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Keyboard musician Emmanuel Pélaprat talks about Florent Schmitt’s Chant de...
Chant de guerre, a 1915 oil-on-canvas portrait of Florent Schmitt painted by Albert Gleizes, the famed cubist who created several portraits of the composer. This painting is the artist’s rendition of...
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American choral director Scott Tucker talks about the connection between...
“It was the most thrilling piece I’d heard in years. I was so moved by its unbridled joy that I knew we had to build an entire concert around it.” — Scott Tucker, Artistic Director, The Choral Arts...
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Contrasting voices: Florent Schmitt’s a cappella masterpiece A contre-voix...
Florent Schmitt: A contre-voix (1944) Within the vast catalogue of music created by the French composer Florent Schmitt are a great number of vocal compositions. Indeed, throughout his 70+ year...
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Andantino (Vocalise): Florent Schmitt’s most versatile composition (1906).
A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Andantino, in the composer’s own arrangement for trumpet and piano. This and all other versions created during Schmitt’s lifetime were published by...
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Director Bill Barclay and conductor JoAnn Falletta talk about mounting a...
The recording that began it all: JoAnn Falletta conducting the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (NAXOS, 2015). By now, it seems that Florent Schmitt’s two Antoine et Cléopâtre Suites, Op. 69 have at last...
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Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin and French conductor Fabien Gabel talk about...
Curtain call for soprano Karina Gauvin, conductor Fabien Gabel, chorus director David Rompré, the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebéc and OSQ Chorus following the performance of Florent Schmitt’s Psaume...
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Simplicity, elegance and wit: Florent Schmitt’s piano suite Small Gestures...
While he was a flautist and organist, French composer Florent Schmitt’s main instrument was the piano. So it should come as little surprise that when we look at Schmitt’s extensive catalogue of 138...
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Diverse winds: Florent Schmitt’s late-career quintet Chants alizés (1951-55).
A vintage study score for Florent Schmitt’s late-career Chants alizés for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn, published by Durand in 1955. In his later period of composition, French composer...
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Canadian pianist Linda Ippolito talks about discovering and performing...
Over the past 20 years, the vast majority of Florent Schmitt’s music for piano solo has been rediscovered by a new generation of music-lovers. Moreover, nearly all of this music has been commercially...
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Quiet intensity and moving moderation: Messe en quatre parties, Florent...
Florent Schmitt, photographed with Igor and Vera Stravinsky at a reception at the American Embassy in Paris in the fall of 1957, about the time Schmitt was creating his Messe en quatre parties. Schmitt...
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French-American conductor David Grandis talks about discovering the music of...
Regular readers of the Florent Schmitt Website + Blog know that occasionally we “relax the routine” a bit and delve into the artistry of other composers — particularly ones who lived and worked in the...
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Florent Schmitt’s strikingly inventive Quartet for Trombones and Tuba (1946):...
Florent Schmitt, photographed a few years before he composed the Quartet for Trombones and Tuba in 1946 at the age of 76. It’s quite likely that many music-lovers who know of French composer Florent...
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Musicologist and conductor César Leal talks about the impresario Gabriel...
Gabriel Astruc (1864-1938) Not long ago, I compiled a listing of published biographies, other books and dissertations that cover music and arts in Paris during the time of Florent Schmitt’s career as a...
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Late bloomer? Florent Schmitt’s La Tragédie de Salomé (1907/10) is now making...
Of Florent Schmitt’s major compositions, undoubtedly the one that has achieved the greatest fame over the decades is the ballet La Tragédie de Salomé, which Schmitt created for the dancer Loïe Fuller...
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Pièces romantiques (1900-08): Florent Schmitt’s “transitional” suite for solo...
The French pianist Alfred Cortot (1873-1952), photographed with Florent Schmitt in the early 1950s. Throughout his lengthy creative career which spanned more than seven decades from the 1890s to the...
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In Florent Schmitt’s 150th birthday anniversary year, a new recording...
Funding from Florent Schmitt aficionados around the world is being sought to help underwrite the project. Florent Schmitt (1870-1958), photographed in about 1900. 2020 is the composer’s 150th birthday...
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Danse des Devadasis (1908): Florent Schmitt’s masterful evocation of the...
“What I find most astonishing about this piece is the fact that such heightened intensity and élan is achieved in record time … Florent Schmitt packs in the musical imagery required to make us imagine...
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Florent Schmitt and Heitor Villa-Lobos: An enduring friendship anchored in...
Heitor Villa-Lobos (age 37) and Florent Schmitt (age 54), photographed in Paris in the mid-1920s. Throughout his lengthy career, the French composer Florent Schmitt maintained personal friendships with...
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Conductor JoAnn Falletta talks about preparing Florent Schmitt’s Oriane et le...
Florent Schmitt (1870-1958) (Medallion by Weysset) On March 7 and 8, 2020, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of its music director, JoAnn Falletta, presented what may well be the North...
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Musicians Louis-Philippe Bonin, Janz Castelo and Nikki Chooi talk about...
A vintage copy of the score to Florent Schmitt’s Légende, composed in 1918 for saxophone but later arranged by the composer for viola and also for violin. On March 6 and 7, 2020, the Buffalo...
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