What is it in the French psyche that makes so many of its people attracted to the “dark side” in literature?

Whether it’s the symbolists like Maurice Maeterlinck and Paul Verlaine, the noir novels of David Goodis or the dissolute stories and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe (as translated masterfully by Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé), there has always been an audience in France that is hungry to devour these works.

And in the case of Verlaine and Poe, this interest seeped into the musical world as well.  Regarding Poe in particular, the American orchestra conductor JoAnn Falletta has stated, “Many French people at the time found the underlying doom and pessimism of Poe’s work compelling and understandable; most believed that all happiness was transitory, and that evil lurked even on the sunniest of days.”

No fewer than three important French composers wrote music inspired by Poe’s literary works.  Claude Debussy wrote an unfinished opera based on The Fall of the House of Usher as well as sketches for another opera based on Poe’s satirical short story The Devil in the Belfry, while André Caplet composed a “Conte Fantastique” on the subject of Poe’s Masque of the Red Death.

And Florent Schmitt created Le Palais hanté, Op. 49, a symphonic poem based on yet another work by Poe, The Haunted Palace.

Schmitt’s tone poem, which he worked on from 1900 to 1904, is constructed in a Lisztian tradition, which isn’t surprising. The German-Hungarian master was the inventor of the symphonic poem, completing 13 explicitly named works in his composing career along with two large-scale symphonies (Dante and Faust) that could easily be considered extended, multi-movement symphonic poems.

The Lisztian tradition was taken up in France in the late 1800s by such composers as César Franck (Le Chasseur maudit and Les Djinns), Henri Duparc (Lénore), Ernest Chausson (Viviane and Soir de Fête), Ernest Guiraud (Chasse fantastique), and Camille Saint-Saëns (who penned four of them).

Indeed, Schmitt’s essay is one of the very last in the French line of Lisztian-inspired tone poems — although several other less-known French composers like Paul Ladmirault and Philippe Gaubert would produce a few others in the years following.

I find Le Palais hanté to be a finely crafted piece that is highly effective in portraying Poe’s “haunted palace of the mind” as a symbol of mental illness, with the increasingly manic music representing the breakdown of rational thought and order.

Here are the words to Poe’s poem that inspired Schmitt to write this music:

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace —
Radiant palace — reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion —
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This — all this — was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! — for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travelers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh — but smile no more.

In his 1990 book Poe in the Media, Ronald L. Smith provides this concise description of how faithfully and effectively Schmitt’s music evokes Poe’s verse:

“This is a lush, lively work, based on the Mallarme translation. The orchestra soars through several unrestricted passages, leading up to minor key crescendos. Occasionally the piece is a bit too bouncy, a little too ‘allegro’ for even ‘happy wanderers’ in the land, but the music retains its faithfulness to Poe’s ‘flowing, flowing, flowing’ valley, to ‘a lute’s well-tuned law’ (though the piece makes heavier use of flutes, clarinets and bassoons) and to ultimately the ‘vast forms, that move fantastically to the discordant melody.’

There is definitely an element of the ‘fantastique’ as Schmitt unbridles the trumpets for majestic blasts, allows solo passages for the quizzical, mystic and sly bassoon, and leads the brass up to the scale only to leave them abruptly with a smack of percussion. There are surging waves churned by the violins until the orchestral throng climaxes the piece, barking out a brace of bitter ‘laughs’ — then ‘smiles no more.'”

The Haunted Palace had its first public performance as far back as January 1905, with Camille Chevillard conducting the Lamoureux Concerts Orchestra.

It was  then played the following year in Toulouse by the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, where local organist and critic Omer Guiraud provided this review of the piece that was published in the March 15, 1906 issues of Le Courrier musical:

“I must admit that here we find ourselves in the presence of a musician positioned at the ultimate avante-garde. I will not take it upon myself to tell you to which school Florent Schmitt belongs, because it is …  impossible for me, after a single hearing, to analyze a work of such original conception. But what I can say … is that [he] is a remarkable colorist, an indefatigable researcher of sounds not yet heard, and of surprisingly daring combinations of timbres.

But above all this, there is the authoritative technique of a perfect musician, of a learned contrapuntalist — and, in total, of one of our most distinguished Grand Prix de Rome [winners].”

In Germany, the work was first performed in concert in 1912 (with the Munich Konzertverein Orchestra under the direction of Alfred Feith).

In the United Kingdom, the piece had its firs airing in London in March 1918 by the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra under the direction of Sir Henry Wood (a concert that also featured pianist Myra Hess performing Grieg’s Piano Concerto). There is no question that early audiences found the piece to be challenging listening; the reviewer of the  1918 London performance wrote these words in the March 1918 issue of The Musical Times:

“An ‘etude symphonique’ by Florent Schmitt was given for the first time in this country. Its poetical basis is Poe’s Haunted Palace. A work of such importance cannot be comprehended in one hearing. It is certain that there are many fine moments in the music. The orchestral effects are often dazzling, and the harmonic combinations sometimes induce startled attention. But we have in these times to get used to the unusual.”

