The catalog of music composed by Florent Schmitt contains numerous chamber works. Among them are three large-scale compositions for string ensemble: the Trio, Op. 105, the Quartet, Op. 112, and the Piano Quintet, Op. 51.

The Piano Quintet was the first of these three pieces to be created; Schmitt worked on the score for six years between 1902 and 1908, whereas the other two works would come along in the 1940s.

It is also the longest of these three chamber pieces, lasting nearly an hour’s length of time. The outer two movements last over 20 minutes each, while the slow middle movement clocks in at around 14 minutes.

Schmitt dedicated this monumental chamber work to his teacher and mentor, Gabriel Fauré.  Its premiere performance was held on March 26, 1909, performed by the Fermin Touche Quartet with Maurice Dumesnil at the piano.

The long gestation period of the Piano Quintet reflected the fact that it was the work of an artist who was on the path to full maturity. Not only that, it was the first time the composer had created a piece of chamber music for forces larger than two players.

Musicologist Caroline Waight has noted that Schmitt’s Piano Quintet was well-received by the critics and audiences at the time of its premiere. Indeed, along with the Psaume XLVII and La Tragédie de Salomé, the Quintet helped establish Schmitt’s name as a major composer on the international music scene. Moreover, the Piano Quintet was awarded First Prize in the Société des compositeurs de musique’s 1909 competition — an award that was accompanied by a payment of 500 francs to the composer.

This review of the Quintet, written by composer, teacher and critic Albert Groz following the 1909 Touche/Dumesnil premiere and published in La Tribune de Saint-Gervais (a publication of the Schola Cantorum), hints at the kind of impression it made on early audiences:

“Despite its enormous proportions, there is nothing in M. Schmitt’s Quintet that is long or tiring. The construction, through its logic and solidity, constantly holds the interest, prevents it from getting lost among the episodes and denotes in its composer a power of conception that is rarely encountered. The themes have relief — a firm, clearly characterized design which allows them to be easily followed through the evolutions of development. The whole is clear, varied, and animated by a healthy and robust life …

M. Schmitt’s talent is one that needs air and space. This is due, I believe, to the fact that in this artist the melodic imagination, generously expansive, naturally tends to dominate the rest of the musical faculties … Schmitt once again confirms that … the future belongs to those who seek themselves with sincerity.”

Writing in S.I.M. Revue musicale following the premiere, author and critic Paul Landormy provided an in-depth description of the three movements of the work, extolling their virtues while noting a few reservations as well:

“The beginning of the work has a certain kinship with the introduction to Franck’s [Piano] Quintet — the same contrasts between the passionate accents of the string parts and the dreamy voice of the piano, enveloping a tender melody with faded arpeggios. It’s Franck’s color, too. A beautiful viola solo (the viola plays continually a very important and happy role in this quintet) brings us to the Allegro, in which the viola again presents the first theme — very well-drawn — while the second theme appears soon after in the violin. The development is magnificent in places, and so it is regrettable that it gets a little muddled towards the end.

The second part is an Adagio where two motifs alternate — one moving and admirably sung first by the viola, the other descriptive, picturesque, with a very pretty and fresh effect. This is when I thought of Romain Rolland’s words comparing French music to a wild strawberry bush hidden among the brambles.

The third movement, after a short, dark and bizarre adagio, takes us into the middle of a kind of village festival, where the sonorities hang together in a thousand disconcerting ways but where life reigns. Interest languishes a little when the second motif of the [second movement] Andante suddently reappears, bringing back darkness — a lovely effect presented in double octaves by the violin and the viola. Finally, an overworked coda brings us a little painfully to the conclusion, which I would have liked simpler and more prompt.

I would be happy to hear this undeniably sincere and strong composition again in order to calibrate the true merit of the reservations that I’ve noted, without having been able to read the score either before or after the concert. I’ll add that the Touche Quartet and M. Dumesnil were excellent in their performance.”

A full century having elapsed since Messrs. Groz and Landormy’s reviews of the premiere performance, here is how Caroline Waight characterizes Schmitt’s music in the Quintet:

“Almost orchestral in score, the work strains at the boundaries of its form, encompassing an extraordinary range of textures and emotions, and containing a wealth of melody.”

