent Schmitt in about 1910.

Moreover, new members were welcomed to the loosely organized group — most notably Igor Stravinsky upon his arrival in the French capital in 1909.

Outside of their meetings, Apache members would support each other in various ways. Ricardo Viñes premiered piano works by the composers, the music critics would encourage new music through their articles of advocacy in the press, and poets would collaborate with their musician counterparts in setting their words to music.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). His most intimate friends in the arts were fellow members of Les Apaches. At the premiere of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé in 1912, the four attendees invited to join the composer in his box at the Palais Garnier were the composer’s mother and brother, plus Igor Stravinsky and Florent Schmitt.

Because of the close-knit nature of the Les Apaches, many of the members became intimate friends. As an example of such relationships, in their book A French Song Companion, co-authors Graham Johnson and Richard Stokes report that Ravel used the French familiar form tu with only three friends outside his close family — and all three of them were members of Les Apaches (Fargue, Schmitt and Stravinsky).

Not surprisingly, regular meetings of Les Apaches would become a casualty of World War I as members found themselves scattered (some at the war front), and the group eventually dissolved. However, Les Apaches’ existence had been consequential well-beyond merely the meetings and the shared friendships of its members; the group was also a significant catalyst in the creation of an alternative music society that would be set up as a rival to the Societé nationale, as our story continues …

Société musicale indépendante (1910-1935)

Les Apaches may have been merely a loose confederation of like-minded artistic souls, but the group happened to form the foundation of a new music society that rose up in competition with the Societé nationale de musique. When the Société musicale indépendante (SMI) was formed in 1910, it was as a direct challenge to the Societé nationale, which had slowly lost favor for its perceived conservatism and “frankly Franckian” bias.  Several of Ravel’s works had been poorly received at Societé nationale concerts, while compositions by Koechlin, Delage and Vaughan Williams had been refused performance out of hand.

This news item announcing the formation of the Société musicale indépendante appeared in the April 15, 1910 issue of Henry Prunières’ La Revue musicale magazine.

The SMI’s express aim was to support contemporary musical creation, freeing it from restrictions linked to “establishment” forms, genres and styles.

Florent Schmitt was one of the four founding members of the SMI, which proceeded to name Schmitt’s respected teacher and mentor Gabriel Fauré as the new organization’s president.  The SMI’s executive committee would come to consist of a veritable “who’s who” of the leading young composers and music scholars of the time, including:

Jules-Armand-Joseph Écorcheville (1872-1915) was a French musicologist and collector of ancient instruments. Like Robert d’Humières who created the staging for Florent Schmitt’s 1907  original version of La Tragédie de Salomé, Écorcheville was one of many French creative artists who would not survive World War I — in his case being killed during a French army assault on a German trench in Northern France. The composer André Caplet, although not killed in the war, was the victim of a poison gas attack at the front, which compromised his health and led to his premature death in 1925 at the age of just 47 years.

• Louis Aubert
• Béla Bartók
• Nadia Boulanger
• André Caplet
• Jules Écorcheville
• Manuel de Falla
• Arthur Honegger
• Jean Huré
• Jacques Ibert
• Charles Koechlin
• Maurice Ravel
• Jean Roger-Ducasse
• Albert Roussel
• Florent Schmitt
• Arnold Schoenberg
• Igor Stravinsky
• Émile Vuillermoz

Polish-born, French-trained composer and artist Eugeniusz Morawski-Dąbrowa (1876-1948), pictured with fellow composer and artist Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, at right. A student of André Gédalge and Camille Chevillard at the Paris Conservatoire, Morawski’s Symphony No. 1 shared billing with Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII on the first SMI orchestral program, held in Paris in June 1910. Morawski headed the Music Institute (Warsaw Conservatoire) between 1932 and 1939, returning to the city following World War II. The bulk of his creative output was lost by fire during the Warsaw Uprising in late 1944. (1900 photo)

The inaugural orchestral concert of the SMI was held on June 9, 1910 in Paris. Among the works presented on that first program was Florent Schmitt’s Psaume XLVII. Also featured in the concert was the Symphony No. 1 by the Polish-born composer Eugeniusz Morawski.

Looking at the programming practices of the two rivals, during the period 1910 to 1930 I think it is fair to conclude that the SMI’s activities eclipsed those of the Societé nationale — if not in quantity, then in terms of the importance of the musical offerings presented to the Parisian public.

Although a sense of French nationalism had clearly reasserted itself in the wake of the First World War, the SMI did not confine itself to promoting the music of French composers exclusively; instead, its outlook was global — and focused on the “modern.”

Mainly French music:  A poster for a January 1912 SMI chamber music recital, presented at the Salle Gaveau in Paris.

An SMI recital program of premieres, presented on June 15,1923 at the Salle des agriculteurs in the 8th arr. of Paris.

Florent Schmitt and Arnold Schoenberg, together aboard ship (North Sea, 1920). At the time, Schmitt was a vociferous advocate for Schoenberg’s avant-garde output even as he was dismissive of the core Austro-German canon which he often referred to as “solennités rituelles” (solemn rituals). In 1920 Schmitt wrote: “People demand Wagner without knowing why. I cannot think without a shudder of the countless overtures of Lohengrin and Rienzi that the war, as its only merit, at least spared us for some time.”

Among the numerous international composers whose music was given exposure in France thanks to the efforts of the SMI were the Austrians Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. The significance of the SMI’s advocacy on behalf of the avant-garde in music was underscored in a letter that Webern wrote to Ravel in 1927 which stated, in part:

“Thanks to your vision, the Societé musicale indépendante exists to combat musical censorship, permitting voices and styles to be heard that would otherwise be stifled by Vincent d’Indy’s exclusive and demanding aesthetic requirements … d’Indy’s criteria for ‘serious musical works’ is so rigid that the performances of new works becomes as tedious as a university examination … 

Anton Friedrich von Webern (1883-1945) (1912 photo)

The SMI makes Paris globally connected, rather than localized and isolated. Although the SMI has produced only a fifth of the concert volume of the Société nationale, it has welcomed numerous experimental, foreign or otherwise avant-garde works. In our postwar reality, when French pride permeates every aspect of Paris, such a venue for foreign music is a rare treasure … 

I am aware that these opportunities do not exist without great controversy, and I thank you for your tireless efforts to cultivate new international music … Such an international embrace of new works signifies the SMI’s high standards for compositional excellence — where a composer’s worth is based not on nationality but on style, aesthetics, and quality.”

Over its consequential 25-year existence, the SMI would organize more than 170 concerts consisting of some 435 pieces of music — many of them premiere performances.

A 1926 SMI concert featuring the music of Arnold Schoenberg, including Pierrot lunaire. This wasn’t the first presentation of Pierrot in Paris; it had been played there as far back as 1921, under the direction of Darius Milhaud. Present at the earlier concert, music critic Louis Fleury would later report:  “I hope Messieurs Ravel and Schmitt will not mind my revealing the fact that they were among the warmest of Schoenberg’s admirers — but even they were hard put to defend their opinion with musicians of their own mettle.”

Over its 25 years of existence, the Société musicale indépendante presented a total of 435 different compositions. This graphic, prepared by Brazilian pianist and music scholar Danieli Longo Benedetti, shows which composers were presented most often: Ravel, Fauré, Debussy and Schmitt. (Source: Dezède Online)

Final Years and Legacy

At the center of it all: The first office of the SMI was located at 9 Rue de l’Isly in the 8th arr. (pictured above in May 2022) — just a short walk from the Palais Garnier via Rue Auber. Later, the SMI would move to an office at 47 Rue Blanche in the 9th arr., situated in between today’s Place Lili Boulanger and the Musée de la vie romantique (Museum of the Romantic Age).

Over the years, the two rival music societies were characterized by both divergence and convergence. Recognizing that the higher aims of both groups shared significant similarities, efforts were even made to bring the two rival music societies together. An attempt at a merger, proposed in the mid-1920s, ultimately failed due to unbridgeable differences in vision between the younger SMI members and the “old guard.”

But the Societé nationale itself was changing as well. By 1930, Vincent d’Indy’s influence had waned considerably (he would die in 1931), and in the event the Societé nationale began presenting more daring new works by composers such as Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, Bohuslav Martinů, Déodat de Severac and Olivier Messiaen.

More modern: This April 1932 Société nationale de musique concert program featured new compositions by Robert Casadesus and Maurice Emmanuel.

With such convergence in programming happening, the need for two distinct organizations began to seem less and less necessary. By 1935, the SMI would cease its operations and the Societé nationale once again became the flagship proponent of new music in France — and it would continue in that role until the onset of World War II.

Florent Schmitt, photographed in 1937 during his tenure as the final president of the Société nationale de musique (Photo: ©Lipnitzki/Roger-Viollet)

As the final surprise in “coming full circle,” it’s interesting to discover that Florent Schmitt — who had been at the center of establishing the “counter-cultural” Apaches and SMI groups — ended up serving as the last president of the Société nationale (1937-39). Ultimately, the clamorous “outsiders” had become the consummate “insiders.”

The dissolution of the Société nationale — ending not with a bang but with a whimper as declarations of war were being announced all across Europe — seems at first blush a rather dispiriting ending to the story. But the French essayist Romain Rolland penned a memorable epitaph that helps remind us of the consequential role that the organization played in the musical life of France over nearly seven decades, and particularly during its early years:

Romain Rolland (1866-1944)

“It is with respect that we must speak of the Société Nationale, which was truly the cradle and sanctuary of French art. Everything that was great in French music, from 1870 to 1900, came through it. Without the Societé Nationale, most of the works that are the honor of our music not only would not have been performed, but perhaps never even created.”

Pianist Matthew Bengtson and violinist John McLaughlin Williams.

On October 22, 2022, violinist John McLaughlin Williams and pianist Matthew Bengtson presented an intriguing program of music at a Steinway Society of Michigan event in Detroit. Featured were two rarities — the Frühlings-Sonate by Joseph Marx and the Tallahassee Suite by Cyril Scott — along with Florent Schmitt’s formidable Sonate libre en deux parties enchaînées (ad modem clementis aquæ), Opus 68, composed in 1918-19.

The Sonate libre isn’t as obscure as the Marx and Scott works; indeed, it has been commercially recorded five times (three of them in the past eight years). But the piece isn’t a repertoire staple either, and opportunities to experience the music in concert are hard to come by.

One performer who has championed the piece is the American violinist and conductor John McLaughlin Williams. He first presented the composition in recital at the Cleveland Institute of Music in the 1990s, teaming up with pianist David Riley to deliver two impressive performances there. Each of them is available to hear — one on SoundCloud and the other on YouTube. I am well-familiar with those performancs; to my ears, they’re among the most compelling interpretations of the music — even when compared to commercial recordings of the piece. So naturally I welcomed the opportunity to see him perform the work in concert — not only for the interpretation but also for the viscerally exciting experience of hearing the piece live.

Florent Schmitt, photographed with his son Jean in the gardens of his home in St-Cloud, France. This photo was taken at about the  same time as the creation of the Sonate libre.

My high hopes were completely met in the vital, emotionally gripping performance that was delivered by Williams and Bengtson. To say the least, immersing oneself deeply in the Sonate libre in a way that can only be fully achieved in a live performance was very fulfilling.

In the years leading up to this latest performance of the Sonate libre, Williams had been seeking a piano partner for it — pretty unsuccessfully as it turns out. For the reason why, we can turn to comments he has made about the music, and how violinists and pianists typically respond when they encounter it:

“It is such a great piece. You can easily wonder why it isn’t performed more, and I can answer authoritatively that violinists look at the score and say, ‘WTF!’. Some will never show it to a pianist because they cannot comprehend what they are looking at. Sonate libre is modern music that begins stylistically where Debussy and Ravel left off. While harmonically their influence is detectable, it is actually anticipatory of Messiaen, while texturally it inhabits the world of the younger Dutilleux.”

But as it turns out, the Sonate libre was a natural fit for Bengtson — a pianist who excels at the music of Scriabin, Szymanowski and other composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Following the October 22nd recital, I was able to interview Messrs. Williams and Bengtson about their musical journey with Schmitt’s Sonate libre. Highlights of our interesting and insightful discussion are presented below.

PLN:  How did you first become acquainted with the music of Florent Schmitt? What attracted you to his music? 

Joseph Jongen (1873-1953) was an acquaintance of Florent Schmitt dating back to his days as a student in Paris in the early 1900s. It was Jongen who would conduct the Belgian premiere of Schmitt’s monumental choral work Psaume XLVII in his capacity as director of the Brussels-based Concerts spirituels in the early 1920s.

John McLaughlin Williams:  I first learned of Florent Schmitt in the 1980s when I was living in New York. Through mutual friends I met a man named Bradley Pfaller who was a trained pianist, but who had a day job as a postman.  He knew a great deal of obscure chamber music by composers like Joseph Jongen and Egon Kornauth, and he would host get-togethers where we would read through these scores.

One of those pieces was the big Piano Quintet by Florent Schmitt. When we played through the entire work, immediately I recognized Schmitt as a true master. The music had an individual style; you could hear some influences but the personal stamp was there.  The command of the idiom and the technical finish all said that this was a great composer.

From there, I began to investigate everything I could find by Schmitt. At the time there wasn’t very much music available on CD, but I listened to those discs, plus I purchased scores to some of his violin and piano pieces, including the Sonate libre.

