Florent Schmitt, photographed in about 1940.
The catalogue of Florent Schmitt’s compositions is extensive, consisting of some 138 opus-numbered items (actually, two numbers weren’t used by the composer — including Op. 111, omitted in deference to Beethoven’s 32nd Piano Sonata).
But there’s more. Going beyond the “official” catalogue, we find a number of additional items. Chief among them are Schmitt’s first four secular cantatas submitted to the Prix de Rome composition competitions of 1896-99, plus other juvenilia stipulated by the composer as “never to be published”).
Ivo Kaltchev. The Bulgarian-born pianist studied in Rome, and today is professor of piano performance at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
As well, several piano pieces from Florent Schmitt’s mature period exist outside the listing of opus-numbered compositions. One is a piece titled Prélude … pour une suite à venir (Prelude for a Suite to Come). The work appears to have been intended for a larger work that never materialized. Instead, the Prélude was published by Éditions Billaudot as a separate composition decades after the composer’s death, and it was also commercially recorded by Ivo Kaltchev in January 2001.
Dating from 1948, the Prélude is a fascinating piece that exhibits the harmonic complexities of Schmitt’s later pianistic style. Craggy, dissonant and abstract, the music is in some ways remindful of the output of mid-century modern composers such as Dane Rudhyar (né Daniel Chennevière) and Carl Ruggles — which you’ll readily discern when listening to this YouTube upload of Mr. Kaltchev’s recording:
Published by the Presses universitaires de France, this Paris 1943 arts and culture yearbook was intended to demonstrate the cultural resilience of the city of Paris in the face of occupation. In addition to new musical compositions, the almanac contained a range of essays written by literary contributors including Henri-René Lenormand, Robert Desnos and Lucie Delarue-Mardrus.
Several years before the Prélude, another short piano work by Schmitt that carries no opus number appeared in a French arts and culture publication. The 200+ page volume – a “yearbook” of sorts – contained feature articles concerning Parisian art, achitecture and literature. In addition, newly created short piano pieces commissioned from a dozen Francophone composers were included in the publication – the most famous of whom were Arthur Honegger, Jean Françaix, Paul Le Flem, Jean Hubeau, Claude Delvincourt, Maurice Thiriet, Louis Beydts … and Florent Schmitt.
Brief in duration (only one score is more than two pages in length), these pieces were intended for musicians of modest technical abilities, and several are scored for voice and piano. I have long possessed a copy of the book, printed at the end of 1942 by Presses universitaires de France, and consider the piece by Schmitt, titled Songe, to be among the most exquisite gems of the dozen miniatures appearing in the almanac.
This sketch of Florent Schmitt was drawn by Roger Guit (1889-1978). An artist known primarily for his landscape and still-life paintings, in 1942 Guit created a series of sketch portraits of a dozen Francophone composers that complemented the new compositions created by them and published in the Paris Arts Lettres almanac. Today the original portraits are in the permanent collection of the Musée Carnavalet in Paris.
The piece’s French title (Songe) is a word that is in some ways difficult to translate. It is similar to the French word “rêve”, but not an exact match.
No stranger to “dreams in music,” Florent Schmitt had composed a work for piano (and also for orchestra) by the name of Rêves as far back as 1915. But far from being a “dreamy” composition, Schmitt’s 1915 Rêves is instead a feverish, hallucinatory experience. Indeed, upon encountering the orchestral version of the piece in concert, the more conservative music critics in Europe and the United States were surprised (and distressed) at the modernity of the piece – several going so far as to suggest that the composition’s title should be changed to “Nightmare”!
Musicologist and author Nicolas Southon (r.) and Phillip Nones, photographed at a 7th arr. Paris bistrot in 2022.
By contrast, Florent Schmitt’s Songe, which dates from a quarter-century later (1942), is of a different character. Helping to explain why, musicologist and author Nicolas Southon notes the subtle differences in the meaning of the two French words, as follows:
“In French, ‘rêve’ and ‘songe’ may seem at first glance to have more or less the same meaning. But in actuality, a ‘rêve’ is a phenomenon that occurs during sleep – images or movie-type sensations – which are often coherent ideas influenced by the daily experiences lived by the person.