Similarly, the musicologist Michel Fleury considers the Piano Quintet to be the “absolute apex” in the progression of piano quintets written by French composers from the time of César Franck and proceeding on to Vincent d’Indy, Camille Saint-Saens, Louis Vierne. Charles Koechlin, Gabriel Pierné and others. Fleury has written of the Piano Quintet:

“Its luxuriant harmony, its rhythmic dynamism and its melodic profusion are very representative of the composer … The Quintet goes through all the nuances of feelings, from tenderness to the most savage violence, from nostalgia to the shores of despair, from voluptuousness to the most fanciful irony. It closes with an energetic and optimistic affirmation of volition, action — and Dionysian joy.”

Writing in the January 2009 issue of The Strad magazine, music journalist, author and critic Julian Haylock wrote these words about Florent Schmitt and his Piano Quintet:

“Like his great teacher [Gabriel Fauré], Schmitt was not given to wearing his heart on his sleeve, which lends his music a noble sense of proportion during even the most heated of climaxes. At the same time, he was prone to generous washes of the kind of exotic, chromatically intensified harmonies that so appealed to the post-Wagnerian wing of French composers, as encapsulated in the chamber music of Chausson and Franck. There are supeheated, piano-saturated climaxes in Schmitt’s Quintet to make those of Brahms and Franck seem almost tame by comparison.

Temporally expansive yet strangely concise in terms of its musical patterning, the three movements of this epic chamber work weigh in at around 20, 14 and 21 minutes, respectively.”

In the process of achieving musical heights that Fleury and Haylock speak of — with alternating stormy sequences and ethereal reveries along with passionate energy throughout — the piano part in particular requires a first-rate performer who is capable of playing textures so thick that some passages in the score are spread over four staves.

One of the more significant early performances of the Piano Quintet occurred on April 11, 1919 at a Société Musicale Indépendante concert held in the Salle Gaveau. Present on the concert program — as well as in the audience — was a veritable “who’s who” of Parisian music society. In addition to Schmitt playing the piano part in his Quintet, the premiere performance of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin was played by the pianist Marguerite Long, Hélène Jourdan-Morhange performed in Roland-Manuel’s Trio, and soprano Jane Bathori presented several mélodies by Gabriel Grovlez.

One of the best-known musicians who performed Florent Schmitt’s Piano Quintet in the early years was the Hungarian-born composer and pianist Emánuel Moór, perhaps best-remembered today for inventing a pianoforte manufactered by Pleyel et cie. in the 1920s — a model consisting of two keyboards lying one above each other that enabled, by means of a tracking device, one hand to play a spread of two octaves. It was Schmitt himself who had given Moór a manuscript version of the newly completed Quintet score around 1909.

Significantly, the Piano Quintet was one of the first of Schmitt’s compositions to “travel extensively” to places outside of France.  It was performed in the United Kingdom on numerous occasions (The Telegraph newspaper reviewed a London performance of the work as early as February 1914), with the composer himself playing the challenging piano part in several of the British performances into the 1930s, and the English pianist Kathleen Long doing the honors in later performances in the 1940s.

The first English performance of the Piano Quintet, which happened in 1911, did not feature the composer as pianist. Instead, it was Maurice Dumesnil playing alongside the Parisian Quartet. The following comments about it were published in the February 1, 1911 issue of The Musical Times:

The Quintet is an appealing work of great elaboration and length — and a corresponding wealth of ideas. Its harmonies are advanced without being labored or uncouth, and the workmanship is masterly.”

The first of Florent Schmitt’s own appearances in England playing the Piano Quintet happened in December 1916, in the middle of World War I. Recently mustered out of the French armed forces, the composer traveled to London for two performances, joined by an esteemed group of string players including the refugee Belgian violinist-conductor Désiré Defauw as well as violist Lionel Tertis.