Matthew Bengtson:  As for me, a number of years ago I was playing with Charles Abramovic, a pianist and teacher at Temple University. He had been invited to play a program at the Music at Mt. Gretna concert series in central Pennsylvania.  They were hosting a concert of music related to the artistry of the Ballets-Russes. We played a two-piano transcription of The Rite of Spring, but in addition each of us played some solo piano works related to the topic.

Charles Abramovic

I played pieces by Georges Auric that I managed to dig up, but Charles played a piano transcription of portions of Schmitt’s ballet La Tragédie de Salomé that had been mounted by the Ballets Russes, which was far more impressive.  That was my first exposure to Schmitt’s music, but today is the first time I’ve actually played him in recital.

PLN:  How did your collaboration on the Sonate libre come about? 

John McLaughlin Williams:  Actually, you had a role in that, Phillip.

Daniel Glover

Matthew Bengtson:  Yes, I think a lot of it is you, because you put us in touch once you discovered that we both live in Ann Arbor. But I had also heard about John from Daniel Glover, a fellow pianist in the San Francisco Bay area who shares our repertoire loves, and who knew John as well.

PLN:  Thinking about the score to Sonate libre, what makes it special — or possibly even unique — in the repertoire? 

John McLaughlin Williams:  Schmitt has a very unique approach to piano writing.  You can certainly notice some similarities with other composers, but he has a very individual palette in his harmonic language.  For a French composer, his linear style of writing is quite different. The modal work is more German in nature, and the grandeur that we hear is something that isn’t really very French at all. All of those attributes set him apart.

As for his writing for the violin, I’d say that it isn’t particularly idiomatic; it seems more like it was written for the keyboard. It works, but it’s awkward, in a sense, to play.

Matthew Bengtson:  The piano part is more densely and ingeniously written than even most concertos. And when you put the violin part with it, it gives the sense of an entire orchestra underneath it. There’s this whole wonderful soloistic warmth that the piano complements and responds to.

John McLaughlin Williams:  I’d add that it’s very difficult to practice the violin part alone, because you don’t know what else is happening during the long sustained notes.

Florent Schmitt and fellow French composer Maurice Ravel made their U.K. performing debuts in 1909 on the very same program at Bechstein (now Wigmore) Hall in London. Both composers performed their own piano works and accompanied vocalists. Schmitt and Ravel were lifelong friends and musical colleagues.

Matthew Bengtson:  I’ve played a lot of music from this period. Thinking about that repertoire, the piano writing in the Sonate libre feels somewhat like Ravel — such as in Scarbo — but if there’s any piece to compare it to, it might be the Ravel Trio. In both cases, you’re presenting this tremendous tapestry with just one or two other instruments — and when you put it together, it opens up new dimensions.  On the other hand, to attempt to compare Schmitt’s violin sonata with Ravel’s sonata, there’s really no comparison — even considering that both pieces were dedicated to the same person [Hélène Jourdan-Morhange].

Matthew Bengston’s 3-CD boxed recording of the music of Karol Szymanowski, with Polish-American violinist Blanka Bednarz, is available on the Musica Omnia label.

Szymanowski is another composer with a similarity of complex harmonic textures, but his music is more grateful to the violin because he writes in a higher register that makes the balances easier. I’m thinking of Mythes — which is a piece I’ve recently played and so it’s fresh in my mind.

Even Bartók’s pieces from the same period come to mind for some stylistic similarities.

PLN:  Are there any particular points about the violin part that would be important for players to account for when preparing it for performance?  

John McLaughlin Williams:  If you could find an extra-long bow, that would help! Seriously, some of the sustained notes are so long, it isn’t possible to do them justice with a single bowing. So finding the right place to change the bow is critical and there’s no consistency in where those changes should be made — it’s different every time.

There’s another technical consideration: Because the piece was written in more of a keyboard style, unusual fingerings are required. Unlike certain passages that would lie very well under piano fingering, with the violin it requires abrupt shifts or playing on more than one string. The challenge is to find a way to make it work well.

PLN:  How about for the piano part?

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Sonate libre en deux parties enchaînées (ad modem clementis aquæ), composed in 1918-19.

Matthew Bengtson:  In the piano score there are so many seven-note chords — there are so many tenths — and you’re also having to jump from one register to another. I’ve had to roll more chords than I want, but the smaller size of my hands makes that necessary.

More broadly, learning the first movement is no small feat, but your work is only beginning because the second movement is so much more difficult. I don’t want to imply that the piano part is like a piano reduction of an orchestral piece, but in some respects it feels that way. There are so many layers and so many things going on. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised by this, since Schmitt was such a great orchestrator; it’s likely he always thought in orchestral terms.

There are a lot of specific hand distributions printed in the score, many of which work very well even if don’t seem logical or convenient at first. But in a number of cases I preferred to distribute things in my own way. A pianist should spend some significant time and energy on experimenting with different options.

The pedaling is very sophisticated, too. There are quite a few long pedal markings that work if you balance well. But you need a good amount of skill with the pedal to find the best way for the resonances to combine.

The more music you play from this period, the easier it will be to approach this score — Messiaen and Dutilleux from the later period as well, as both were strongly influenced by Schmitt. Knowing Scriabin, Stravinsky and other octatonic composers helps, because there’s a good deal of octatonic harmony in the Sonate libre — weird things like G-flats and B-naturals that if you’ve played octatonic music, will be very familiar to you. The harmonies will fit under your hands with little problem.

PLN:  What has it been like to rehearse the Sonate libre together? What advice would you give to other musicians teaming up to play the piece, in how to approach their collaboration? 

John McLaughlin Williams:  Before rehearsing, I’d suggest that anyone get to know as much of Schmitt’s mature music as possible — the pieces he composed from the time of La Tragédie de Salomé onward. Look at the scores, too — all types, including orchestral and instrumental — to see how his music fits together, not just what it sounds like. Schmitt has a unique voice, and if you have that in your ear and in your mind it gets much easier. It doesn’t make the music technically less difficult, but it removes the sense of “foreignness” that the score might otherwise have.

As for Matt and me working together on this challenging piece, it’s been really great.  As I often say, “If you like to climb a mountain, here it is!”

Matthew Bengtson:  To me, it was really striking, when rehearsing the piece, to realize more and more just how great the music is. You see the logic in it so much more than when studying or practicing the part on your own.

John McLaughlin Williams:  That’s right — our understanding of the music has evolved each time we play it. Even today, when running through the piece before our recital and then playing it in front of the audience, it evolved even more in two hours’ time.

Matthew Bengtson:  Another thing I’d mention about rehearsing this music is that there are complicated tempo relationships in the score between the two parts. It’s best to figure those out in the early going, because it’s not very obvious how to interpret them.

For instance, there’s a place in the score at Rehearsal 61 where Schmitt notates that the dotted new dotted half equals two old quarter notes — but it requires some experimentation to make the transition and havde the parts related in good character. How you determine the transition affects the pacing of that entire section of the piece. And there are similar pacing challenges elsewhere — after Rehearesal 77, for example.

PLN:  I understand that in the course of rehearsing the piece, you discovered some differences in the Durand scores that the two of you were using. What were those differences, and how did you reconcile them? 

John McLaughlin Williams:  When we first ran through the piece, there was a place in the first movement where we weren’t ending up together. Looking more carefully, we discovered that there were some discrepancies in our two scores that didn’t match. My score is one that I purchased about 25 years ago, whereas Matt downloaded his from IMSLP. The strange thing is that both scores are from the same publisher, they have the same year and the same plate number, so it’s impossible to know which one came first.

Two versions of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Sonate libre exist — one with a simplified piano part. Interestingly, both versions carry the same publication date and plate numbers.

Matthew Bengtson:  What I suspect is that the later version of the score is the one that isn’t on IMSLP, but rather the one that John purchased. That’s the one pianists should get their hands on, because there are some simplifications in it. In every one of the discrepancies the piano writing in John’s score is easier, there are some grand pauses introduced, and so forth. Perhaps Schmitt, after some experience with the piece in performance, decided to make those changes shortly after the first printing. Where the piano part has been simplified it makes more sense to play it that way, since the rest piece is hard enough already!

I’d also mention the second movement which is basically in 3/8 meter, but there are also 5/8ths and 6/8ths. There are more irregular 5/8ths in my IMSLP version that don’t have rests. There are several places in John’s score that give the pianist a GP or an extra measure’s rest, and even a place where there’s a notation to “look at the violinist.” I had to smile at that one — it seems a little like what you might see in a Satie score.

PLN:  John, this isn’t the first time you’ve played the Sonate libre in recital. What, if anything, has been different about playing the piece today, compared to when you performed it earlier? 

John McLaughlin Williams:  The first time was nearly 25 years ago. I was much younger then and it didn’t seem like such an impossible feat. When I looked at the score again after so many years, I was thinking to myself, “How did I do this?”  Back in those days I didn’t write much in my scores — I kept it in my head — so there was very little to remind me of how I had done it earlier.

But as I played it, the fingerings and bowings I had used came back to me, although I ended up changing a few things from before. But there remains the miracle of how I tackled this monumental score in the first place!

PLN:  Matt, unlike John, this is your first time performing the Sonate libre. What have been your biggest challenges — or perhaps the biggest surprises — in working with this music? 

Matthew Bengtson:  I have to say, the challenge is the sheer stamina that this work requires — not just in learning it but in performing it. Earlier today, I told John I didn’t want to play the full second movement of the sonata when we were warming up before the concert because I didn’t want to make myself too tired — but we ended up doing it anyway!

But a big surprise was how this piece opened up a new world for me in Florent Schmitt’s music. Even for a person like me who has played so much repertoire from the period — Debussy, Ravel, Szymanowski, Scriabin — this was a new world. Then an even bigger surprise came in rehearsing the music, which revealed just how many interactions there are between the parts — a linear contrapuntal style that you wouldn’t associate with what seem, at first, to be a wash of Impressionistic sound.

John McLaughlin Williams:  It looks like impressionism on the page but it doesn’t really sound like it. Of course, Schmitt uses certain chords that one associates with impressionism — but the way he uses them is completely different.

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), Florent Schmitt’s teacher and mentor.

Matthew Bengtson:  He’s probably closer to Ravel in form because there are more traditional roots in the musical structure than in Debussy, whose music was so revolutionary. Schmitt’s linear writing is closer to Fauré’s — but of course the music doesn’t sound like Fauré nor does it feel like it under the fingers. It feels more like Ravel but with the structure of Fauré, who after all was Schmitt’s teacher. So perhaps the Fauréan connection isn’t so surprising.

PLN:  For your recital program today, you chose interesting — and equally rare — repertoire by Joseph Marx and Cyril Scott to pair with the Schmitt. What was the strategy behind building this program? 

John McLaughlin Williams:  I’m not sure that there was a particular “strategy,” but we started with the Schmitt as the basis for the program. From there it was a process of exploring other pieces that would complement the Sonate libre without upstaging it. We decided not to include the “usual suspects” of the violin/piano repertoire, but instead looked for other lesser-known pieces.

The “English Debussy”: Cyril Scott (1879-1970).

One piece we considered was the Medtner Violin Sonata No. 2, but we decided that it wouldn’t be the best match for the Schmitt because both are such monumental scores. Instead, our gut instinct drove us to music that would be a counterbalance to the Schmitt — stylistically, as well as the demands on the audience’s attentions (and the demands on us as well).

Matthew Bengtson:  We read through different things. We both love Cyril Scott, and so the Tallahassee Suite seemed like a natural choice. It’s a less demanding piece but very engaging.

John McLaughlin Williams:  And how can anyone play — or hear — the Marx Frühlings-Sonate without it putting a big smile on your face?

The 2022 recital program, inscribed by violinist John McLaughlin Williams and pianist Matthew Bengtson.

PLN:  Do you have plans to perform the Sonate libre in the future? How about any other Florent Schmitt compositions?  

John McLaughlin Williams:  We would love to perform the Sonate libre in other places.

Matthew Bengtson:  We would take any opportunity to do so. You simply can’t do the work and preparation — only to play the piece just one time for one audience.

John McLaughlin Williams:  Our goal is also to make a recording of the music, and to accomplish that we need to “air the thing out” as many times as possible. It isn’t a piece you can learn on the fly and then go into the recording studio; it’s a long-term commitment to prepare for making the best recording.

In my work as a conductor, I would also love to do some orchestral pieces by Schmitt, such as the Second Symphony, but you need a virtuoso orchestra for that. As a guest conductor, typically I don’t have very much control over what I can program, but I’m always on the lookout for any opportunity.

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s piano suite Trois danses, composed in 1934.

Matthew Bengtson:  I am interested in performing Trois danses, a set of three pieces that hasn’t been recorded as often as other solo piano music by Schmitt like Ombres and Mirages. Perhaps that piece could go on the same recording if we do the Sonate libre. Plus, there’s the Trois rapsodies, which is a two-piano set that John and I could perform and record together, since he is also an accomplished pianist.

Related to our performing, I teach a 20th-21st century piano music lit course at Michigan which includes a unit on French composers. I brought John in for one of those classes where he and I played about ten minutes of excerpts from the Sonate libre, which I think the students found quite interesting. Of course we study the canonical pieces, but there are also other works that I want them to explore, and I’ve been adding Florent Schmitt to the mix of repertoire.

PLN:  What other notable concerts or events do you have on your schedules? 

Matthew Bengtson:  I’m an officer of the Scriabin Society of America, and in September we held a Scriabin@150 event — a “virtual” international festival organized for the composer’s 150th birthday anniversary year. The activities included concerts, master classes, and presentations by theorists and musicologists.