On the other hand, a review of the London performance appearing in the March 16, 1918 issue of Musical America was praiseworthy without reservation, declaring the piece “a sonorous and elaborate work.”

And it’s certainly interesting to note that Bruno Walter was the conductor to introduce Le Palais hanté to Viennese audiences, leading the Vienna Philharmonic Orcehstra in a performance of the piece in April 1935.

The first commercial recording was a 1983 EMI release featuring Georges Prêtre conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. By that point, the piece was no longer avant-garde in any sense of the term. To wit, in his June 9, 1985 New York Times review of the recording, classical music critic and radio opera host George Jellinek characterized the piece as “clothed in a Franck-d’Indy manner of lush chromaticism.”

The Prêtre interpretation remains my personal favorite of the commercial recordings made of this piece, in part because I find that the conductor brings out the “manic” aspects of the music in a terrifically thrilling fashion. When you listen to it, I think you’ll agree that the conductor is highly effective in bringing forth what the French musicologist Harry Halbreich has written about this score:

“The musical flow, whipped on by its relentless dactyles, hurls itself like a rushing torrent to a brutal, dramatic conclusion.”

At the time of the EMI recording’s release, Mihaï de Brancovan, music critic for the French publication Les Disques, characterized Le Palais hanté as “magnificent music,” adding that Florent Schmitt was “a composer who is high-time to be rediscovered.”

The EMI recording is available to hear on YouTube.

There have been two later recordings of this music made: Yan-Pascal Tortelier with the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, and Leon Botstein with the American Symphony Orchestra.

The Botstein/ASO recording is taken from a live concert performance at New York City’s Lincoln Center in 1999, while the Tortelier/OSESP recording was made in 2011. Both Tortelier and Botstein are well-crafted interpretations, if not quite as exciting (and harrowing) as the EMI recording.  The Botstein rendition can be found here on YouTube.

In addition to Botstein, another live concert performance is available to hear, and it’s an incredibly thrilling rendition by the legendary musician Manuel Rosenthal from a 1970 concert with the ORTF Orchestra.  That performance is available on YouTube as well — and it is a “must-hear” interpretation.

And there’s even a two-piano recording made of this music, played using the composer’s own piano-reduction score. While that version certainly qualifies as an interesting curiosity, there’s no question that Schmitt’s highly inventive orchestration is a big part of what gives this composition its special appeal.

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Update (3/10/15):  A fourth orchestral recording of The Haunted Palace is in the works.  JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra performed the piece in concert in early 2015 and also recorded the music.  The new recording will be released on the NAXOS label later in the year.

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Update (2/26/19): The Falletta/Buffalo Philharmonic recording has now been uploaded to YouTube — and synchronized with Florent Schmitt’s score — so music-lovers can now follow along and see exactly how the music unfolds.  Hearty thanks to Jean-Marie van Bronkhorst for preparing this invaluable upload, which can be viewed here.

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Update (9/23/21):  Le Palais hanté has entered the repertoire of the Orchestre National de France, having been presented in concert under the direction of the orchestra’s recently-appointed music director, Cristian Măcelaru.  It is one of three works by Florent Schmitt being featured by the ONF in the 2021-22 season — the others being Rêves and Psaume XLVII, to be presented in a May 2022 all-French program led by Fabien Gabel.

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Update (5/8/22):  Thomas Loewenheim, music director of the Fresno State Symphony Orchestra, presented Le Palais hanté with his ensemble on May 7, 2022. This is the second piece by Florent Schmitt that Maestro Loewenheim has directed with his orchestra — the other one being La Tragédie de Salomé.

Explaining to me his reasons for programming The Haunted Palace, Loewenheim reported:

“It’s a gorgeous piece that has so many amazing colors and characteristics to explore. I love the melodic lines, and how Schmitt brings them all together and ties them to each other.

Le Palais hanté is actually an incredible teaching tool for students — showing them how to approach French music and the French sound — but with a warm Romantic twist as well. It is a marvelous work that I’ve enjoyed introducing to the students, and it’s been a really excellent experience for all.”

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Update (4/29/23):  A public performance of Le Palais hanté dating from November 26, 1972 has just been uploaded to YouTube. It features the ORTF musical forces under the direction of André Girard.

While not quite as compelling as several of the commercial recordings that are available of the piece, it is nonetheless a welcome choice to have among the expanding list of interpretations. What’s more, the Girard broadcast performance was captured in stereo. You can access it here.