The English composer Kaikhosru Sorabji, writing in the February 1, 1924 issue of The Musical Times, commented on one of the early performance of the Piano Quintet in Britain, noting:

“I do not know any chamber work to compare with this great Quintet. It has much of the characteristics of Byzantine architecture, glowing with gold and polychromatic mosaics. The wide, arching curves of its fine themes and its large spaciousness of style are singularly remote from the smallness and meanness that is so typical of modern French music. On the one occasion in eight years that I have had the pleasure of listening to this beautiful work (at South Place), it was enthusiastically received …”

After the 1930s, performances in England of the Piano Quintet would fall off considerably, although I am aware of a performance of the piece happening in Chelsea in 1950, presented by the Atelier Quintet.

The Quintet was presented in America in its early years, including at a Society of the Friends of Music subscription concert at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City on February 1, 1914 (which may have been the first airing of the music in the United States). The performers that evening included violinists Edouard Dethier and Davol Sanders, violist Samuel Lifschey, cellist Paul Kefer and pianist Gaston Dethier. A review published in the February 2, 1914 issue of the New York Sun newspaper characterized the music and the performance as follows:

“The [Society of the Friends of Music] programs have been arranged with judgment, and intelligent notes have helped toward an understanding of music either complex or elusive. The principal number on yesterday’s program was both …

No exhaustive analysis can be given of the work, for the Sun‘s chronicler heard it for the first time and without having studied the score. The impression made by this hearing, however, was that this is a very important and significant piece of chamber music and that it should be heard again and again. It’s length is much against it, for audiences are slow to give themselves up to prolonged intellectual application, and such music cannot be grasped by an indolent listener …

Rhythmically the composition is opulent and harmonically it is very comprehensive, but without becoming mystic in tonality or losing hold of the fundamental values of the simple scale. The reflective character of the melodic ideas and their developments [are] intense, and this places a barrier in the way of popularity for the music. It is the creation of a serious artist, who makes no concessions but imperiously demands that the hearer shall follow him into his remote chambers of thought.

[The] artists performed the difficult composition in a manner which showed that they had given it earnest study. Gaston Dethier commanded special admiration for the smoothness, color, fine adjustment of dynamic values and technical still which he brought to the formidable piano part …”

The following year the piece was presented again in New York City by these same performers (the cellist being replaced by Edwin Rice) at an event sponsored by the MacDowell Club. A correspondent for Musical America magazine shared his observations that were published in the February 6, 1915 issue of the periodical:

“Mr. Schmitt has written a noble work. It is, to be sure, quite long, but it contains a host of interesting things and its architecture is amazingly well-managed. There are things in it that were written by others before Mr. Schmitt set them down, yet the work has a pronounced individuality and should be performed frequently.”

A review of the same performance that appeared in the February 3, 1915 issue of Musical Courier magazine echoed similar sentiments, noting:

“It is undoubtedly one of the most valuable contributions to chamber music literature that has been made in recent years, and should be heard frequently. Schmitt has constructed the work carefully and with much homogeneity. His themes are strong and forceful, and he develops them with logical skill. The work is very long, but holds the attention of the listener throughout.”

The next time the Piano Quintet was presented in New York City was during the Modern Music Society of New York’s 1918 season.

San Francisco heard the Piano Quintet early on as well, when it was part of the sixth program of the San Francisco Chamber Music Society’s 1916-17 season. The featured performers were violinists Louis Persinger and Louis Ford, violist Nathan Firestone, cellist Horace Britt and pianist Gyula Ormay. According to a September 16, 1916 article in Pacific Coast Music Review, the musicians were “very enthusiastic” about performing the score.

The Piano Quintet would also be presented a second time in San Francisco — in October 1921 at the Scottish Rite Hall — as part of the opening program of the San Francisco Chamber Music Society’s season. According to Alfred Metzger, who covered the performance for the Pacific Coast Music Review newspaper, the concert was “the best-attended chamber music event we have ever witnessed, either in San Francisco or elsewhere. Over one thousand people were present, and the enthusiasm that prevailed exceeded anything in the nature of such events we know of.”