The newly released Roberto Sierra piano music recording, released in September 2022 on the IBS Classical label.

Also, I recently recorded a disc of piano music by Roberto Sierra, who is coming to the University of Michigan for a lecture recital in December, during which I’ll play some of those selections. Incidentally, those Sierra scores are among the few pieces that are actually more difficult to play than something like the Sonate libre!

I’m also giving a number of recitals on early pianos, such as my 1785 Walter copy by Gerard Truinman and our school’s 1866 Erard piano.

John McLaughlin Williams’ recordings as a conductor include American repertoire on the NAXOS label, plus his most recent one featuring music by Corentin Boissier, released in 2021 on the Toccata Classics label.

John McLaughlin Williams:  Most of my activities at the moment are guest-conducting appearances. I was conducting in Dallas just this past weekend. Plus I’m filling in as a guest concertmaster for several musical groups.

Beyond those activities, Matt and I are working to turn our goal of the Florent Schmitt recording into a reality. Not only are we working up the potential program, we’re exploring places where we can record the music here in the Detroit area — either at the University of Michigan or at a recording studio, of which there are several fine ones in the area such as Brookwood Studio in Plymouth.

I might add that we’re hoping to attract some financial support from like-minded Schmittians across the world to help bring this project to fruition. So stay tuned for future information and updates!

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We look forward to hearing more news about the prospective recording project. A new recording of Florent Schmitt’s über-impressive Sonate libre is always a cause for celebration. The additional items envisioned for that recording sound equally worthy — particularly when featuring the impressive musicianship of John McLaughlin Williams and Matthew Bengtson.

Conductor JoAnn Falletta holds the conductor’s score to Florent Schmitt’s In Memoriam, which she performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in November 2022.

On November 12 and 13, 2022, JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra presented one of the most significant entries in the catalogue of Florent Schmitt’s orchestral works — the first part of In Memoriam, Op. 72 (Cippus Feralis). Composed in 1935, it is an extraordinarily beautiful composition, replete with “passion and pathos.”

Even though In Memoriam is a piece that has been praised by fellow French composers — and was performed by esteemed conductors “back in the day” including Roger Désormière, Pierre Dervaux, Tony Aubin, Jean Martinon and Georges Prêtre, in recent decades the piece has fallen into obscurity. Thus, the two Buffalo concerts were significant events — and made even more so because they were likely the first-ever North American performances of the piece.

Florent Schmitt aficionados gathered in November 2022 to attend the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s presentation of In Memoriam. Pictured at the Saturday morning dress rehearsal (l. to r.): Phillip Nones (MD), Chip Zoller (KY), John McLaughlin Williams (MI), Ken Johnson (GA), Steven Kruger (CA).

I made the journey to Buffalo to hear the concerts first-hand, where I was joined by like-minded Florent Schmitt devotees who came to town from six states to share in the experience.

Suffice it to say, we weren’t disappointed; Maestra Falletta and the orchestra delivered two compelling performances that captured perfectly the essence of the music: Fauréan elegance and refinement as seen through the passionate lens of one of his prized pupils.

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra concert program.

On the Friday before the Buffalo concerts, I had the opportunity to interview JoAnn Falletta about her journey of discovery with this music. Highlights of our interesting and insightful 90-minute conversation are presented below.

PLN:  In Memoriam is an intriguing composition in that it is one of relatively few orchestral pieces by Florent Schmitt that isn’t based on a specific story line. It is an homage to Fauré, but it’s closer to “absolute music” than most of his other orchestral works. In your opinion, how effective is he in writing a piece without a particular “program”?

The first page of JoAnn Falletta’s score to Florent Schmitt’s In Memoriam.

JAF:  Every Schmitt work I’ve conducted before this piece has told a dramatic story, with lots of action, color and dynamic changes.  In Memoriam is something quite different, and it’s been interesting to discover how Schmitt handles that. It’s magnificent, but it’s also quite different; everything is in 3/4 time, and it unfolds in a dignified way with no dramatic changes in tempo. 

There’s also a kind of tenderness in this piece. He’s more intimate, and in that sense you get a better idea of who Schmitt was as a human being. We don’t find the display of technical excellence that he displays so often in his other orchestral works; it’s more about how he’s feeling. 

Even the dynamics are more restrained. The music comes to a fortissimo in only a couple of places. 

In a way, I could see more of who Schmitt was in this piece, because his inspiration here is how he felt about his teacher. Schmitt doesn’t go in for heart-on-sleeve emotion; it’s more like laying a wreath in his tribute to Fauré. You come away from the music with the sense that Schmitt was a man not only extraordinarily skilled and facile, but also deeply caring. 

Schmitt’s music here is quite subtle. The piece relies on great writing, the sense of color which he excels at, and a sort of blossoming of the music before then dying away — the very Schmittian “arch.” Even though he begins with the solo oboe and other woodwinds, the next step is the low strings which seem to be his go-to place for beginning so many of his compositions. 

Add to this the detail — the braiding of the lines together — which is amazing even without having the splashiness of many of his other works. He utilizes two Fauréan main themes — one with the oboe — that recur throughout the piece. It’s almost as if Schmitt is saying, “Look what he’s left us.”

PLN:  Most of the music you have performed by Florent Schmitt dates from his earlier compositional period, up to the age of 50.  In Memoriam was penned substantially later. When you compare this work to his earlier pieces, what differences in style or structure to you notice?

JAF:  Conducting Schmitt in abstract music such as this piece was a discovery for me. In this particular work we experience the music simply unfolding, with no changes in meter. In that regard it is similar to Fauré, and it’s like the opening up of a flower that has such a sense of rightness — even an inevitability — to it. 

Mementos from the November 12-13, 2022 concerts in Buffalo.

The music is never forced. It isn’t pushing the envelope on the upper dynamics. It can glow at the top but it isn’t a hammer-clap. Instead, here’s a kind of internal light to it rather than the sparkling sensations we get in earlier pieces like Antony & Cleopatra and Salomé. 

Whether this difference is because of the topic of the piece, or if this is how Schmitt wrote abstract music in general, remains an open question, I think. We could probably figure this out more definitively with further exploration of his other scores.

PLN:  Are there some aspects of Schmitt’s style that remain more consistent between his earlier and later orchestral compositions?

JAF:  The dark coloration is there — and this is something that Schmitt uses a very often in his other pieces. Also, the intricacy of the inner lines — the second violin and viola parts weaving in and out like a tapestry, for example — is highly characteristic of Schmitt. There’s a good deal going on with multiple voices at once, and that’s a Schmitt trademark. 

I see similarities in the details, too. In the louder moments where he introduces figurations and other fine detail in the strings, this is Schmitt at his most representative. In this score they’re audible but not overwhelming; there are brass lines moving above them, and yet they’re important to the overall color of the piece. That’s another Schmitt trademark — these glistening textures that are incredibly detailed yet never thick, and that provide added dimensions to the music as it flows forward. 

Of course, it’s up to conductors and musicians to balance everything, and we’ve worked a lot on balances in our rehearsing this week. But we’re remindful that Schmitt often wants some of it cloaked — a glimmer as opposed to coming through brilliantly. And that is part of what makes the music so extraordinarily beautiful.

The final spread page from JoAnn Falletta’s score to Florent Schmitt’s In Memoriam, with the conductor’s markings shown.

PLN:  In Memoriam isn’t one of Schmitt’s better-known works. Thinking about the score, what do you find so compelling about the music — and that made you want to resurrect it for today’s audiences?

JAF:  This piece has been on my radar for quite a few years. I’ve always been attracted to it, and of course I’m always interested for our orchestra to play more Florent Schmitt. I think our musicians think of themselves as performers who understand Schmitt better than most, since they’ve played so much of him with our two NAXOS recordings of his music. 

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), Florent Schmitt’s beloved composition teacher and mentor.

And then the idea that this piece is an homage to Schmitt’s favorite teacher, who he loved. There weren’t many people in Schmitt’s life for whom he had a tremendous affection like that, which is another thing that makes this tribute so very touching.

The piece, while it couldn’t have been written by Fauré himself, does remind me of some of Fauré’s suites that I’ve conducted. They are introspective in the same way — and they have a similar sort of stately motion and grace to them — so I tend to think of Schmitt’s piece as being in the footsteps of Fauré. It unfolds in a very interesting way and at the same time gracefully — almost effortlessly.  

Also, Schmitt’s use of the solo woodwinds is remindful of something that Fauré would have written — cherishing each woodwind line and phrase. I’d also add that there’s a kind of nobility to the music, and this is something that is quite special.

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s In Memoriam, inscribed by conductor JoAnn Falletta.

PLN:  You have mentioned before that musicians often find Florent Schmitt’s scores challenging to play.  What comments, if any, have you heard about this piece as you’ve rehearsed it with the orchestra?

JAF:  I haven’t heard any comments this time around about the music being hard to play. Instead, I think the musicians have reveled in the music. 

This piece is less difficult than the other scores they’ve played by Schmitt, where you really have to concentrate on the notes and the rhythm. A piece like this has given them ample time for the music to settle in, to where they could really concentrate on color. 

Also, some of the musical lines are more exposed, such as the woodwind parts and the small violin solos for our concertmaster Nikki Chooi that are sprinkled throughout the score. And so they’ve been very focused on how beautiful they can make it — in achieving excellence of sound. 

Florent Schmitt aficionados dine with members of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra following a performance of In Memoriam (November 2022).

I’d also mention that in consultation with Henry Ward, our principal oboist, we came to the realization that the final measures of the piece should be taken a little more slowly than what’s indicated in the score. It’s the final reminiscence of the love theme, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. These very subtle adjustments in tempo have added to the effectiveness of the notes on the page. 

One other point I’d make is that hearing our musicians perform the music in rehearsal this week has been a revelation. We have some French broadcast performances from the 1950s for reference, but the sound on those tapes doesn’t do the music justice. The one commercial recording from the 1980s doesn’t offer many clues, either. But this week everyone could finally hear all the colors that this piece possesses, and it’s nothing short of amazing.

PLN:  In Memoriam is made up of two sections — Cippus Feralis which you are performing, plus a brief scherzo on the name GABRIEL FAURÉ which the composer had originally composed for piano solo about a decade before, and then orchestrated for this score.  You have chosen to omit the Scherzo.  What was the rationale for making this decision?

Florent Schmitt, photographed in his study at his home in St-Cloud, France in July 1937, the year that In Memoriam was published by Durand et cie. (©Boris Lipnitzki/Roger-Viollet)

JAF:  The two pieces come from different worlds. The Scherzo was written in 1922, several years before Faure had died, so in that sense it wasn’t a “memorial” composition like Cippus Feralis. It’s interesting that it wasn’t until 1935 that Schmitt looked back and decided to write this memorial tribute to Fauré, more than a decade following his death. 

Now, we know that Schmitt published the two together, so there is that statement.  But the two pieces are just so different, and I couldn’t find any bond between them.  I was afraid that the audience would be bewildered by hearing the jarring contrast of the Scherzo immediately following the Cippus Feralis. They might find the first part among the most beautiful pieces they’ve ever heard, but then the Scherzo is such a departure from that, it would break the spell.

PLN:  Do you and the Buffalo Philharmonic have plans to record In Memoriam, as you have done with the other works of Schmitt that you have conducted?

JAF:  Yes, if I can come up with a new Florent Schmitt recording to make with NAXOS. It’s something that is being actively worked on, but we are still in the early stages of discussion with the label. If the project happens, we would plan on recording both parts of the piece.

PLN:  With In Memoriam, you now have seven works by Florent Schmitt in your repertoire, a tally matched by just one other conductor active in the world today. Are there additional pieces by Schmitt that you are planning to program in the future — or that are on your “wish list?”

The 2020 NAXOS recording featuring Florent Schmitt’s music, performed by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

JAF:  Psalm XLVII is definitely on my wish list. Some of his orchestrated songs would be very worthwhile to perform as well.

PLN:  You have been in the forefront of the worldwide Florent Schmitt renaissance — in particular because of the release of your two critically acclaimed NAXOS recordings released in 2015 and 2020 that have received widespread international distribution.  In your view, how important has this renaissance been to the field of music?

The three great composers from France’s “Golden Age” of classical music, packaged together in Bleu Nuit’s biography series.

JAF:  It’s been tremendously important, because now we hear Florent Schmitt being talked about in ways that hadn’t been happening for decades prior. More and more, he’s being referenced in the same breath as Debussy and Ravel, which is completely fitting. Fauré and Schmitt are paired as well. Stravinsky and Schmitt, too. The renaissance is restoring him to the eminent position he had during his life, and where he truly belongs. 

If you think about it, it wasn’t a long time ago when we never saw that happening — or, he’d be confused with the Viennese composer Franz Schmidt. But we’ve reached a tipping point. Of course, we need to have more conductors and orchestras playing and recording his music, but it’s definitely broken through.

PLN:  Along these same lines, have other musicians sought your counsel and advice concerning programming Florent Schmitt’s music?  

JoAnn Falletta’s first recording devoted to the music of Florent Schmitt, with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (NAXOS, 2015).

JAF:  Quite a few people have told me that they’ve heard my Schmitt recordings, and that those have made them more interested in exploring his music. Whether that’s actually inspired more performances I don’t know for sure, but I do see that La Tragédie de Salomé is having many outings this concert season, all over the world.

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We are grateful for JoAnn Falletta’s efforts to resurrect Florent Schmitt’s In Memoriam, and hope that the prospects of a desperately needed new recording will become a reality before long. Simply put, it’s a masterpiece that is overdue for a revival on concert stages across the world.

