The Salle Érard in Paris was the site of many premieres of works by major French and Belgian composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Those premieres included compositions by Caplet, Chausson, Debussy, Delage, Duparc, Franck, Hahn, Honegger, Jongen, Ravel and others, in addition to Florent Schmitt. Small in size but boasting stellar acoustics, the Salle Érard was a particularly fine venue for chamber music performances. Before construction of Maison de la Radio in 1963, the hall also served as an important recording studio for French National Radio.
On Thursday, March 17, 1894, the 239th concert of the Société nationale de musique was presented at the Salle Érard in Paris. It was the first time a piece composed by Florent Schmitt had appeared on any Parisian music program.
Among the two mélodies by Schmitt presented that evening by contralto Nelly Guénia was one titled simply Lied – a work which would eventually become the first of three mélodies gathered together in a set published by Durand as Schmitt’s Opus 4.
The first appearance of Florent Schmitt’s compositions on a Parisian concert program: March 17, 1894 at the Salle Érard, when the composer was 23 years old. One of two vocal selections sung that evening by soprano Nelly Guénia would become the first of Schmitt’s Trois mélodies, Op. 4.
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 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 receptions and dinners at her residence at 100 Boulevard Malesherbes (17th arr.). Florent Schmitt and numerous other French composers of his generation were frequent guests at her salon, and she carried on a robust written correspondence with several of them as well. Five letters addressed by Florent Schmitt to Mme. de Saint-Marceaux have survived. They reveal the keen interest she had in his music. For his part, the young composer was unsure of the worthiness of his creative output; in one letter, Schmitt stated, “I hasten to write to you because I anticipate not being able to send you right away my unfortunate mélodies, on which you have already wasted too much time. Because looking at them very closely, I’ve come to the realization that if I start to modify them, I will delete exactly everything — from the first note to last. Thus, this tells you that at this moment I am in absolute discouragement, and no longer have the faintest hope or slightest confidence in my abilities … But I will console myself by coming to see you on one of your Fridays. And I will ask you again for some good advice as you have sometimes given me — and which is very precious [to me].”
Also notably, the Trois mélodies, Op. 4 took their literary inspiration from contemporary writers instead of the poets of yesteryear. This was a practice that Florent Schmitt would follow for the rest of his life, where we find him returning again and again to the human voice — nearly always setting texts of modern-day poets.
The three pieces that make up the Trois mélodies, Op.4 are as follows:
- Lied (text by Camille Mauclair … dedicated to Mme. la Comtesse de Chaumont-Quitry)
- Il pleure dans mon coeur (text by Paul Verlaine … dedicated to Mme. Meyrianne Héglon)
- Fils de la Vierge (text by Maurice Ganivet … dedicated to Mme. Marguerite Ida Premsel Sulzbach)
The dedication that Florent Schmitt included in the published score of the Lied was one of several that the composer made to Marie Jeanne de Bonnault de Villamenard, Comtesse de Chaumont-Quitry (1853-1907), a music-loving Parisian society personality. Schmitt’s dedications to the Comtesse also included the ten piano preludes Soirs (pictured above) plus Book II of Musiques intimes.
The first item in the set – Lied – was composed in the early 1890s. Inspired by the dark poetry of Camille Mauclair [Séverin Faust], the text translates into English from the original French as shown below. (N.B.: All English translations of the Op. 4 texts in this article are courtesy of Hermann Klein and Edward Rushton.)
The roses of yesteryear are dead – dead as the dusk.
The roses of yesteryear have shed their petals in the wind which intones a song of the forsaken,
From their silence never to awaken,
The song of one forsaken, faintly sobbing in the twilight.
The lament of the forsaken glimmers in foliage like the gold of a garland old and broken,
Lying here, mourned in the twilight of one now dead,
As on a forehead at once so sad and void, dreaming of the death of a past year,
O sweet, faded Ariane.
The first page of the score to Lied, the first of the Trois mélodies, Op. 4 by Florent Schmitt.
Camille Mauclair was the nom de plume of French poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer and art critic Séverin Faust (1872-1945). A devotee of Stéphane Mallarmé, Mauclair contributed works to the leading French literary magazines as well as to the anarchist press. With fellow writer Paul Fort, Mauclair founded the art theatre that would be the first to stage Maurice Maeterlinck’s works in France, including Pélleas et Mélisande in 1893. Mauclair’s own poetry was set to music by the leading French composers of his day including Ernest Chausson, Nadia Boulanger, Gustave Charpentier, Louis Aubert, Ernest Bloch and Rhené-Baton in addition to Florent Schmitt. In the interwar period Mauclair became more conservative in his outlook, criticizing what he considered to be “decadence and ugliness” in French art — along with denouncing modern/functionalist architecture which he thought to be coldly impersonal. A supporter of the Vichy government during World War II, Mauclair eluded épuration sanctions after liberation on account of his death on April 23, 1945. (Pastel portrait by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, 1896)
Mauclair’s style of writing leaves little doubt that he was an admirer and fellow-traveler of Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck. Considering the similarities in writing style, it’s no surprise that Mauclair’s poetry attracted other composers beyond Schmitt to set his verse to music – among them Ernest Chausson, Gustave Charpentier, Ernest Bloch and Nadia Boulanger.