As for the performance itself, Mr. Metzger was more than impressed by the technical aspects of the playing, while feeling intimidated by the music. Writing in the October 29, 1921 issue of Pacific Coast Music Review, he noted:

“The program was concluded with the Florent Schmitt Quintet, Op. 51, a representative work of the ultra-modern school. E. Robert Schmitz was the assisting artist and once again impressed us with the truly remarkable — even wonderful — exhibition of pianistic technique. We frequently wondered how he obtained the effects which Schmitt intended to convey. He overcame seemingly impossible obstacles with ease and skill. His tone was at times caressing, at times vigorous and powerful, while his phrasing exhibited the finest tone shadings. It was a masterful performance. The strings were also equal to this difficult task. They played like one person and brought out the most intricate passages with clarity and plasticity.

But the work is not to our liking — or let us say it is outside our understanding. Occasionally there were passages of fine tonal beauty and coherence, but just as frequently there were passages of roughness and lack of continuity. Strings and piano very frequently seemed to be at odds with one another, and one’s ears became surfeited with dissonances and tonal contrasts of an ugly character. Hwever, there seemed to be plenty of people who enoyed the work, and it is likely that our personal taste is not as attuned to this modern school.”

In February 1920, the Boston Quartet, made up of violinists Joseph di Natale and Robert Gunderson, violist Vladimir Berlin, cellist Alma la Palme and pianist Hans Ebell, performed the Piano Quintet in that city’s Steinert Hall.

Chicago first heard the Piano Quintet in an April 1928 performance at Kimball Hall, played by the Gordon String Quartet with pianist Rudolph Reuter. The music was characterized by arts critic Rene Devries as “being from the best period of this modern French master, whose works frequently appear on the programs of symphony orchestras …”

And in 1932, Florent Schmitt himself played the piano part in a performance of the piece at Town Hall in New York City, part of an all-Schmitt concert organized by the League of Composers during Schmitt’s only trip to America. New York Times music critic Olin Downes was present at that performance and wrote the following words about it, as published in the Times’ November 28, 1932 edition:

“The Florent Schmitt Piano Quintet has been played from time to time in this country. It has been well-received, and then followed by other modern works scored in the same manner. Now it is 1932. The Quintet, according to the date of its publication, is virtually a quarter of a century old, but last night an audience of modernists applauded it to the echo and found it good and significant and stimulating.

This work has a fine structure and substance. Sometimes it shows a trace of Debussyan influence — or even Fauré or Chabrier — passing straws indicating the way the wind of the period of the Quintet was blowing. But this is more than music of a day — or a year, either; this was proved last night by an audience of sophisticates. With almost unanimity the work was acclaimed, and the talk in the corridors was all in its favor. So pass the years — and so endure the qualities of real music.

The work is symphonic and also romantic. It is a pianist’s quintet — the piano having a role that is brilliant and frequently orchestral. The [string] parts are, however, happily conceived — even if the quartet is employed more frequently in mass, en bloc, than polyphonically. In this respect the score passes the bounds of chamber music and has the coarser proportions of an orchestral partition.”

As in its reception in New York (and in Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle, assisted by various string players recruited locally) during Florent Schmitt’s American tour, the music made a strong impression wherever it was played.

At the same time, writing about the piece in his 1932 book Around Music, the warm feelings of British composer Kaikhosru Sorabji had not dimmed in the slightest from his earlier enthusiasm for the work; if anything, he was even more effusive in his praise:

“The Florent Schmitt Piano Quintet is … I am tempted to say, the greatest piece of chamber music ever written in France. In magnificence and splendor I do not know any chamber work to compare with it … [It] is singularly — even uniquely — remote from the smallness, the short-windedness and lack of stamina that is so typical of most modern French music.”

New York City heard the Piano Quintet again on January 31, 1935 when noted pianist Egon Petri joined forces with the Gordon String Quartet to present the work on an NBC Music Guild program broadcast over the NBC-WJZ network. And in Cincinnati, the piece was presented for the first time in November 1936 by the Cincinnati String Quartet (violinists Leo Brand and Ernest Pack, violist Herman Goehlich and cellist Arthur Bowen) with pianist Karin Dayas alongside the String Quartet No. 3 of the American composer Quincy Porter.

The Piano Quintet wouldn’t be premiered in Washington, DC until a quarter-century after Florent Schmitt’s performances of the work on his 1932-33 American tour. When finally presented there, it was in November 1958 as part of the American University’s Chamber Music Society series, played by a quartet of string players headed by George Steiner along with pianist Evelyn Swarthout.