A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Nuits romaines (1901),

For nearly every French composer coming of age during the period 1850-1950, competing for and winning the Prix de Rome first prize for composition was the indisputable gold standard. While the musical careers of some Prix de Rome recipients didn’t flourish as much as might be expected, no doubt the prestige of winning the honor opened up artistic doors for the recipients, making it easier for them to make their mark as composers.

Florent Schmitt, photographed in 1900 around the time he won the Prix de Rome first prize for composition. (Photo: Eugène Pirou)

In the case of Florent Schmitt, winning the Prix de Rome in 1900 – on his fifth attempt – was a watershed moment for him in three respects. First, it bestowed recognition and credibility on him as a composer.

Second, it gave Schmitt the opportunity to undertake a fruitful four years of creating music that, in retrospect, we recognize as important contributions to the concert repertoire.

Villa Medici, Rome

Lastly, it gave the intrepid composer an excuse to embark on far-flung travel adventures, foretelling what would be a recurring activity of the composer for the rest of his career. For the typical Prix de Rome recipient, winning the prize meant an 18-month stay at the Villa Medici in Rome. But in the case of Florent Schmitt, his sojourn turned into a four-year odyssey of travel covering nearly all of Europe, the Mediterranean region and the Middle East.

A map of the Mediterranean region in the early 1900s. Florent Schmitt explored the region from end to end during his Prix de Rome sojourn.

Indignant letters from Paris Conservatoire authorities followed him wherever he went, and Schmitt would later remark that he “probably got into more trouble than any other recipient” because of his wanderlust during his Prix de Rome period.

The authorities needn’t have worried. Despite the rigors and distractions of his extensive travels, Schmitt’s Prix de Rome years were particularly fruitful in terms of the sheer volume of compositions that he created to send back as envois to the Conservatoire – a quantity that went well-beyond the minimum requirements.  These pieces comprised orchestral works (among them Musiques de plein air, Combat des Raksasas et délivrance de Sita, Chant elegiaque and Le Palais hanté), choral music (Psaume XLVII), chamber music (extensive portions of the massive Piano Quintet), plus mélodies and works for piano.  Chief among the latter were Reflets d’Allemagne, Feuillets de voyage and Trois rapsodies (all scored for two pianists), along with the solo piano sets Crépuscules and Nuits romaines, Op. 23.

The titles of the piano pieces in particular give clues as to the places where Schmitt had traveled. Nuits romaines (Roman Nights), composed in 1901, was inspired by Schmitt’s time in Italy and consists of two pieces:

• Le Chant de l’Anio, dedicated to French composer Auguste Pierret
• Les Lucioles (Fireflies), dedicated to composer and pianist Juliette Toutain, who had been a fellow classmate with Schmitt at the Paris Conservatoire

Pianist and composer Juliette Toutain (1877-1948) was a classmate of Florent Schmitt at the Paris Conservatoire. Encouraged by the Conservatoire’s director, Théodore Dubois, to compete for the Prix de Rome composition prize in 1902, Toutain was unable to secure a change in the rules that barred women from entering the competition. (That change would happen shortly thereafter, enabling Lili Boulanger to compete for and win first prize in the 1913 competition.)

In Nuits romaines as with the contemporaneous Crépuscules, we can clearly notice a definitive break with Schmitt’s earlier piano music style — one that had been more reminiscent of Schumann and Liszt. It was a stylistic change that had been brewing for several years; in her 2011 thesis titled “Fashionable Innovation: Debussysme in Early Twentieth-Century France,” musicologist Jane Ellen Harrison explains:

“Florent Schmitt, Maurice Ravel and Charles Koechlin had met in Gabriel Fauré’s composition class at the Paris Conservatoire, and by 1899 had formed a small circle [the nucleus of what would eventually become Les Apaches]. Letters among the three composers reveal that they were regularly sharing their compositions with each other, attending concerts together, and engaging in critical discussion of the events occurring in their musical community.”

Based on the historical documentation that is available to us, Australian pianist Kenan Henderson recounts how Lucioles came to be:

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). His most intimate friends in the arts were fellow members of Les Apaches. At the premiere of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé in 1912, the four attendees invited by Ravel to join the composer in his box at the Palais Garnier were the composer’s mother and brother, plus Igor Stravinsky and Florent Schmitt.

“One day, Ravel announced to his circle of friends that it was impossible to write effectively for piano anymore. Florent Schmitt then proceeded to write his remarkable Les Lucioles in reaction to Ravel’s contention, which subsequently provoked Ravel into writing his innovative and famous Jeux d‘eau. This shows just how closely linked these two figures were in day-to-day life.”

Recognizing this interaction between Ravel and Schmitt places the significance of Nuits romaines in a clearer light, seeing as how it served as an important catalyst for Ravel in his development as a composer of scores for the piano. The French musicologist and author Nicolas Southon sees hints of Ravel’s future piano output throughout Nuits romaines, writing:

“The pianism sparkles in this set. It is written in a style where ‘fingers first’ are involved — almost in line with 18th century harpsichord playing and contrary to the Romantic repertoire — yet without compromising resonance or spectacular pianistic gestures.

One notices the presence of the whole-tone scale with its characteristically mysterious sound. The score is quite close in character to Ravel’s Jeax d’eau, written later the same year, as well as Ravel’s Sonatine from 1905.

Most of all, it foreshadows Miroirs. A striking example is in the final bars of Lucioles, and in the first piece in the set [Le Chant de l’Anio], where in places the theme anticipates Une barque sur l’océan.”

A score page from Le Chant de l’Anio, the first of the two piano pieces that make up the set Nuits romaines, composed by Florent Schmitt in 1901.

August Jean Pierre Pierret (1874-1916) was a French composer of primarily piano music — and one of too many French musicians who would not survive the First World War. Although his music is virtually unknown today, some two dozen piano scores by Pierret are housed at the Bibliothèque National de France in Paris. Florent Schmitt dedicated the first movement of Nuits romaines to Pierret.

As for that first piece of the set — Le Chant de l’Anio – the title likely refers to the Aqua Anio Novus, an ancient Roman aqueduct constructed along the Anio River (alternatively known as the Treverone or Aniene River) between 38 and 52 AD by Roman emperors Caligula and Claudius. The Aqua Anio Novus is considered one of the four great aqueducts of Rome. In Schmitt’s music, we can distinctly hear the aqueous rippling along with a general Mediterranean flavor bordering on the “orientalist.”

Nuits romaines received its premiere performance in Paris in 1902 at a Société Nationale de Musique event, performed by Juliette Toutain, a well-known pianist who had been a classmate of Florent Schmitt’s at the Paris Conservatoire, and who also premiered Schmitt’s 1895 composition Chant du soir (with the composer Georges Enescu as violinist) in 1900. Schmitt made Mlle. Toutain the dedicatee of Lucioles, the second number in the set.

Lucioles, the second number in Florent Schmitt’s Nuits romaines that influenced the future direction of Maurice Ravel’s piano music.

This portrait of Juliete Toutain-Grün was painted by her husband, Jules Alexandre Grün (1868-1938), who she married in 1900. Jules Alexandre Grün was a noted figure in the theatre arts, working as a painter, poster artist and cartoonist. No fewer than 135 surviving posters bear his signature, which are recognized for their effectiveness in combining elegance and humor. Historian and translator Eugène Tardieu contended that the Montmartrois Grün was “the sharpest observer of modern life” in his time. Florent Schmitt dedicated Les Lucioles from Nuit romaines to Juliette Toutain-Grün, who played the premiere performance of the composition in recital in Paris in 1902.

The Nuits romaines score was published by Hamelle in 1904, but these days the work is one of the least known of Florent Schmitt’s piano compositions. I can find little evidence of the music being performed in recital in recent decades — one rare exception being a performance of Lucioles given in 2004 by pianist Louis-Claude Thirion as part of a recital exploring musical connections with Émile Gallé’s decorative arts pertaining to nature and nocturnal themes.

Ivo Kaltchev

Further underscoring the piece’s obscurity, there has been just one commercial recording ever released of Nuit romaines — made by the Bulgarian-American pianist Ivo Kaltchev in 2001 and released on the GEGA NEW label, exactly a century after the composition’s creation.

The Kaltchev performance is part of an all-Schmitt piano album that also includes two other premiere recordings (Small Gestures and Prelude … pour une suite à venir). In his CD booklet notes for the recording, Mr. Kaltchev characterizes the music of Nuits romaines as follows:

“The coloristic harmonic language of Op. 23 marks a further stylistic development into impressionism. Here, in addition to familiar impressionistic devices such as modality, parallelism, ostinatos, shimmering arpeggio figurations, etc., one can easily notice the characteristic features that would become a signature of Schmitt’s piano idiom — contrapuntal textures, an orchestral approach to the instrument, and complex rhythmic designs.

Pianist Ivo Kaltchev, photographed for the 2001 release of his recording featuring Florent Schmitt’s Nuits romaines.

Schmitt’s experiences with time and sound are especially evident in Lucioles. The harmonic opulence, inventive polyrhythms and polymeters as well as delicate flickering figures of this piece foreshadow Ravel’s Noctuelles from Miroirs (1904-5).

For those who are interested in following along with the score while listening to the music, the Kaltchev recording has been uploaded to YouTube synchronized with the score, courtesy of Kyle Hannenberg’s music channel.

The first — and so far only — recording of Nuits romaines: Ivo Kaltchev on the GEGA NEW label (2001).

Give Nuits romaines a hearing. I think you’ll be just as captivated as Maurice Ravel was “back in the day” …

A slender, petite man — and the giant legacy he left us — draw parallels with Maurice Ravel.

Three Florent Schmitt biographies: (l.-r.) Hucher (1953), Ferroud (1927), Lorent (2012).

Over the decades, a total of four biographies of the French composer Florent Schmitt have been published – all of them written in French. Three of these biographies were written during the composer’s lifetime, and with his cooperation.

The first biography, authored by Schmitt’s protégé Pierre-Octave Ferroud and published by Durand, appeared in 1927 when Schmitt was at the approximate midpoint of his highly fruitful compositional career.

Nearly 30 years later, a more extensive biography was written by Yves Hucher, a young writer who devoted two years to researching and writing his book which was published in 1953. At about the same time, Madeleine Marceron, an author who had become acquainted with Florent Schmitt approximately 20 years prior, began working on her biography of the composer – one that focused less on Schmitt’s musical output and more on the personality of the musician.

Madeleine Marceron’s biography of Florent Schmitt, published in 1959.

Unfortunately, Florent Schmitt was to pass away before Marceron’s book was completed; instead, the slender volume was published in 1959, a year after his death. In terms of its coverage of Schmitt’s artistic legacy, one could accurately contend that Marceron’s book is less valuable than the Ferroud and Hucher biographies. On the other hand, the book is particularly worthy in terms of its portrayal of the personality of Florent Schmitt.

With the help of the American cellist Aaron Merritt, I was able to acquire the papers of Madeleine Marceron pertaining to the development of her biography. Among these documents are letters between Marceron and Schmitt’s fellow composers, other musicians, personal friends and family members, along with notes from her interviews with the composer plus early drafts of the book. Other ephemera included in the Marceron collection of documents are vintage concert programs, several music scores, plus newspaper and magazine articles dating mainly from the 1940s and 1950s.

The cover of the May 1960 issue of Musica disques magazine.

One such article is a two-page profile of Florent Schmitt authored by Marceron that was published in the May 1960 issue of Musica disques magazine. Aiming to present a personal profile of the composer instead of a chronicle of his career accomplishments, Marceron’s article successfully captures the flavor of Schmitt’s personality, based as it was on the author’s near quarter-century acquaintance with the composer that stretched back to the mid-1930s.

I’ve reproduced the original Musica disques article in its entirety below. But for the benefit of those who do not read French, I’ve also solicited the thoughts of several of today’s most ardent Florent Schmitt champions, based on their reading of the article.

The American conductor JoAnn Falletta shared the following observations:

“I was personally touched by the near-childlike quality we see here, and while Florent Schmitt might lack diplomacy, his truthfulness bespeaks a kind of innocence that might seem surprising given the romantic depth and extreme sensuality of so much of his music. 

JoAnn Falletta

Reading the article felt a bit like being welcomed into Schmitt’s home. His humor, his self-deprecating wit and unfailing charm towards women, his unexpected and sometimes surprising viewpoints combine to create the image of a man who seemingly enjoys his life — and whose continuing musical journey is an endless source of enchantment for him. 

Of course, Schmitt’s gratitude to his audiences, his loyalty to his friends and his personal courage are only a part of this complex, meticulous and discerning artist; we can only discover the complete musician in the extraordinary compositions he left us.”

Vincent Figuri, who specializes in French narration set to classical music scores, and who in that realm has recorded Schmitt’s Fonctionnnaire MCMXII, discerns several unique aspects of Schmitt’s character:

“The talking musician”: Vincent Figuri

“The dialogues included in the article reveal a person who disdained propriety — and who sometimes let that be known in a caustic way. It also reveals a personality removed from worldly concerns and academicism, often operating outside of social conventions.”

Expounding further on the “undiplomatic” aspects of Schmitt’s persona, David Grandis, a French conductor who is working in the United States today, makes this observation:

David Grandis

“Florent Schmitt is a type of character I know very well. My grandfather was from Lorraine, and indeed there is a frankness and disregard for diplomacy that I’ve inherited myself; hypocrisy is not in our vocabulary! This is a general trait that all French people share – but with more intensity in Lorrainers such that other French people really notice it.”