Pianist and composer Edward Rushton, who with bass-baritone René Perler has made the first (and to-date only) commercial recording of the complete Trois mélodies, Op. 4, recognizes Schmitt’s budding originality in the Lied, noting:
“Some of Schmitt’s personal and highly individual fingerprints are already audible, such as the descending chain of fifths, a tritone apart, that curls through Lied, providing a stark counterpoint to the deliberately monotonous vocal line.”
The French poet and writer Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) led a turbulent life marred by complicated family relationships, a disastrous marriage, and a torrid affair with a younger fellow-poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). That relationship led to Verlaine being convicted in Brussels on morals charges and imprisoned for two years. Released in 1875, Verlaine returned to his Roman Catholic faith, later beginning a new (possibly platonic) relationship with Lucien Létinois, a student. Létinois would die of typhoid fever in 1883 at just 23 years of age, precipitating a further deterioration in Verlaine’s mental state. The poet continued writing and publishing even while suffering from alcoholism, diabetes, ulcers and syphilis. Dying in 1896 at the age of 51, Verlaine’s funeral was held at the church of St-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris, attended by numerous arts luminaries including Gabriel Fauré and Robert de Montesquiou. In addition to Florent Schmitt, many composers have set Verlaine’s verse to music — notably Fauré and Reynaldo Hahn contemporaneous to Schmitt in France.
The second item in the set – Il pleure dans mon coeur (“There is crying in my heart”) – is based on the poetry of Paul Verlaine. This mélodie was composed by Schmitt in 1894, just two years before Verlaine would die from alcoholism and related ailments at the prematurely young age of 51.
[Verlaine’s tumultuous life reads like a screenplay for a movie about an archetypical “tortured artist” – similar in some respects to the American writer Edgar Allan Poe — equally recognized in France for his literary greatness.]
The English translation of Verlaine’s words as set to music by Florent Schmitt is as follows:
There is crying in my heart, like the rain on a quiet town.
What is this vague unrest now pervading my heart?
Soprano Meyrianne Héglon (born Marie-Antoinette Willemsen in 1867 in Belgium) established her career in opera. She made her debut at the Paris Opéra in 1890 and starred in no fewer than ten operatic premieres there, including the role of Dara in Augusta Holmès’ La Montagne noire (1895). She was also very active at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Apart from the operatic stage, in 1898 Héglon sang in the premiere performance of Verdi’s Tre pezzi sacri under the direction of Paul Taffanel in Paris. Florent Schmitt dedicated the second of his Trois mélodies, Op. 4 to her.
O gentle sound of the rain on the ground and on the roofs,
For a yearning heart, the song of the rain,
There is no reason for the crying in this heart that has lost heart.
What – no betrayal? This mourning has no reason.
Surely ‘tis the worst pain to know not why,
Without love and without hate, such pain remains in my heart!
Florent Schmitt’s music conveys a sense of past pleasures recalled in a bleak present, but the overall feeling is one of hopelessness. Done with uncommon effectiveness, to my ears Schmitt brings out the pathos of the text more poignantly than Fauré in his own musical treatment of the same Verlaine poem.
The first page of the score to Il pleure dans mon coeur, the second of the Trois mélodies, Op. 4 by Florent Schmitt.
Edward Rushton
Pianist Edward Rushton takes things a step further, noting:
“Verlaine’s poem seems to have been obligatory for all French — and many international — composers of that period to set to music. I find Schmitt’s musical response to this poetry particularly lovely; it’s worlds apart from the spleenishness of Debussy and Fauré’s settings (to name two of the most familiar ones).”
The Chateau du Grand Chesnay was a neo-classical “pleasure palace” constructed between 1780 and 1810 by the Pelletier family. Among its subsequent owners was the German-born banker and art collector Maurice Sulzbach, uncle of Baron Henri de Rothschild. His wife, Marguerite Ida Premsel Sulzbach (1863-1945) was a soprano who established a popular Sunday musical salon at the Chateau. Florent Schmitt, a frequent guest at the salon, dedicated the third of his Trois mélodies, Op. 4 to Mme. Sulzbach, who may well have sung the music as well. Following the death of Maurice Sulzbach in 1922, the Chateau went through a succession of new owners. Today it is the property of the Versailles Hospital Center, which operates the Chateau as a center devoted to the specialties of psychiatry and medical biology.