By contrast, a ‘songe’ occurs during the waking state; it is more fanciful and surreal, and it can be directed consciously by the person. There’s often a sense of ‘wandering’ – of taking a journey in thoughts.”
Perhaps the most practical English translation of “songe” is “daydream,” dictionary-defined as “a series of often-pleasant thoughts that distract one’s attention from the present.” It’s also useful to note that the French verb “songer” means “to think or reflect in a waking way.”
Regardless of the particular nuances of the title, Florent Schmitt’s Songe is an interesting — and beautiful — piano miniature. Southon senses a degree of Wagnerian flavor in the music, noting:
“The piano’s sometimes-syncopated writing recalls passages from Tristan und Isolde. It’s clearly a post-romantic work: post-Wagnerian, dreamy and dark — even if Schmitt incorporates chords here and there that Wagner would never have used.”
The first page of Florent Schmitt’s Songe, a short piano composition composed in 1942 and contributed to a Paris arts and culture yearbook, where it was published along with pieces from eleven other Francophone composers.
In early 2024, I sent the sheet music for Florent Schmitt’s Songe score to an amateur French pianist I’ve known since 2017 – Gilles Poilvet. Mr. Poilvet has since made a video of himself playing the piece at his home studio in Le Havre, and which has been uploaded to YouTube.
Gilles Poilvet, seated at the grand piano in his home music studio in Le Havre, France.
Mr. Poilvet is a prime example of the best kind of “amateur” performer – a person who studies and plays classical music purely for the love of it. He started playing piano at age six and studied with teachers until the age of 15. There followed a number of years when, like many typical teenagers, he stepped away from the instrument. But he continued to feel the pull of the piano and started playing again during his university years, progressing on his own.
In the decades since, Gilles Poilvet has distinguished himself in a career in international commerce. Currently he serves as a vice president and financial director at the aircraft engines division of Groupe SAFRAN. But he has never lost his love for the piano. In fact, he launched a YouTube music channel in 2014, corresponding to resuming private lessons with a piano teacher after a hiatus of a quarter-century.
As Poilvet recalls, “It was my daughter who made the first video of me playing the piano, and uploaded it. I found it interesting and so I continued.” In the decade since, he has uploaded more than 400 performances featuring repertoire that includes not only works from the “classical hit parade,” but also lesser-known French piano music that he’s discovered and studied on his own — compositions by Louis Aubert, Gabriel Dupont and Florent Schmitt, among others.
Fully aware of the technical limitations of being an amateur pianist among the legions of professional musicians active everywhere, Poilvet explains the motivation for his music channel succinctly: “Quite simply, I love piano music. And for me, working on a piece is the best way to try to understand it.”
He also appreciates the interactions his YouTube music channel has sparked with other musicians – both amateurs and professionals. A representative comment on Poilvet’s Songe YouTube upload is this insightful observation from channel subscriber Alessandro Pelizzoli:
“A visionary, ultra-sophisticated piece — and a perfect example of the extremely mature language developed by Florent Schmitt — in a sensitive and convincing performance of this marvel.”
Going a step further, courtesy of George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos’ YouTube music channel, Gilles Poilvet’s performance of Florent Schmitt’s Songe has now been uploaded along with the score, so that music-lovers can “see as well as hear” the composition:
Whenever I listen to Florent Schmitt’s Songe, I find it remindful not so much of the composer’s Rêves from a quarter-century earlier, but rather the slow movement (Bocane) from Schmitt’s Trois danses, composed just a few years before the Songe. The Bocane is perhaps a bit more Ravelian than Wagnerian in its flavor, but both pieces are contemplative and dreamy – and both are perfect little gems.
The score cover to Florent Schmitt’s Prélude … pour une suite à venir, published by Billaudot.
Moreover, we come to realize in both the Prélude … pour une suite à venir and Songe that Schmitt’s mature pieces which, for whatever reason, never made it into the composer’s “official” catalogue of compositions are no less interesting or inspired. And for that reason, it is gratifying that they have been made available for today’s music-lovers to hear and enjoy.