Viewed from different angle, the American music critic Steven Kruger sees clues to Florent Schmitt’s character in the description of the composer’s surroundings at his home in St-Cloud:

Steven Kruger

“What emerges is a sense that Florent Schmitt was a self-contained individual – a man of satisfied domesticity and self-guided purpose. He’s content with his cat perched next to the sugar bowl, happy to speak of a cherry tree he planted, and speaks unapologetically about the locomotives that run on the train tracks behind his property. In short, it’s a comfortable and satisfying home life that he’s designed for himself. 

At the same time, Schmitt has engaged in battles with critics as well as the struggle for prominence. In his music, we can often sense this struggle between apocalypse and tenderness which seems to happen spontaneously yet methodically. In all this, Florent Schmitt appears to be a happy warrior — authentic and with uncompromising standards (perhaps lacking a little in compassion for the human species) — but whose bark is worse than his bite.”

Going further, the French pianist Bruno Belthoise sees interesting parallels between Florent Schmitt and Maurice Ravel. He notes:

Bruno Belthoise

”In this intimate article, Madeleine Marceron reveals her personal feelings about Florent Schmitt and poses the question, ‘How can a man so short in stature create such towering things?’ This reflection reminds me of the personal memories of the violinist and music author Hélène Jourdan-Morhange who was, for her part, very close to Maurice Ravel, and about whom she gives us so much information in her book Ravel et nous. 

The score to Florent Schmitt’s Sonate libre en deux parties enchaînées, ad modem Clementis aquæ, composed in 1919 and dedicated to Hélène Jourdan-Morhange.

Jourdan-Morhange was born the same year as Marceron [1888], and the two books that the authors wrote about these two giants of French music were written at about the same time in the mid-20th century. 

It is surprising to realize the similarities in how Schmitt and Ravel led their well-regulated lives, including loving their cats. We imagine them living in a simple atmosphere mixed with a certain distinction ‘à la française’ in their respective pavilions near Paris. There is apparently nothing out of the ordinary in the way of life of these two composers — no extravagances, no thrilling novel to write of the adventuresome lives of a Liszt, Albéniz or Villa-Lobos … 

The words of Madeleine Marceron reveal some significant insights into Schmitt’s character: a kind of ironic humor mixed with shyness, and an elegant way of entering into relationships with others — without indulgence, but rather maintaining a form of restraint. 

Hélène Jourdan-Morhange’s book Mes amis musiciens, published in 1955, presents profiles of sixteen French composers including Florent Schmitt.

We are charmed by such simplicity. But faced with the simplicity (or even the modesty) of Florent Schmitt, an underlying question remains: It is the mystery of the musical output – of its expressive force and the overflowing imagination. 

Ultimately, we can explain the skill and sure craftsmanship of a composer such as Schmitt. What cannot be explained so easily is the extraordinary musical harvest. Try as we might, we cannot solve the mystery of how this diminutive man left us such towering works.”

Displayed below is Madeleine Marceron’s article in its entirety. As you read it, see if you don’t agree with the assessments above, as observed by musicians from the vantage point of six decades on.

These charmers, written for violin or cello soloist, make for perfect recital pieces.

The 2014 NAXOS release featuring Florent Schmitt scores for violin and piano.

Music-lovers who are familiar with Florent Schmitt’s catalogue know that he composed a number of works featuring the violin and cello as solo instruments.

Most of the composer’s violin pieces have been gathered together in a fine collection of works including the stunning Sonate libre from 1919, recorded by violinist Beata Halska-Le Monnier and pianist Claudio Chaiquin and released in 2018 on the NAXOS label.

Florent Schmitt works for cello and piano/orchestra, purchased at a Paris music store in June 2018. (Photo: Aaron Merritt)

As for the cello pieces, Schmitt’s works include one each from his early career (Chant élégiaque, composed in 1903), middle period (Final, written in 1926) and late flourishing (Introït, récit et congé, dating from 1948).

But there is an additional set of pieces created by Florent Schmitt that comes from his early period, written for either violin or cello soloist along with piano. Created over a period of some years, the five pieces were brought together as a set under the title Cinq pièces pour violon ou violoncelle et piano, Op. 19.

Collectively lasting approximately 20 minutes in duration, the five pieces that make up the set are as follows:

I.   Chanson à bercer  (Rocking Song)

II.  Guitare (Sérénade)

III. Berceuse pour la chatte  (Lullaby for the Cat)

IV. Rêve au bord de l’eau (Dream at the Water’s Edge)

V.  Petites cloches (Small Bells)

These charmers are among the early Florent Schmitt compositions that Pierre-Octave Ferroud, a composer who studied under Schmitt and was also his first biographer, characterized as contemplative and happy: “fresh daydreams in the middle of calming nature, where worries are absent.”

Florent Schmitt, photographed in 1900, around the time he  began composing the numbers that eventually made up the set Cinq pièces. (Photo: Eugène Pirou)

The dates and circumstances of the publication of the set are a bit unclear. In Yves Hucher’s listing of Schmitt’s compositions prepared in 1961, the Cinq pièces are listed as being published in 1913 by Hamelle.  At odds with this information, IMSLP lists the work’s publication year as 1909.  But looking at the individual numbers of the set, it quickly becomes evident that at least several of them were composed long before 1909.

As for the qualities of the music, each of the pieces is its own little gem, with moods alternating between dreamy contentment and poignancy.  According to a notation on the score, the first number — Chanson à bercer — was composed in Nice, France in 1901. It is a sweet, uncomplicated melody that was captivating enough to be waxed twice in the early years of recording (see below).

Suzanne Henriette Duchêne (1893-19??)

The Chanson bears a dedication to Mlle. Suzanne Duchêne, daughter of the prominent landscape architect Achille Duchêne and his social-activist and workers rights-advocate wife Gabrielle Laforcade Duchêne. I have been unable to determine the extent of the relationship between Schmitt and the Duchêne family or the degree of their social interaction — or alternatiively, if Suzanne was simply the object of Florent Schmitt’s appreciation for an attractive young woman of sixteen.

The cover page of Florent Schmitt’s score to Chanson à bercer, the first of the Cinq pièces for violin (or cello) and piano. When the composition was published by Hamelle in 1909, it bore a dedication to Mlle. Suzanne Duchêne. Born into a prominent family living in the 16th arr. of Paris, Duchêne followed in the footsteps of her social-activist mother in becoming a feminist, a peace activist during World War I, and a proponent of new methods of children’s education which she put into practice at a noted progressive school in Meudon. In 1920 she married the Russian emigré Alexandre Roubakine (1889-1979), the brother of concert pianist Boris Roubakine. Convicted of disseminating revolutionary songs, Alexandre Roubakine had moved to Paris in 1908 following his release from a Tsarist prison. Gorod (La Cité), Roubakine’s blistering account of the tribulations of urban living (illustrated by Natalia Goncharova) was published in 1920. Receiving a medical degree in France, Roubakine served as a representative of the Soviet Union’s Public Health Commissariat in Paris, then as an external expert in the health section of the League of Nations in Geneva, and later as a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City. Arrested in France by the Vichy government following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and held for two years at prison camps in Vernet l’ariège and in North Africa, Roubakine was repatriated to the Soviet Union in 1943 where he would spend the remaining 35 years of his life. As Suzanne Duchêne was unwilling to leave Paris, Roubakine and his wife were divorced in the 1950s. A person whose life was seemingly tailor-made for film, Roubakine would indeed became the subject of a 2012 documentary, produced and directed by Susan Solomon and Thomas Lahusen.

The second piece in the set (Guitare) dates from even earlier – noted in the score as being composed in Paris in 1899. In this serenade, the strings of the violin or cello are plucked in places, redolent of playing on a guitar. This piece was dedicated to Jouro Tkaltchitch (Juro Tkalčić), a noted Croatian-born cellist who settled in Paris and who also devoted himself to composition. As such, a January 1913 Le Courrier musical review of a Tkaltchitch recital presented at the Salle Pleyel noted, “We knew Mr. Tkaltchitch as a brilliant cellist but not as a composer. In this last respect he also deserves interest. His String Quartet is a very fine addition, and his small pieces for cello and piano are charming pages.”

Florent Schmitt’s longtime home in St-Cloud, where he lived until 1956, always had at least one resident feline “holding court.” (Painting by Mathieu Cherkit, 2017)

The Berceuse is a touching little number — its subject matter reminding us that, like his friend and fellow-composer Maurice Ravel, Florent Schmitt had a special fondness for felines. Indeed, he owned a succession of pet cats during the many decades he resided at his home in St-Cloud.

The poet Paul Castiaux (1881-1963) wrote of man’s interwoven relationship with nature. He was a one-time member of Le Groupe de l’Abbaye de Créteil, a utopian artistic and literary community founded in 1906 which numbered among its members several other friends of Florent Schmitt, including the writer Charles Vildrac and the painter Albert Gleizes. Among Castiaux’s best-known writings are Le Joie vagabonde (1909) and Lumières de monde (1913). This 1910 portrait of the poet was painted by the French cubist artist Henri Le Fauconnier (1881-1946).

In some respects, Rêve au bord de l’eau is the most memorable piece in the set, in that in addition to being the longest in duration of the five, it’s a work that is near-hypnotic in its impressionistic character. An inscription on the score quotes a phrase from the French poet Paul Castiaux (“O songe des reveries !”), and Schmitt’s music fully lives up to this description.

Rêve au bord de l’eau was dedicated to André Tourret, a violinist who is best-known for being the teacher of Gražyna Bacewicz in Paris in the 1930s. Earlier in his career, Tourret was a member of the New York Chamber Music Society’s resident string quartet, a position he held until 1916. Interestingly, Tourret also played in the premiere public outing of Schmitt’s recently completed Piano Quintet in 1909 – a milestone event in the artistic development of the composer.

Among the musical groups in which violinist André Tourret played was the Capet Quartet. He is seated near left in this photo, playing second violin. Tourret was also one of the musicians who presented the first complete public performance Florent Schmitt’s monumental Piano Quintet, in 1909.

The 362nd concert of the Société nationale de musique featured Florent Schmitt’s Piano Quintet. The concert was held at the Salle Erard on March 27, 1909, shortly after the composer had completed the score on which he had worked for six years. Violinist André Tourret was among the musicians who presented the premiere.

There is a bit of confusion surrounding the final number in the Cinq pièces set. Most sources list the piece as Petites cloches, although IMSLP has muddied the waters somewhat by listing a different piece (Dialogue) in its place. Dialogue is actually labeled Op. 17 (No. 1) in the Schmitt catalogue — an opus number it shares with the Scherzo-Pastorale (Op. 17, No. 2) for flute and piano. As for Petites cloches, it is masterfully descriptive music that conjures up bell-like sonorities as effectively as one encounters in similar pages written by the English composer, writer, poet and occultist Cyril Scott.

Perhaps because of its somewhat “scattershot” development over a number of years – along with the score being written for either a violin or cello as the soloist – the Cinq pièces aren’t particularly well-known in either the violin or cello realm, nor have they fared well on recordings.

Karen Shaffer’s comprehensive two-volume biography of the Illinois-born, European-educated violin pioneer Maud Powell, published in 2022, is surely the last word on this important artist who brought her playing to auditoriums and town halls across the heartland of America. In addition to presenting the premiere American performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in 1906, Powell introduced numerous other concertante works to American audiences, including the  famous concerti of Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Bruch. Her recording of Florent Schmitt’s Chanson à bercer dates from 1914.

But as noted above, the Chanson à bercer was the recipient of two recordings in the early years of the industry. One of them featured the famed American touring violinist Maud Powell, performing with pianist George Falkenstein. It was recorded on June 24, 1914 and released as a single-sided 78-rpm record in the USA (Victor Red Seal 64458) and the UK (HMV 3-7981). The recording has been re-released by NAXOS as part of a four-CD series presenting the complete recorded output of Maud Powell.

A vintage copy of Chanson à bercer, showing the solo violin and cello partitions in addition to the piano score (identical for both versions).

The Yvonne Curti recording, released by Pathé around 1930.

A later recording of Chanson à bercer was released on the Pathé label in France. Featuring the violinist Yvonne Curti on an 80-rpm 11.5-inch record (No. 9768), that recording is an extreme rarity today as it has never been re-released in any form. (It doesn’t appear on either of the two Japanese CDs issued in 2015 and 2016 that present a retrospective of Curti hisitorical recordings.)

The second of two Japanese CD recordings presenting the artistry of Yvonne Curti, drawn from historical recordings made in the late 1920s and 1930s. Little is known today about this French artist, who was, with other violinists like Mario Cazes, the André Rieu of her day. She interpreted the hits of the time and made a goodly number of salon-music recordings that were released on several labels, including Pathé and (UK) Columbia. Two CDs containing Curti’s historical recordings are available today, but the Schmitt Chanson à bercer is not among the pieces included. Volume 2, pictured above, was released in 2016 on the  Japan-based Octavia label.

Little-known today, Yvonne Curti was a genuine violin “star” in France in the 1920s and 1930s. She specialized in light classical fare, and her popularity manifested itself in numerous recordings made for the Pathé label. While he resided in France, the Ukrainian émigré composer Thomas de Hartmann accompanied Curti in recital, and he also dedicated his 1929 salon miniature Feuillet d’un vieil album to her.