In his review of the concert published in the November 6, 1958 issue of the The Washington Post, music critic Paul Hume had praise for both the piece and the performance, writing:

“The essence of Schmitt’s writing in this score is his proliferous style, in sounds that luxuriate in the Wagnerian manner. Where else can you hear a quintet in this genre? It is not unlike the artichoke which, when you have penetrated through its outer growth, gives you an exotic reward that makes the incision worthwhile …

He has that uniquely French sense for the sounds possible from a string quartet with piano — something of a Chausson or Fauré aural image. Yet we do not get the sounds of Schmitt from Chausson or Fauré, nor yet from Debussy or Ibert.

The beauties of the slow movement … alone would make the whole thing of merit, and the power and sweep of the opening movement in its more enlivened passages are exciting. The work is difficult to hold together, and with its long rolling periods not easy to keep alive. Evelyn Swarthout and the members of the quartet did a noble job last night, giving the work shape and vitality.”

In its home country, the Piano Quintet has been championed over the years by a number of ensembles — notably the Loewenguth Quartet, which played the work in recital well into the 1960s, including a 1952 performance at the Nuits de Sceaux Festival where,  joined by Jean Hubeau at the piano, the piece shared billing with one of the Fauré quintets.  The last time this ensemble presented the work was in May 1963, with Françoise Doreau as the featured pianist.

I am aware of three complete recordings that have been made of the Quintet. The first of these was recorded in 1981 and features the Berne Quartet (violinists Alexander van Wijnkoop and Christine Ragaz, violist Henrik Crafoord and cellist Walter Grimmer) with Werner Bärtschi on the piano.

Its release was a major recording event at the time, giving listeners their first chance ever to hear the full work.

More than 25 years would elapse before the other two recordings were made — both of them recorded in 2008 and released within mere months of each other.

One of these recordings, released on the Timpani label and featuring the Stanislas Quartet (violinists Laurent Causse and Bertrand Menut, violist Paul Fenton and cellist Jean de Spengler) with Christian Ivaldi on the piano, is quite similar in interpretation to the Bärtschi/Berne recording.

The third recording, broader and more expansive in style, has been released on the NAXOS label and features the Solisten-Ensemble Berlin (Matthias Wollong and Petra Schwieger on violin, violist Ulrich Knörzer and cellist Andreas Grünkorn) with pianist Birgitta Wollenweber.

My personal tastes go more to the Berne/Bärtschi and Stanislas/Ivaldi interpretations, although the NAXOS performance has also received positive reviews from the musical press.

Interestingly, several recordings of just the second movement of the Piano Quintet were made decades before the complete work was ever recorded. And indeed, some listeners consider this middle movement (marked Lent) to be the emotional high-point of the entire composition.

Schmitt’s pupil and fellow-composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud described the beginning of the second movement as reflecting “the scents of the evening and bells sounding on the horizon,” following which “a murmuring tide slowly rises and bears us towards the realms of grief” … before subsiding into a poignant sadness as the movement ends.

The first recording of this movement, waxed by Pathé-Marconi back in 1935, featured Florent Schmitt on the piano, joined by the Calvet Quartet. It’s a very moving interpretation, which may explain its near-constant availability in the decades since – first on 78-rpm records, then on LP, and today on CD and in downloads/streaming.

Another interesting bonus that’s part of this historical recording is a short “vocal autograph” featuring the composer himself commenting on the music and expressing his hope that the other two movements might soon be recorded as well (a wish that he would not live to see fulfilled).  Schmitt’s words come at the end of the movement … and they’ve been included in all but one of the subsequent releases of this recording over the decades.

A second recording of the slow movement dates from 1969 and features members of the Tokyo-based Mari Iwamoto String Quartet along with pianist Shozo Tsubota, distinguished professor of piano at Tokyo University of the Arts.  That recording remains available today and can be purchased from several Japanese-based online music sources such as this one.

