Florent Schmitt photographed in 1957, two years after composing De vive voix. (Photo: René Pari)
Within the catalogue of compositions by Florent Schmitt are a large number of choral works, great and small. Of these, music-lovers are most likely to be familiar with Schmitt’s grandiose setting of Psalm 47, which he composed in 1904 and which was premiered in Paris in 1906.
But the Psalm isn’t all that representative of Schmitt’s choral music, which more typically manifests itself in collections of short numbers, often with a more intimate flavor.
Of particular interest are five choral sets that Schmitt composed for female voices – works that date from comparatively later in the composer’s career. These five compositions are:
- Six choeurs, Op. 81 (1931)
- En bonnes voix, Op. 91 (1938)
- Trois trios, Op. 99 (1940)
- De vive voix, Op. 131 (1955)
- Cinq refrains, Op. 132 (1955)
The last two of date from 1955 and were composed on commissions from French Radio. De vive voix, Op. 131 — sometimes translated as In Vibrant Voice although a more idiomatic English translation is By Word of Mouth — is made up of five short pieces for a cappella female voices (or for “three equal voices,” as stipulated in the score).
Taken together, De vive voix is approximately 13 minutes in duration, with all but one of the numbers lasting fewer than three minutes each. The five pieces that make up the set are as follows:
- Roi de Dame de carreau (King and Queen of Diamonds)
- Vetyver
- Pastourettes (Shepherds)
- Enserée dans le port (Ensconsed in the Harbor)
- La Tour d’amour (The Tower of Love)
Comparisons between De vive voix and En bonnes voix, the choral work penned by Florent Schmitt in the late 1930s, are inevitable. Both sets are scored for a cappella female chorus or individual voices. Similarly, both of them explore a rich range of vocal sonorities that includes such elements as closed-mouth sounds, imitations of birdsong, the use of onomatopoeias, unusual rhythmic stresses and other speech sounds of obscure intent.
Composer and musicologist Olivier Alain (1918-1994) was the brother of Jehan Alain and Marie-Claire Alain.
Composer, organist and musicologist Olivier Alain has referred to Schmitt’s treatments in these choral works as “the transition from sense to nonsense, from silence to speech.”
The music critic Étienne Müller goes further, noting that “without breaking it brutally, Schmitt brilliantly subverts tonality – so much so that an untrained ear could be led to believe that it is listening for a moment to Varèse.”
Indeed, in De vive voix Schmitt experiments with the full panoply of vocal possibilities and expressive resources, resulting in an unprecedented spatialization of timbres.
Georges Hugnet (1906-1974) spent his childhood in Argentina, settling in France in 1913. He was involved in the Surrealist movement during the 1930s, making collages and creating book covers employing decalcomania techniques. Hugnet was also a poet, author, historian, film producer and arts critic. (1946 photo)
For the first two pieces that make up De vive voix – Roi et dame de carreau and Vetyver – Schmitt selected poetry by Georges Hugnet for his texts. Hugnet was the quintessential artistic everyman – active as a writer and poet, film director, art historian, graphic artist and critic. He was deeply involved in the Surrealist movement and once noted that “Surrealist artists felt that they had the soul of Pygmalion. One could see happy owners of mannequins, furnished with mysterious big or little bundles containing the most unlikely of presents …”
The author of the text for the third number in the De vive voix set – Pastourettes – bears the mysterious pseudonym “Yks.” The name refers to the penultimate letter of the alphabet as well as to an anonymous author, which turns out to be none other than Florent Schmitt himself. (Yks was a nom de plume that Schmitt would attribute to texts in several of his other choral scores as well.)
Mireille Kramer Vincendon (1910-19??)
The poetry for the fourth piece in the set — Enserée dans le port — is intriguing in that the words were penned by Mireille Vincendon. Born Mireille Kramer in Cairo in 1910, she was the daughter of an Egyptian mother and a Russian father, and was educated in French schools. Upon her marriage to Jacques Vincendon, then-director of the Land Bank of Egypt, she divided her time between Egypt and France, eventually settling full-time in Paris in 1956. According to literary scholar Ferial Ghazoul, Vincendon’s poetry “revolves around existential concerns and the limits of language,” and her free verse is prone to contain violent metaphors. None of the latter is present in this particular verse, which is beautifully evocative and celebrates the beauty of language itself.