The third number in the Op. 4 mélodies – Fils de la Vierge (“Gossamer”) – is set to verse by Maurice Ganivet. Comparatively little biographical information survives about this French diplomat and poet who lived from 1849 to 1884. His verse was set to music by a number of French composers active in the second half of the nineteenth century including Émile Spencer, Édouard Deransart, Charles Thony and Jean-Baptiste de Crozc — none of them as prominent as Florent Schmitt.
Maurice Ganivet’s entire literary output has been out of print for more than a century. Original editions of his writings, such as the Poésies volume published in 1899 pictured above, are extremely rare.
[At approximately the same time as Fils de la Vierge, Florent Schmitt set another Ganivet poem to music – Nature morte – published as the first of his Deux chansons, Op. 2.]
Considering the characteristics of the text that inspired Florent Schmitt, Ganivet seems not have been a writer quite matching the caliber of a Verlaine or Mauclair. That being said, the English translation of Fils de la Vierge certainly succeeds in tugging at the heartstrings:
Maurice Ganivet (1848-1884): The lawyer, embassy attaché and writer lived just 34 years.
Like shimmering threads which, ‘tis said, are by the Virgin sown,
With fragments drawn from her crown,
From flower to flower across the fields,
Fine golden threads of celestial light.
The flowered fancies of my thoughts,
Have my soul imprisoned which, paralyzed, cannot take flight.
I live as a recluse, for I know that if ever this dream may cease,
To be free will mean to be no more.
The first page of the score to Fils de la Vierge, the third of the Trois mélodies, Op. 4 by Florent Schmitt.
The 1900 premiere performance of the complete Trois mélodies, Op. 4 by Florent Schmitt was held at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt in Paris. Built by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann between 1860 and 1862, the theatre subsequently went through a succession of owners (and names) before being almost completely destroyed by fire in May 1871 during the waning days of the Paris Commune. It was rebuilt in 1874 on the same plans as the original structure. In 1899 the theatre was named for Sarah Bernhardt, who produced there for nearly two decades thereafter. Notable musical premieres held at the theatre included Bizet’s Les Pécheurs des perles, Gounod’s Mireille and Roméo et Juliette, Stravinsky’s Apollon musagète and Prokofiev’s Prodigal Son. Today the venue is known as the Théatre de la Ville — and while the exterior is unchanged, the interior has been completely transformed into a space for showcasing contemporary dance productions.
Compared to Florent Schmitt’s treatment of the Mauclair text in Lied, in his settings of the Verlaine and Ganivet the musical style seems more conventionally late-romantic. Even so, pianist Edward Rushton notes that “both songs end on unresolved harmonies – surely a sign of rebellion from a 24-year-old composer uninterested in following rules.”
As noted above, the first of the Trois mélodies was first heard in concert in Paris in 1894, but it wouldn’t be until 1900 that the complete set was presented in recital, as part of a program sung by soprano Suzanne Cesbron at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris.
The 1900 premiere peformance of the complete Trois mélodies, Op. 4 of Florent Schmitt was sung by Suzanne Cesbron (1879-1967). The Paris-born soprano, who had studied under Pauline Viardot, made her debut at the Opéra-Comique in 1902, where she was famous for her portrayals of Massenet heroines as well as for a wide range of other operatic repertoire (Wagner, Lalo, Offenbach, Gounod, Thomas, Charpentier, Hahn, Debussy). Cesbron also sang in the French provinces as well as in Brussels, Algiers and Tunis. In 1918 she married the conductor Georges Auguste Viseur and in 1927 began teaching at the Paris Conservatoire, where her most notable students included Germaine Lubin and Régine Crespin. (Photo of Cesbron in the role of Nedda in Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci.)
The Op. 4 mélodies had to wait until 1911 to be published as a set (brought out by Durand), but before then they had already been appearing on various French and European recital programs, either individually or as a group.