The Piano Quintet has managed to make some headway in the recital hall in recent decades, as well.  In 1980 the Quatuor  Margand, joined by pianist Leslie Wright (who, interestingly enough, was also Ecuador’s longtime cultural attaché in Paris), presented the piece in a performance that was broadcast over French Radio. (The Margand players have also presented Schmitt’s challenging String Quartet in recital.)

In 1989 a performance of the piece was done by the Music Group of London and broadcast over BBC Radio 3.  That performance, which featured violinists Frances Mason and Andrew Watkinson, violist Christopher Wellington, cellist Eileen Croxford and pianist David Parkhouse, has been uploaded to YouTube and can be heard here while following along with the score, thanks to George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos’ excellent music channel.

Other performances have included the Quatuor Arcana in 1989, joined Pascal Le Corre, a pianist who has made critically acclaimed recordings of several of Schmitt’s sets of solo piano music, as well as the Quatuor Anton in 1993, joined by pianist Denis Pascal.

More recently, The Piano Quintet  was featured in a French music festival in 2010 at the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice, Italy. Violinists Philippe Bernhard and Loic Rio, violist Laurent Marfaing, and cellist François Kieffer were joined by pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuburger in a passionate interpretation that was a major highlight of the 2010 festival.

At the time of the festival, the performers were interviewed about the music.  That interview – accompanied by musical excerpts from the first and second movements of the Quintet – has been uploaded on YouTube. The seven-minute clip includes some very interesting observations from the musicians and is well-worth viewing.

In August 2011, the Quintet was presented at the Hortus Festival in the Netherlands, performed by the Hortus Ensemble (violinists Eva Stegeman and Jellantsje de Vries, violist Heleen Hulst, cellist Jan Insinger and pianist Maarten van Veen).  That live performance can be heard in its entirety here.

And in fall 2018, the Piano Quintet was performed by the Berne Philharmonic String Quartet and pianist Kit Armstrong at Armstrong’s music center in Hirson, France.

Not all critics have been so admiring of the Piano Quintet; one who had dismissive things to say was Anne Midgette, who wrote this in the New York Times after hearing a performance of the music by the Colorado Quartet and pianist Melvin Chen at the Bard Music Festival in August 2001:

“The last of today’s three concerts – seven hours of music – culminated in a piano quintet that lasted a full hour, which may have relieved many people in the audience of the need ever again to hear the music of Florent Schmitt.”

But those sentiments would seem to be a distinct minority.  To judge for yourself, reserve ample time for listening … give the composition a good hearing … and then post a comment here about your impressions of the music.

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Update (11/15/20):  The Canada-based label St-Laurent Studio has just released a radio broadcast performance of Florent Schmitt’s Piano Quintet — one that features the Loewenguth Quartet along with pianist Jean Doyen. The performance dates from 1956.

The Loewenguth Quartet was organized in 1929, while three of its first four members were still students at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1931 the group was heard by the composer Jean Roger-Ducasse, who urged them to continue their efforts and assured them of his assistance. In time, other composers including Florent Schmitt, Paul Paray, Henri Rabaud and Isidore Philipp became sponsors. The ensemble’s official debut concert was held in Paris on May 9, 1936, and one of the pieces presented on that first program was Schmitt’s Piano Quintet.

The Loewenguth musicians championed this music in the years thereafter — including taking the piece on tour to other countries — so it is only fitting that this 1956 performance is now available as part of a 2-CD set that also includes a Loewenguth radio broadcast of Schmitt’s 1948 String Quartet. The recording is available for purchase from the St-Laurent Studio website, and the label ships worldwide.

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Update (2/14/23):  An upcoming performance in Japan of Florent Schmitt’s Piano Quintet has just been announced. It will be presented in concert at Tokyo Musicas Recital Hall in Tokyo on March 8, 2023, performed by the Eureka Quartet (made up of violinists Mika Hirose and Satoshi Morioka, violist Saki Ishida and cellist Koya Suzuki) joined by the French-trained Japanese pianist Musashi Ishikawa.

More information about the concert plus ticket information can be found on this page.

The upcoming Tokyo performance, presented under the auspices of Project Alrescha, is emblamatic of the increasing popularity of this piece in Japan — and indeed, throughout the world.