In the modern era, Florent Schmitt’s Cinq pièces has received just one recording, made in 2006 by cellist Jean Barthe and pianist Geneviève Ibanez. The recording, released on the Marcal Classics label, also contains Schmitt’s late-career quartet Pour presque tous les temps (Quartet for Almost All the Time) along with two works by the Swiss-French composer Pierre Wissmer.

The only complete recording of Florent Schmitt’s Cinq pièces so far: cellist Jean Barthe and pianist Geneviève Ibanez, released on the Marcal Classics label (2006).

Jean Barthe

The Barthe/Ibanez recording of Rêve au bord de l’eau has been uploaded accompanied by the score, which you can access courtesy of Jean-Marie van Bronkhorst’s YouTube music channel.  While it may be my own personal favorite of the five pieces, truth be told, all of the numbers are well-worth getting to know, considering their equal portions of melodic charm and dream-like passion.

Geneviève Ibanez

As for orchestral arrangements of the Cinq pièces, it appears that Florent Schmitt created orchestrations for two of the five – both of them scored for small ensemble. The Chanson à bercer was arranged for flute, clarinet, bassoon and strings, while the Rêve au bord de l’eau exists in the composer’s arrangement for solo cello along with flute, oboe, clarinet, strings and harp.

The cover page of the Rève au bord de l’eau orchestral score that is housed in the archives of the Fleischer Library in Philadelphia.

Access to these instrumental arrangements has proven elusive over the years, but recently the American cellist Aaron Merritt tracked down what may be the only publicly available copy of the orchestrated Rêve au bord de l’eau — which, as it turns out, resides among the holdings of the Fleisher Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia and is available to musicians and scholars for study and performance.

Visual and aural beauty: The score to Florent Schmitt’s orchestrated Rève au bord de l’eau is a feast for the eyes as well as  the ears.

Looking at the handwritten score, one can easily understand why Florent Schmitt’s conductor-advocates JoAnn Falletta and Fabien Gabel are trying to interest cello soloists such as Nicolas Altstaedt and Julian Schwarz in performing this piece. At the very least, it would make for a perfect encore to present with an orchestra.

The cover of the January 25, 1929 issue of Le Guide du concert magazine, which contains a feature interview with French composer Florent Schmitt. Pictured on the cover is Alexandre Arsénieff, a Russian pianist and specialist in the music of Chopin. Little-known today, Arsénieff lived most of his life in Paris with his French-born wife. He concertized extensively in England during the 1930s. (Courtesy of Sébastien Damarey)

Several months ago Sébastien Damarey, a faithful reader of the Florent Schmitt Website + Blog, sent me a very interesting historical artifact — an interview with Florent Schmitt that was published in the January 25, 1929 issue of the French arts magazine Le Guide du concert et des théâtres lyriques.

What makes this article particularly significant is because while we have a number of Florent Schmitt interviews (print and audio) that date from late in his life, there are few that date from the important middle period of his career. The 1920s to the early 1930s was a time when Schmitt was creating some of his most daring compositions — piano works like Scherzo sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré (1922), the vocal set Kérob-Shal (1924) and the startling (and technically gnarly) Symphonie concertante (1932) for orchestra with piano.

Marcel August Louis Rousseau (1882-1955) (1930 photo)

It’s likely that the feature interview of Schmitt that appeared in Le Guide du concert, which carries the byline “M. Rousseau,” was prepared by Marcel Rousseau, who was an organist, composer, professor of harmony, a music journalist and later director of the Paris Opéra (1941-44). He also served as president of the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM) from 1919 to 1922.

Steven Kruger

As for the interview itself, the American music critic Steven Kruger notes that Rousseau brings up the composer’s reputation for brusqueness in stating certain unsolicited opinions. Kruger observes:

“That certainly sounds like Florent Schmitt — courtly and polite, but definitely not sitting on his assessment of things. And in typical French fashion, the interlocutor sets the scene with drama about the weather!”

Kruger goes on to observe:

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

“It’s amusing that Schmitt admires Fauré for being a man of the world, and for attending soirées as much as he does for Fauré’s instruction. Schmitt suggests that his own travels were the most important part of his education, and he seems eager to show himself as a self-made person.”

Cyril Plante (2009 photo)

Cyril Plante, another admirer of Florent Schmitt’s music who is an official at the French Ministry of Defense, also serves as president of Cercle National Richard Wagner – Paris (one of the member organizations of the International Association of Richard Wagner Societies). He notes that Schmitt’s reference to “Mme. de S. M.” most assuredly means Mme. Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux, whose Paris salon was a fixture on the arts scene from 1880 until the beginning of the First World War.

Back and forth: A vintage map showing the territories of Alsace and Lorraine that were ceded by France to the German Empire in May 1871. Florent Schmitt’s place of birth (Blâmont, Lorraine, Meurthe-et-Moselle) was situated nearly within sight of the postwar  boundary between France and Germany. The region would change hands twice more in the 20th century.

About the interviewer’s description of Forent Schmitt’s character (coups de boutoir), Plante offers a very plausible explanation: The territory of Lorraine has been subject to periodic invasions over its history, even as recently as 60 years prior to the 1929 Guide du concert interview (with yet another invasion to come ten years hence). Considering such a history, the “combative” aspects of the temperament of Eastern French people seem only natural.

Plante also vouches for the accuracy of several comments made by Schmitt in the interview, including his rather disdainful references to the study of solfège. According to Plante, during the time when Schmitt was a student the first years of curriculum in French music schools were nearly 100% devoted to the “arid” study of music theory. As well, Schmitt’s comments about the sometimes-contentious role of labor unions in the life of French musical theatre — and indeed in all the arts — are on point.

Furthermore, Plante points out that Schmitt was by no means the only Prix de Rome recipient who was put off by the cloistered atmosphere at the Villa Medici. “The trip to Rome was reputed to be less than popular with musicians who preferred to explore the Italian peninsula rather than shut themselves up in the Villa Medici — and the directors were generally accommodating,” he explains.

Nicolas Horvath

As for the tone of Florent Schmitt’s comments in the 1929 Guide du concert interview, French pianist and composer Nicolas Horvath sees a good deal of what he characterizes as “second-degree French humor and sarcasm,” noting:

“With such words, is it any wonder that Schmitt’s music was erased from the French music world? His comments about dodecaphony and musical ‘gods’ like Stravinsky and Schoenberg are strong — and surely must have incited the Boulezian cultish and quasi-fascistic views of how the ‘music of the future’ should sound!” 

But for Horvath, that characterization is a far cry from the remembrances shared in 1960 by the composer’s third biographer, Madeleine Marceron, “where we encounter a man so humble and yet so passionate about creating music — and so different from the usual image we have of him in France,” as he states.

In the interview, Florent Schmitt’s assessment of other composers seems in some ways surprising. Steven Kruger comments:

César Franck (1822-1890)

“I find it intriguing that Schmitt seems bored by Franck, while admiring Chabrier for liberating rhythm (which Franck definitely did not do).  And he wishes for more Lalo, plus Glazunov and Enescu symphonies; so much for Schoenberg or Stravinsky!

Schmitt also sees right through the counterfeit individuality of composers aiming for the shock value of stressing something ‘new.’  Or by adopting a fake ‘simplicity’ — in the process foreshadowing the efforts by some composers of today to be original by being ‘simple.’ One wonders what sort barbs Schmitt would have lobbed against minimalism! 

Ultimately, he seems to contend that there is no substitution for inspiration, which does not arrive by formula nor by belonging to any ‘school’; you simply know it when you hear it.”

Cyril Plante observes that a number of the composers cited by Schmitt in his interview are no longer household names — Jean Clergue, for example, who specialized in creating piano miniatures such as his Pochades and Musiques ingénues (some of which are less than a minute in duration). Georges Hugon, a one-time student of Paul Dukas, is also little-known today.

The 1929 composition class of Paul Dukas at the Paris Conservatoire, photographed the same year as the publication of Florent Schmitt’s interview in Le Guide du concert. Georges Hugon, one of the younger-generation composers citied by Schmitt in his interview, stands second from right, flanked by fellow-students René Duclos to the left and Maurice Duruflé on right. Other notables pictured include Olivier Messiaen (seated at far right), Elsa Barraine (dark clothing with arms folded on the piano) and Tony Aubin (standing at the piano sixth from left). Professor Dukas is at center.

The 1929 interview of Florent Schmitt published in Le Guide du concert is reproduced in its entirety below. For those who cannot read French, the article has also been translated into English which you’ll find immediately following the original piece.

English-language version of the Guide du concert article (with special thanks to Steven Kruger for his assistance on the translation):

An interview with Florent Schmitt

Florent Schmitt enjoys a usurped reputation: One approaches him with circumspection, expecting to find in him a bristling man always ready, with malicious joy, to “put his foot on the plate,” to disconcert you with a gruff sally.  Instead, you discover a charming host who is waiting for you near a good fire and who offers you a cordial and gentle solicitude in the cold weather.

Obviously the bludgeoning that is attributed to him (on the basis of his Lorraine origin perhaps?) is not pure invention. He was and remains combative — up to and including the fight — when the interests of the offense he defends seem to him to be worth it. But he also relaxes willingly. At most, the vivacity of his temperament still manifests itself in the abruptness of certain judgments without appeal, and in his taste for definitive answers.

Florent Schmitt’s home on Rue de Calvaire in St-Cloud, where the 1929 Guide du concert interview was held.

Through the living room windows, if the weather had been clear you could see the wooded slopes of St-Cloud, but the horizon is hidden by mists. Parks and country houses are spread out on each side of the road [Rue de Calvaire] waxed by the rain, which brings you to the top of “Calvary.” Quite a melancholic winter’s landscape, but with a silence conducive to work. Quilted atmosphere, soothing numbness of nature — the season is not the one for outbursts, nor for grudges against things or against men …

I ask Florent Schmitt about his youthful years.

FS:  You want to know who taught me music theory? I was never taught it. It is wrong to generally confuse solfège and music, when one is by definition the enemy of the other. This detestable jumble causes most beginners to get discouraged and give up. Because if that’s the music … ! 

The only education in this art is that of the ear. Let the children hear music — real music of course — and let’s spare them commentaries and analyses and demonstrations. If the subject produces something in your gut, this will suffice; otherwise, all the music theory in the world will be powerless.

Your protest sounds like a coquetry of the learned harmonist and orchestrator that you are.

FS:  By music theory I mean only the rudiments, inculcated in children under the teacher’s ruler, at an age when they would rather play marbles. I am not aiming fire at harmony or fugue — on the contrary, too neglected and about which one can never know enough. 

Have you ever dealt, directly or otherwise, with questions of musical pedagogy, which periodically come up in public education?

FS:  I’d be leery of it. I hate teaching, never having been able to give a proper lesson. But I have the right to nurture an opinion. As long as we persist in putting the cart before the horse — in teaching an emaciated theory before having interested and retained sensitivities, by hearing concerts or records, we will obtain the same result as today, i.e. exactly nothing.

Did you have the chance, from the environment where you were brought up, to feel crystallizing in you the sense and the taste for music?

André Gédalge (1856-1926), was professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatoire.

FS:  It was quite late, although the torture of scales was not spared me as soon as I was old enough to stand properly on a stool. Music didn’t reveal itself to me until I was 16; for the first time then I heard an orchestra, and I discovered the [Beethoven] Symphony en la. Around the age of seventeen I began to work seriously, in Nancy, under the direction of [Henry] Hess and [Gustave] Sandré. Two years later I entered the Paris Conservatoire where I had for teachers [Théodore] Dubois, [Albert] Lavignac, [André] Gédalge, Massenet and Fauré.

It’s probably pointless to ask which one had the most profound influence on you …

FS:  As a teacher, Gédalge. He knew how to teach; you never sought him out without deriving a benefit.

As director of conscience, Fauré. The very opposite of the magister. He never had a pencil when he took it into his head to jot down some correction. 

Lucie Frederica Marguerite Jourdain de Saint-Marceaux (1850-1930), an accomplished amateur pianist and singer and the affluent widow of the artist Eugène Baugnais, married the sculptor René de Saint-Marceaux in 1892. From 1880 until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Mme. de Saint-Marceaux was one of the most important and consequential salonnières, hosting Friday evening dinners and receptions at her residence at 100 Boulevard Malesherbes (17th arr.) that brought together wealthy members of Parisian society with noted artists, musicians and writers. These gatherings stressed informality (evening wear was prohibited, whereas formal receptions involving politicians and diplomats were reserved for Thursdays at the salon). Mme. de Saint-Marceaux’s gatherings were cited by Fauré, Ravel, Schmitt, Koechlin, Messager, Hahn, Cortot, Proust, Colette, Gauthier-Villars and many other artists in their correspondence. (1882 painting by Pauline Carolus-Duran)

He delivered his coursework as a man of the world, discussing Mme. de S.M. [Mme. Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux] and her receptions as readily as the very object of the lesson. Moreover, his criticism never hit head-on as if for the pleasure of crushing the delinquent. Two discreet words suggesting perhaps a better opportunity for some other construction – or of a more satisfactory development — and that was all. It was enough for those who knew how to understand the value of the words. 

Moreover, the example of the artist — a piece like the Seventh Nocturne, which pianists naturally avoid since it is the most beautiful — was more fruitful in teaching than any doctoral explanation.

Do you have good memories of your stay in Rome?