As for the final number in the set – La Tour d’amour – the text is drawn from legendary events attributed to the Valois dynasty, which was the royal house of France from 1328 to 1589 that ruled the nation from the end of the feudal period into the early modern age. It is unclear who the actual author might have been – possibly Schmitt himself or someone else.
De vive voix had its premiere performance on French Radio in 1956, presented by the Maîtrisse de l’RTF. Since then, the piece hasn’t gained much of a foothold in the choral repertoire. Several reasons are the cause; most fundamentally, the music is complex and hence not well-suited to being sung by amateur choral groups. On top of this, the French text poses hurdles for non-Francophone choirs who typically gravitate to works written in the English, Latin and German languages rather than French.
The ensemble De Vive Voix, led by Philippe Carrère, presents excerpts from Florent Schmitt’s eponymous work as part of a concert that also included a rare performance of the Mass for Women’s Choir and Harmonium by Cécile Chaminade (May 2010).
The music does turn up occasionally on French choral programs, however — such as in May 2010 when the eponymously named choral ensemble De Vive Voix presented several excerpts from Schmitt’s set at a concert in Brocas, France, directed by Philippe Carrère.
The following year in May 2011, excerpts from De vive voix were presented at Église St-Laurent in Lorry-Madigny by the Ensemble vocal féminin FAME as part of a concert titled “Au-delà des frontières” (“Beyond Borders”). Founded in 1994 and led by Bernard Petit, Ensemble FAME’s wide-ranging repertoire is evident in the 2011 program which also included choral music by Schumann, Bartók and Marcel Gennaro in addition to Florent Schmitt:
The May 2011 Ensemble FAME program featuring excerpts from Florent Schmitt’s De vive voix, led by Bernard Petit.
This 2012 DVD release contains award-winning performances presnted at the 85th All-Japan Choral Competition — including an excerpt from Florent Schmitt’s De vive voix.
Additionally, excerpts from the set are presented from time to time in Japan by school choruses. One such example was in 2012, when the Utsunomiya City Yonan Junior High School Chorus led by Takaaki Kawamata gave an award-winning performance of the fourth number (Enserée dans la port) at the 85th JCA All-Japan National Choral Competition.
Franck Marcon
Most recently, excerpts from De vive voix were included as part of an October 2023 concert at Église St-Germain in Geneva, Switzerland. Devoted exclusively to Florent Schmitt’s compositions for female voices, the program, titled “Si la lune rose” (“If the Moon Rose”), was presented by Ensemble Polhymnia under the leadership of founder and music director Franck Marcon.
The description accompanying Ensemble Polhymnia’s Schmitt program neatly encapsulates the composer’s unique approach to choral music, stating:
Ensemble Polhymnia performs with music director Franck Marcon. (2023 photo)
“The mixture of humor and seriousness, parody and originality is evident in many of [Schmitt’s choral] works, where Romanticism and Dadaism manage to coexist naturally. His independence and eclecticism are evident in the remarkably varied nature of the pieces that he organizes in collections in a collage-like spirit …
Schmitt’s texts are tinged with surrealism; they oscillate between hoax and trivial poetry by providing a wide canvas for research into the language of sound.”
A poster promoting the Ensemble Polhymnia concert featuring Florent Schmitt’s compositions for female voices (Geneva, Switzerland, October 8, 2023).
Florent Schmitt’s De vive voix: Original release on the Calliope label (2001).
As with its paucity of concert performances, De vive voix is equally underrepresented on recordings. In fact, there has been just one commercial recording ever made of this music. Fortunately, it is a very fine one. In 2001 Régine Théodoresco and the Ensemble Calliope recorded all six of Schmitt’s choral sets for female voices for a collection that was first released on the Calliope label.
A dozen years later the recording was reissued on the Timpani label, giving it a second life.
The reissued recording on the Timpani label (2014).
The Ensemble Calliope recording of De vive voix is available to hear on YouTube, accessible as separate uploads:
Régine Théodoresco
Considering the eminent worthiness of the score, De vive voix deserves far greater audience exposure than it has received to date. Let us hope for more performances – as well as recordings — of this endlessly fascinating choral score in future years.