The first news reports I have found of the Op. 4 complete set being performed in the United States was at a recital presented by contralto Ethel Grow with collaborating pianist Albert Baker for the benefit of the MacDowell Colony Fund, given at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in January 1923 under the auspices of the Washington Heights Musical Club. A review of the recital, published in the February 8, 1923 issue of Musical Courier magazine, stated in part:
Born in Chicago, American contralto Ethel Grow studied voice with George W. Munro in her native city. On the recommendation of Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Frederick Stock, Miss Grow relocated to London to work with Sir Henry Wood, appearing there in oratorio and operetta. She returned to the United States in 1921 to focus on concertizing, with particular attention on presenting the modern French and American art song repertoire. While American press reviews of Miss Grow’s performances were generally favorable, such was not the case in England, where Grow’s 1915 debut at Bechstein (now Wigmore) Hall was described by The Athenaeum magazine as follows: “She has a strong though somewhat unsympathetic voice … the singer’s intonation too was uncertain, but that may have been due to a cold.” Most of Miss Grow’s U.S. appearances were sponsored by the Washington Heights Musical Club. The organization’s president was Jane R. Cathcart, a pianist, impresario, and erstwhile international cat breeder and horse trainer — and also Ethel Grow’s longtime partner. In 1919, Cathcart donated her family’s land holdings to the town of Hasbrouck Heights in Bergen County, New Jersey for the establishment of a park. Cathcart’s house still stands adjacent to the park, alongside the imposing five-story brick Cathcart Apartments building, erected in 1927 on the site of the horse stables she once owned.
“A program of rare merit was given in a manner that delighted those present and won a very real success for the singer, who was forced to respond to demands for many encores. Miss Grow has a voice and brains – and in song one is just as important as the other, especially when the singer undertakes music of a highly aesthetic character like the things from the modern French … some of the songs heard, possibly, for the first time in New York.
The Schmitt songs … are really lovely, and why they are not more often sung in this city is one of the mysteries. Miss Grow made much of them – the wide range of her voice and its pathetic intensity being most grateful to this strange, elusive music.”
This announcement of the January 30, 1923 benefit recital by American contralto Ethel Grow appeared in the Christian Science Monitor. Note the inclusion of Florent Schmitt’s Trois mélodies, Op. 4 and other French and American art songs on the program.
Moving forward a decade, it’s interesting to discover the esteem that Florent Schmitt must have felt for these early art songs – to the degree that he chose to program them during his first and only American tour in 1932-33. In New York City, Schmitt’s November 1932 Town Hall recital (presented under the sponsorship of the League of Composers) included selections from the vocal set Kérob-Shal, which had been composed in the early 1920s in a much more daring musical style. But in Detroit, Schmitt’s December 2, 1932 concert (presented under the auspices of the ProMusica Detroit organization), instead included the Op. 4 Trois mélodies, sung by soprano Florence Armstrong Chapin with the composer at the keyboard.
Philippe Jaroussky
In hindsight, we can recognize that after the first two decades of the twentieth century, Schmitt’s Trois mélodies essentially disappeared from the performing repertoire. That’s hardly surprising, since its late-romantic idiom had become decidedly out of fashion while also being rather unrepresentative of Schmitt’s later (and more recognizably original) style.
Philippe Jaroussky included Florent Schmitt’s Il pleue dans mon coeur in his 2014 2-CD Erato recording featuring mélodies set to the poetry of Paul Verlaine. Jaroussky titled his recording “Green” — no doubt a reference to Verlaine’s unhealthy attachment to absinthe (la fée verte).
Despite its near-total obscurity, in our time the French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has included Il pleure dans mon coeur in recitals presenting musical settings of the poetry of Paul Verlaine. Furthermore, Jaroussky and pianist Jérôme Ducros made a commercial recording of the Schmitt excerpt on the Erato label in 2014.
René Perler
But the world had to wait until 2020 for the first commercial recording of the complete Trois mélodies, Op. 4 to appear. Released on the Resonus Classics label during Florent Schmitt’s 150th birthday anniversary year, the premiere recording features Swiss bass-baritone René Perler joined by with English pianist (and ardent Florent Schmitt advocate) Edward Rushton. The Resonus recording, devoted exclusively to vocal music by Schmitt, has generated well-deserved critical accolades.
Premiere commercial recording of the complete Op. 4 set (Resonus Classics, 2020).
Moreover, the Perler/Rushton performance has now been uploaded to YouTube along with the score, so listeners can follow along to “see as well as hear” the music.
Doing so will reveal Florent Schmitt’s sensitivity and effectiveness in capturing the “essence” of the texts — as well as illustrating the significant distance his musical artistry had already traveled in the short time since he’d begun his composition studies with Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire.
Furthermore, in becoming acquainted with this music we discover that, far from sounding faded or dated, to 21st century ears these Trois mélodies possess qualities that are, in fact, timeless.
Although Florent Schmitt’s Trois mélodies, Op. 4 wasn’t published as a set until 1911, the three individual art songs were published by Durand separately in the late 1890s. The second of them, Il pleure dans mon coeur (pictured above), first appeared in 1898.