It cost me quite a lot!  Think of it: Five cantatas — Mélusine, Frédégonde, Radegonde, Callirhoé, finally Sémiramis in 1900 — I deserved compensation for that! In fact, the price was above all an excuse for me to travel. To avoid the straight line I made ‘hooks,’ either outbound or return, via Sweden, Turkey or Morocco. The inexhaustible leniency of the director of the School wiped out the delays that these complicated itineraries inevitably caused.

In short, on the pretext that all roads lead to Rome, you managed to spend as little time as possible there! Was it that the attraction of the place was mediocre?

The camaraderie of the musicians, artists and architects who resided at the Villa Medici was palpable, and resulted in many lifelong friendships. This photograph from Florent Schmitt’s days at the Villa Medici shows him playing piano duets with his good friend and fellow-composer André Caplet (1878-1925, to Schmitt’s right).

FS:  “One tried above all to get a quiet room. As for the rest … !” However, I did meet two excellent friends there — the architect [Paul] Bigot and [composer André] Caplet.

And you brought back part of your Quintet plus Psalm XLVII, without counting, no doubt, many sketches put on paper in Rome or in your adventurous travels. Thus, would you have written, in addition to the Psalm, works like Salomé, Antoine et Cléopâtre, Salammbó and Danse d’Abisag if those travels had not revealed to you the Biblical East and Africa?

FS:  I don’t know. I think I could have gone to Greenland and still created Samoyed music! With so much fun and so few systems. If I evoked the Orient it is without distinguishing its themes; the only actually authentic motif that I ever used came from the shores of the Dead Sea, and appears in La Tragédie de Salomé.

For a person who the public considers to be ever-preoccupied with creating something new, what do you think of the innovations [in music] with which we have been overwhelmed in recent years?

Igor Stravinsky (l.), photographed with Florent Schmitt in about 1910.

FS:  I don’t see that much. As for trailblazers, there is Stravinsky, up to and including Les Noces. Since Mavra he has been treading water. There is also Schoenberg, who so admirably stylizes the wrong note and legitimizes the disharmony …

Are you speaking seriously?

FS:  Very sincerely. He is certainly convinced. I don’t have a special fondness for his music, but I admire it – and fear it.

Can you explain the reasons that keep you away from it?

Florent Schmitt and Arnold Schoenberg, together aboard ship (North Sea, 1920).

FS:  I prefer not to formulate them, and besides he would prove me wrong, because he handles dialectics superbly. Yet his persuasive reasoning is losing ground, even in Germany. In France it has been promoted out of fashion, without trying to really understand it; we also left him slightly …

Do you see any great trailblazers in France?

Emmanuel Chabrier (1822-1897)

FS:  To satisfy national self-esteem, there is obviously Debussy — a very great one, but so discussed that one barely thinks of him. And then Fauré and Chabrier – one for the example of melody and its depth, the other for his harmonic and rhythmic research. Because it was Chabrier who, before Debussy, shook up this harmony, rigid as a prison gate, and revived our moribund rhythms. 

As for the role of Franck, others have celebrated it with more enthusiasm than I can do. But there is no denying that he too was a great musician.

So Chabrier, so little played and hardly discussed, is for you an unsung hero?

Emmanuel Chabrier’s Le Roi malgré lui was premiered in 1887 at the Opéra-Comique de Paris.

FS:  With many others, yes. Besides, great artists are never fashionable since they are of the ages. Routine reigns, in the orchestra as well as in the recital hall and on the lyrical stage. Shouldn’t we hear Le roi malgré lui more often, which hasn’t been performed in 40 years? How about the works of Lalo? And the symphonies of Dukas, Enescu, [Silvio] Lazzari, Glazunov, Koechlin and so many others?

And among the young creators?

Florent Schmitt with fellow-composer Arthur Honegger (1892-1955).

FS:  The next-to-last generation has given us Honegger, whom his adulators would do better to let breathe a little. As for the latest recruits, they are still only bawling. There is, however, an instrument whose technique, in the absence of others, they have grasped at the first chance – and it is the bass drum of the fairground parade. And the onlookers, the stupid public, walk as one man … 

The announcement of a memorial concert in honor of the French composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud, who at the age of 36 was fatally injured in an automobile accident in Debrecen, Hungary in 1936. Ferroud was a founding member of the Triton chamber music society, a loose organization of composers and musicians committed to the promotion of contemporary music. In addition to being a protegé of Florent Schmitt, Ferroud authored the first biography of the composer in 1927, two years before Schmitt’s Guide du concert interview.

I make exceptions, especially among their elders: [Claude] Delvincourt, Ibert, [Pierre-Octave] Ferroud, [Georges] Hugon, [Jean] Clergue. These are people who are rarely talked about, but who are likely to leave something to posterity other than emphatic or hollow trifles …

So let’s leave the little ones to their foster fathers and come back, if you will, to those who, without knowing where perhaps, are guiding our music. Where are they leading us?

FS:  It depends for how long. Three or four years from now, until the next bend in the road and if we haven’t fallen into the ditch, we will approach a certain clarity of line, a harmonic and architectonic simplification – a simplification partly synonymous with poverty. People claim that it is difficult to make it “simple” — a convenient paradox which camouflages an inability to design with complexity or to orchestrate “richly.” 

Instrumentation is dead today. We don’t learn it anymore. We juxtapose together no matter which timbres and we “synthesize” to reduce the difficulty of execution and not upset conductors. On the stage the same policy is imposed.

Then the great poverty of the lyrical theatre?

Alexandre Jean Albert Lavignac (1846-1916), was Florent Schmitt’s teacher of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire. According to Cyril Plante, Lavignac was “a great Wagnerian” who wrote the first French-language tourist guide for the Bayreuth Festival. He was probably more responsible than any other single individual for exposing an entire generation of young French composers (Chausson, Charpentier, Debussy, Pierné, Ropartz, etc.) to the principles of Wagner’s music — a topic which had previously been “off limits” at the Conservatoire.

FS:  Too real. It succumbs to outdated conventions, the cost of the sets, the pretensions of the soloists, the demands of the choristers who hardly know any discipline and eurythmics except for those of the union. 

Lyricism is not dead, but it is suffocating. And it is not liberating it to marginalize it with choral melodrama in the antique style or the tragedy-ballet with a developed vocal part (an attempt otherwise full of interest and very viable).

How do you judge the attitude of the audience in all of this?

André Perchicot (1888-1950) was a noted French cyclist who won the French National Track Cycling Championship in 1912, also placing third in the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Track Cycling World Championship event held in Newark, New Jersey (USA) in 1912. Perchicot served as a fighter pilot during World War I, when injuries from being shot down ended his sporting career, Hospitalized in 1916, he first began singing to boost the morale of fellow-soldiers in hospital, while also organizing fundraising cycling events benefiting the International Red Cross. His singing career flourished thereafter, including undertaking “Perchicot Tours” (involving more than 50 singers, choristers, props personnel and other staff members) to locations across Europe, the Middle East and Francophone Africa. Perchicot retired from singing in the late 1930s and died in 1950 in his hometown of Bayonne.

FS:  The crowd doesn’t care about any of that; they like [André] Perchicot. The romantic nonsense about inspiring the artist is brilliantly devoid of common sense. The artist has nothing to do with it; if he takes orders, he debases himself. The sophisticates elsewhere are no better; they are also ignorant, with smugness to boot. 

The artist works for himself alone, and for a few who are like him. Everything will be fine if he knows how to resist the effort of this little group to form a “chapel” — and if he renounces the quiet satisfaction of ever really putting finishing touches to a work. The humility of the perpetually unfinished is one of the essential secrets of wisdom.

Florent Schmitt regains his calm. A magnificent zebra cat solicits the angular caress of a chair leg and settles in a circle near the fire — in the warmth where our words will no longer disturb its nap because its master is accompanying me to the door. The garden is as peaceful as when I arrived. The harmony of the landscape has become so soft that one doesn’t really feel the courage to be misanthropic.

— M. Rousseau, Le Guide du concert et des théâtres lyriques, 25 janvier, 1929

Tomoki Sakata (Photo: Hideki Namai)

On Valentine’s Day 2023, Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata presented Florent Schmitt’s stunning Symphonie concertante, Op. 82 in concert with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Yan-Pascal Tortelier.

The Symphonie concertante was the centerpiece of an all-French program presented at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall that also included music by Gabriel Fauré (the Prélude from the opera Pénélope) plus Ernest Chausson’s Symphony in B-Flat. Regarding the Schmitt piece, this was the first concert performance in Japan of a work that was composed more than 90 years before (1932).

The program for the Sakata/Tortelier/TMSO concert. (February 14, 2023)

Yan-Pascal Tortelier’s Florent Schmitt recording (Chandos, 2010).

For Maestro Tortelier, the opportunity to lead a performance of Schmitt’s demanding Symphonie concertante was the realization of a dream. The conductor has long championed the music of this composer — going all the way back to his early years as a violinist in the orchestra of the Paris Conservatoire. Along the way he has recorded three Florent Schmitt scores for the Chandos label in 2010 (Psaume XLVII, La Tragédie de Salomé and Le Palais hanté).

As Maestro reported to me the day after the Tokyo concert:

I must say that I prepared myself as never before, considering the challenge of the phenomenal Symphonie concertante, assimilating each note of this musical flurry slowly but surely over the past 18 months.

By hearing, gradually, all the incredible material of the score in my head, eventually I found my way in shaping this demanding music. 

I am happy to state that the Schmitt performance yesterday evening met with huge success, as well as the magnificent Chausson Symphony where I received an unexpected final call onto the stage of Suntory Hall even after the orchestra had left the room!”

As for pianist Tomoki Sakata, the opportunity to study and perform Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante was also very welcome, as he has great love and appreciation for the masterpieces of the French piano repertoire. Ample proof of his idiomatic way with French music can be found in various YouTube videos, such as this upload of him from a 2015 recital, playing the Scarbo movement from Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit.

… And this “love affair” goes even further — extending to piano transcriptions Sakata has prepared of French vocal music, including mélodies by Fauré and Reynaldo Hahn. Here are two examples.

Putting a flourish on the final measures of Florent Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante: Pianist Tomoki Sakata and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yan-Pascal Tortelier. (February 14, 2023)

Mario Ishiguro

As it turns out, the Tokyo concert was significant enough to attract music-lovers from afar. One such audience member traveled nearly 500 kms from Kanazawa to take in the concert: Mario Ishiguro, who is a devotee of the music of France’s “Golden Age.”  Thanks to him, we are fortunate to have an eyewitness report of an event that’s proven to be one of the major highlights of the classical season in Tokyo this year.

Mr. Ishiguro was kind enough to share his impressions of the TMSO concert, which are presented below. (Note: His remarks are translated from Japanese into English).

Thirty minutes to curtain time: Mario Ishguru arrives at Suntory Hall for the Valentine Day’s concert featuring the music of Gabriel Fauré, Ernest Chausson … and Florent Schmitt.

I traveled all the way from Kanazawa to Tokyo to see this concert featuring Florent Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante. It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my musical life – a memorable moment that truly touched my heart.  

Although Durand does not have any official records about a first performance of the Symphonie concertante in Japan, we could deduce that this one was indeed its premiere. Presenting the kind of challenges for the orchestra that this music does, any such previous occurrence, had it happened, would still be talked about today! 

Even considering the skills of the TMSO musicians, which are at a very high level, the music presents major difficulties for both the players and the audience. In my mind I imagined an earlier premiere – the one of The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913 — and the reaction to it. Most likely, many in the audience that night heard that masterpiece while tilting their heads and suffering from strange heart palpitations. 

Serge Alexandrovich Koussevitzky (1874-1951)

Thankfully, this wasn’t the case here in Tokyo! And yet, writing about the music of the Symphonie concertante is difficult. The notes in the TMSO program booklet focused almost exclusively on a musical analysis, but it also noted that this was one of the works commissioned of contemporary composers by the conductor Koussevitzky to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1932).  

The world premiere performance of Florent Schmitt’s Symphonie Concertante was presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1932. The composer was at the keyboard and Serge Koussevitzky conducted.

Only commercial recording (so far):  Pianist Huseyïn Sermet with the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra led by David Robertson (Valois, 1994).

Following the piece’s premiere, it seems the work was taken up by others for a time, but it has been neglected for decades thereafter. The first and only commercial recording of the music was made in the 1990s. 

As for the reason for this neglect, it boils down to the difficulty of the music itself. The piece was composed in a time when Ravel was still alive, and it is part avant-garde but with traces of romanticism in sight. In essence, it’s music that doesn’t fit well into any category. 

The first page of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante, dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Moreover, a piece like The Rite of Spring becomes easy to understand if you listen to it over and over again, but my impression of the Symphonie concertante is that it’s difficult to make sense of it no matter how many times you hear it!  There is so much happening.  Rather than the beautiful, melodious music we hear in The Tragedy of Salome and Psalm XLVII, here we have explosive power on a whole new level. In this music, you really hear — and feel — both the sanity and the madness. 

When listening to the Symphonie concertante the tension keeps rising, with the orchestra and piano combining the musical elements in complex ways. There are many sparks, too! To put it another way, each movement has its own defining characteristics, but the elements and tension that underlie the music are consistent from top to bottom, beginning to end. 

As I was watching the performance, suddenly I thought of André Jolivet’s Piano Concerto [1950], which is another work that generates heat while the piano interacts with the orchestra in an interwoven way. In both works, the piano “dwells” in the orchestra’s sound, unlike what we typically encounter in concertante music. 

Tomoki Sakata and Yan-Pascal Tortelier rehearse Florent Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante in advance of the February 14, 2023 TMSO concert in Tokyo.

I vigorously applaud the pianist Tomoki Sakata who lobbied to perform this piece, as well as the adventuresome spirit of the TMSO musicians and Maestro Tortelier. It must have taken much effort and hard work to make this fine performance a reality; clearly, that rehearsing paid off in a miraculous, multidimensional performance. 

Despite the work’s technical difficulties, the result was a solid monument comprised of the “trinity” of the orchestra, the pianist and the conductor. At the end of this fierce and fiery interpretation, I can say without shame that my cheeks were blushed and my chest was pounding – almost as if overwhelmed with fever. 

And I was not the only one convulsed with such feelings – both in the audience and on the stage. We saw the Maestro warmly embracing Tomoki Sakata and also giving heartfelt congratulations to the orchestra players. 

Musicians know it when they’ve made beautiful music together: Conductor Yan-Pascal Tortelier embraces pianist Tomoki Sakata following their performance of Florent Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. (February 14, 2023)

You can’t easily wear-off these drug-like intoxications. Finding my excitement level so elevated, I ventured outside to breathe in the cold air during the interval. I expected the Chausson Symphony to be a refreshing contrast afterwards – a palette-cleanser – but it turned out that Maestro’s performance here was likewise warmly passionate, with sonorities played to the maximum. It was only then that I realized the complete wonder of this entire program – the noteworthy musical achievement of the soloist and orchestra as well as the artistic depth of the Maestro. Through him, this concert reminded us all of the power of humanity – the romance, kindness and intensity — but also the “fun” of the challenge as well. 

Mario Ishiguro shows off a prized possession: a letter from Florent Schmitt to Maurice Ravel.

Following the concert, I joined several like-minded friends in a gathering where we relived the unforgettable evening and discussed the performances in detail. It’s good to have such comrades in music, and I took the occasion to share a prized possession – a letter from Florent Schmitt to Maurice Ravel – that I had brought with me on my journey.

The Tortelier recording of Chausson’s Symphony in B-Flat (Chandos, 1998).

Hearing the praiseworthy words of Mario Ishiguro about the Tokyo concert makes us wish that we could have been present as well to see and hear the memorable performances. Thankfully for us, Yan-Pascal Tortelier has already made a fine recording of the Chausson Symphony which is available on the Chandos label.

Even more heartening, Maestro Tortelier is exploring the possibility of making a recording of the Symphonie concertante, which would be just the second time this piece has ever been commercially recorded. About this project he writes:

“I am determined to find the best context for a commercial recording. Following yesterday’s splendid outcome with the orchestra and soloist, I would be tempted to record it here in Tokyo … with the benefit of all the work we have already done … rather than to start from scratch [somewhere else].  But I wouldn’t want to wait too long before releasing this major piece.”

Maestro’s words give us hope that the prospects of a new recording of this important score can become a reality before long, assuming that funding resources can be found. We’ll post updates on that progress as the news develops.

Will the magic happen again? Hopefully yes …

George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos

American composer George N. ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos is well-known in the classical music community of Southern California, where he has been based for 15 years. A native of Syracuse, New York, the composer did his initial musical studies in the state university system of New York before relocating to Los Angeles.

Gianopoulos’ compositions (there are nearly 50 opus numbers) have been growing in popularity in recent years. To my ears, one reason for this is that they inhabit a kind of “sweet spot” in classical music. Gianopoulos’ works are original and fresh — and also audience-friendly.

Performances of Gianopoulos’ music have been presented throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Israel and China.  His compositions have been commissioned by various arts organizations including the Santa Barbara Symphony and Glendale Philharmonic, the Long Beach Opera and Chamber Opera Players of Los Angeles, Piano Spheres, Tala Rasa, Symbiosis Ensemble, Helix Collective and the Malkin-Trybeck Duo, among others.

The Colburn School, Los Angeles (Photo: ©Dave Parker)

The composer is also Manager of Artistic Administration at the Colburn School of Music in downtown Los Angeles.

I became acquainted with Gianopoulos’ compositions through the recommendation of several Southern California music friends who encouraged me to seek out performances of his works online. Later on I became personally acquainted with the composer through another avenue – his incredible YouTube music channel.

As it turns out, in addition to his work as a creative artist, Gianopoulos curates a music channel that is an indispensable resource the classical field. Over the years he has uploaded thousands of audio recordings along with their scores – in so doing focusing not only on past masters, but also on the composers of today. In this sense he provides an important service to living composers who wish to expose their creations to a larger universe of music-lovers (and potential performers of the pieces, too).

The George N. Gianopoulos music channel on YouTube has attracted more than 30,000 subscribers.

Because of his music channel’s large subscriber base, each new upload typically receives hundred of opens/views within a matter of mere hours — such is the potency of the channel’s expansive reach.

Speaking from my own personal perspective, Nick Gianopoulos’ music channel has also been an invaluable vehicle for showcasing many worthy Florent Schmitt compositions that are extreme rarities — thereby spreading awareness and sparking interest in these works among a new generation of music-lovers and performers. In my communications with Mr. Gianopoulos over the past five years, I’ve came to realize that the artistry of Florent Schmitt holds particular value to him. Recently, I asked himn to explain how and why this is the case. Highlights from our very interesting interview are presented below.

PLN:  Please tell us briefly about your musical background and how you became a composer.  

Tyler Hall, SUNY Oswego Department of Music (Photo: ©Christopher Payne/Esto)

GNG:  My path to classical music was a bit less-than-traditional. My first college course I ever took was the Introduction to the World of Music [at SUNY Oswego] where I learned about Richard Strauss tone poems, Wagner operas, Tchaikovsky symphonies, and the music of Debussy as played on the piano by the professor.

It was a new and very magical word that I had not been fully exposed to in my first eighteen years of life!

I was immediately enraptured and began listening and studying about the music as much as I could. I enrolled the following semester in an Intro to Music Theory course, where I learned where the notes are on the staff, key signatures, and basic rhythm notation.

Dr. Robert Auler, Nick Gianopoulos’ primary mentor, at the piano.

Then the following school year I started in a “group piano” class with my primary mentor, Professor Robert Auler, and quickly advanced to private lessons. By the end of my undergraduate degree, I performed a half-recital of music by Mozart, Chopin, Schumann and Rachmaninov, alongside faculty performances of some of my earliest compositions.

It’s been several decades of writing music since then! 

PLN:  Let’s back up just a bit. What was your background in music prior to attending college? Did you have an interest from an early age, and did you have family members who were musical? 

GNG:  My background is probably unlike most other classical composers in that my family was not musical at all, and I didn’t really have any innate interest in music while growing up. As a teen I started getting into classic rock music, which then led me to some progressive rock, which in turn led me to people like Frank Zappa. From there, this paved the way to some contemporary composers – but that was all a bit later. 

I was also very much into jazz in my late teen years, which is some of the foundation of what I still listen to today.

PLN: Thank you for that grounding, which helps me understand some of the flavor I find coming through in your own compositions. Exploring a bit more about your musical influences or inspirations, are there certain styles that inform your creativity?  Do you have particular instruments or voices to which you feel particularly drawn?

GNG:  One of the exciting aspects of composing is exploring new sound possibilities, instrumental combinations or ensemble textures. While I have composed extensively for many instruments in various combinations, I wouldn’t say there are one or two that I’m regularly drawn to. I like to approach each project by having a studied understanding of the instruments’ mechanics and making it as well-written of a work for those instruments that I can imagine. 

There are many styles and genres of music that influence me, but I think from a concert-music perspective, I’m most drawn to music of the late nineteenth and early-to-mid twentieth centuries — in particular Russian, American, and especially French music.

PLN:  Regarding Florent Schmitt, when did you first become aware of this French composer and his music? 

Florent Schmitt thanks star saxophonist Marcel Mule (1901-2001) and his musicians for the premiere of the Saxophone Quartet (Salle Gaveau, February 3, 1943). (Inscription courtesy of Nicolas Prost)

GNG:  I first learned about Florent Schmitt’s music probably about a decade ago, through the Internet. I suspected that there must be more to this era of French concert music than just the well-known Debussy and Ravel works. I came across Schmitt’s Saxophone Quartet and felt that it really captured a spirit that I was hoping to find when I set out to learn more about the music from this era.

The original version of Florent Schmitt’s Dionysiaques (1913) was published by Durand in the 1920s.

From there, I learned about Schmitt’s Dionysiaques for concert band, several piano works, and other chamber pieces as well.

PLN:  When you first encountered Florent Schmitt’s music, what struck you as notable about his musical style — things that you felt were  particularly special? And in that regard, in what ways does Schmitt’s compositional style speak to you?

GNG:  What really resonates with me in Schmitt’s music is the richness of his harmonic approach. The harmonies not only move quite quickly — which creates, for me, a strong sense of aural excitement — but they are also dense and complex, and not easily detectable in the first listen. 

His scores need to be studied and analyzed thoroughly to fully understand how the music functions. Once you do this, you begin see just how beautiful his scores are, and how novel and unique a lot of his notational approach is.

Schmitt clearly had a vision of the soundscapes he wanted to create — and how to bring them to life through the performers.

PLN:  Turning to your own compositions, what key projects are you working on at the moment? Are there events on the horizon in terms of performances planned for 2023 or beyond?

GNG:  During the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve had the time to reflect on the music that I’ve written until now, and the music I hope to write. When I started in music, I was already a bit older than most people who work in the classical field — and while very eager, I was pretty inexperienced. I had good ideas musically, but did not know how to fully realize them or communicate them as clearly as I do now, through musical notation. 

With regards to this, I would say that Schmitt’s approach to notation has helped me become a better composer! 

George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos (Portrait by David Csicko, 2014)

This is somewhat a long-winded way of saying that I’ve been spending much of my time lately re-familiarizing myself with my earlier works — re-notating and, in many cases, re-writing portions of them. 

Additionally, there are numerous projects which I hope to realize in the months and years ahead, including finishing up several works that have been “in-progress” for far too long!

PLN:  In addition to your work as a composer, you have become known for your music channel on YouTube where you post scores to go along with performances, thereby enabling people to “see as well as hear” the music. How did this initiative begin, how extensive is it, and what is its level of engagement with viewers?

GNG:  I started my YouTube channel more than a decade ago, but the road has not been steady and there have been some bumps along the way. My current and active channel has been in existence for about five years and currently has more than 30,000 subscribers, over 2,500 video uploads, and nearly 16 million views. There are almost 1,000 different composers represented. 

I started the channel as a way for me to grow musically and to study the scores of the music that I love. The channel gave me a firsthand way to look at scores in an intimate manner that I could then share with others who also wanted to study the music. It quickly grew to become a resource that academics and musicologists rely on for their own classroom demonstrations and seminars. 

Eventually, I came to realize that it was, essentially, the best way for me to make a meaningful difference to my composer colleagues around the world. So I opened up my inbox to submissions. I’ve received at least 1,000 submissions already, with a huge backlog of works to be uploaded in the coming months and years. 

This is one small way that I can help out other living composers around the world with just a little bit of my time and effort.

PLN:  Speaking personally, I’m very grateful that you have included a fair number of scores by Florent Schmitt among your YouTube uploads. How many of Schmitt’s pieces have you uploaded to date?

GNG:  As of now, I have 33 works of Florent Schmitt on my YouTube channel — the most popular one being his Sonatine en trio, Op. 85 in the composer’s version for flute, clarinet and piano, which has attracted nearly 30,000 views so far.

Thanks to you, I have been able to widen my scope of this composer’s output by identifying and finding rare or hard-to-get performances of his works and sharing the sheet music scores. 

At the moment, I have at least a dozen additional works of Schmitt planned to be uploaded in the near future, coming from all genres that he wrote in.

PLN:  For those who are interested in exploring your own artistry and compositions, are there several pieces you could recommend that they investigate first? 

GNG:  Thank you for asking! Yes, there are a number of pieces that I think are nicely representative of my musical voice; here are several for people to explore: 

• The Last Silent Voice, an Opera in One Act, Op. 32b  (2018)
• Clockwork for Percussion Trio, Op. 34  (2015)
• Birds of Paradise for Flute, Op. 38  (2016-18)

The December 2021 L’Arietta Productions mounting of Gianopoulos’ The Last Silent Voice in Singapore was the opera’s Asian premiere. Premiered in 2014 in the United States by Chamber Opera of Los Angeles and revived in 2018 by Opera Ritrovata, the work’s libretto was created by Monique Boudreau. After attending the 2014 premiere, musicologist and critic Ted Ayala wrote: “Gianopoulos’ The Last Silent Voice is a tightly wound chromatic ball of tension, adroitly navigating an idiom lying between Scriabin and Sondheim but wholly the composer’s own. Gianopoulos’ melodic fluency is a natural fit for the voice, while his skillful grasp of drama belies the fact that this is the composer’s operatic debut.”

_________________________

Thanks to Nick Gianopoulos’ YouTube music channel, there are numerous additional pieces composed by him that you can access in addition to the ones he references above.  More broadly, music- and score-lovers can explore the varied riches of his channel – all 2,500+ uploads – from here.

George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos (2016 photo)

I know I speak for hundreds if not thousands of music-lovers when I say how grateful we are for the service he’s providing for living composers as well as past masters of the craft. It is a labor of love for Nick Gianopoulos to prepare and upload so many scores for our listening pleasure and educational benefit.

For more information about the activities of this consummate musician, you can visit Nick Gianopoulos’ website here, as well as his professional Facebook page.