One of the most musically satisfying of Florent Schmitt’s extensive trove of compositions for piano duet and duo – and the one that is my personal favorite among all of them – is Trois Rapsodies, Op. 53, a work he composed in 1903-04 during his time at the Villa Medici in Rome. Made up of three movements titled Française, Polonaise and Viennoise, it is a work that fully engages the senses on initial hearing.
“Nearly every possible kind of ‘poly’ element – polyphonic, polyrhythmic, poly-thematic”: Florent Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies (1903-4).
That’s not unexpected, considering the “immediate appeal” that music of this kind has on listeners; the rhapsodies of Liszt, Dvořák, Enescu, Ravel and Gershwin are also good cases in point.
What is perhaps more surprising is how interesting and inventive Schmitt’s rhapsodies continue to sound on subsequent hearings. As it turns out, this isn’t superficial music at all, nor has it become “dated.” Instead, it is meaty material that continues to pay rich dividends every time it’s heard. I’ve known these rhapsodies for more than 40 years, and they never grow old or “routine.”
As the CD booklet notes for one of the Trois rapsodies recordings puts it:
“The music is saturated with rich harmonies and textures, offering nearly every possible kind of ‘poly’ element – polyphonic, polyrhythmic, poly-thematic – in a rainbow of colors coated with grace and elegance.”
The Canadian pianist Leslie de’Ath contends that Florent Schmitt’s “mastery of the unexpected” is unsurpassed in this particular composition, writing:
“Schmitt’s cornucopia of delicious musical tricks seems always to be just one step ahead of the listener, while at the same time inviting us to savor each unexpected moment.”
The musicologist and librettist Charles Burr described the pieces as “sophisticated national rhapsodies.” He is correct: each of the movements possesses distinct “national” characteristics – yet they are also thoroughly cosmopolitan.
The French novelist and music critic Benoît Duteurtre senses the inspiration of three composers in the music: Chabrier in Française; Chopin in Polonaise; and Johann Strauss Jr. in Viennoise. Perhaps so — but I wouldn’t consider Schmitt to be aping these other composers in any sort of fashion.
Pages from a vintage score to Florent Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies for two pianos (1903-4), published by Durand.
More broadly, the Armenian-American pianist Andrey Kasparov discerns other aspects as well, describing the movements that make up the Trois rapsodies like this:
“[They] are conceived in the grand Romantic style, with the composer taking full advantage of the multilayered textural and coloristic possibilities of two pianos. Despite the intense contrapuntal writing and, at times, complex harmonic language, the work never loses its Gallic charm, lyricism and humor.”
Les Apaches, a painting by Georges d’Espagnat (1910). Ricardo Viñes is seated at the piano, Florent Schmitt stands at far left, and Maurice Ravel is at far right, leaning on the piano.
Early performers of the Trois rapsodies included Florent Schmitt’s fellow Apache members Maurice Ravel and Ricardo Viñes, both of whom teamed up with the composer to present the rhapsodies in recital on several occasions in the years leading up to the First World War.
Before she became a protégé of Marcel Dupré and then a famed organist, Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968) studied piano with Lélia Gousseau and Magda Tagliaferro. In 1936, Mlle. Demessieux performed Florent Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies at the Paris Conservatoire. In her diary, she reported that the composer, who had attended the recital, was “enthused by my talent as a pianist. and I was in a position of favor with this unique character.”
These rhapsodies proved to be quite popular with later generations of French pianists as well, including the team of Ginette Doyen and Hélène Pignari, as well as Mme. Doyen teaming up with André Collard (performances by both teams were broadcast over French Radio in the 1950s).
Ethel Agnes Bartlett (1896-1978) and John Rae Robertson (1893-1956) were a British husband-and-wife duo-piano team that concertized extensively on three continents, including performing at the Hollywood Bowl in California. Several piano works by the English composer Sir Arnold Bax were commissioned by Bartlett & Robinson, including his 1929 Sonata for Two Pianos. The duo also prepared piano duet arrangements of orchestral works, such as Frederick Delius’ Fantastic Dance, for Boosey & Hawkes. (ca. 1950 photo).
More recently, the music has been broadcast by pianists Nathalie Radisse and Jeanne Wolferstaeter (in the 1970s), plus Nadine Desouches and Janine Sassier (in the 1980s).
The British piano duo of Bartlett & Robertson kept Trois rapsodies and other piano music by Schmitt in their repertoire, performing the pieces in their home country and also taking them on European, North and South American tours during the 1930s and 40s.
Vienna audiences first heard the Rapsodie viennoise as part of a recital given in October 1929 at the Wiener Konzerthaus by the duo-piano team of Hélène Lampl-Eibenschütz and Frédérique Gauthier.
The October 1929 recital performed by duo-pianists Hélène Lampl-Eibenschütz and Frédérique Gauthier at the Wiener Konzerthaus included music by Mozart, Reger, Debussy and Manuel Infante in addition to Florent Schmitt’s Rapsodie viennoise — its first public performance in Austria. About Mme. Lampl’s artistry, music critic Paul Bekker had written in the April 27, 1922 issue of Musical Courier magazine: “Hers is an almost violent temperament — but one coupled with a keen intelligence which requires but some more time to mature.”
In the United States, two of the three rhapsodies (Polonaise and Viennoise) were presented in Boston as early as 1919 by the piano duo team of Alfred de Veto and William Mason. Then on February 12, 1922, Yale University School of Music pianists H. Stanley Knight and Ellsworth Grumman included the Rapsodies in a recital at Sprague Hall. Musical Courier magazine reported that the pianists “were obliged to repeat the Rapsodie française” for the benefit of the capacity audience.
Gunnar Johansen (1906-1991). The Danish-born pianist performed Trois rapsodies with Florent Schmitt in San Francisco in 1932. In 1939, Johansen was offered the position of Artist-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin — the first such post ever offered by an American university. (1935 photo)
And in December 1932, Florent Schmitt himself presented Trois rapsodies during his only American tour. In San Francisco he was joined by pianist Gunnar Johansen as the opening number of an all-Schmitt concert that also included the composer performing several solo piano pieces, the first movement from his Sonate libre (joined by violinist Jascha Veissl) and his monumental Piano Quintet. According to a report in the Musical Courier, “The Veteran’s Auditorium was packed to capacity by a representative audience of musicians and music-lovers.”
Several weeks later, Schmitt would perform two of the Rapsodies in a Los Angeles concert of his music — this time joined by Marvine Maazel (a pianist better-known as the father of conductor Lorin Maazel) as the second pianist. The program, which choral director and arts critic Hal. D. Crain characterized as “overlong” in his review in Musical America magazine’s January 10, 1933 issue, also included the Piano Quintet with the John Reed Quartet, plus a group of mélodies sung by soprano Cecile Barbezet with the composer at the piano.
Florent Schmitt had become acquainted with the American pianist Marvine Maazel in Paris several years before teaming up with him to perform the Rapsodies in Los Angeles. In fact, Schmitt had been an invited guest at a lavish Paris reception put on by Maazel in May 1929. As reported by Clarence Lucas in a June 6, 1929 article that appeared in Musical Courier magazine, the reception was one of those “see and be seen” events attracting a veritable Who’s Who of Parisian — and transnational — musical and artistic life. Lucas’ article content is as follows: Paris.—Maazel, noted pianist, who in less than two years has made his name a household word in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, and many a lesser city, held a reception for his musical friends in his beautiful Paris studio on May 18.
The guest of honor on this occasion was Pierre Monteux, the conductor who recently was placed at the head of the new Orchestre Symphonique, whose wand has not only quickened into life and vigor the splendid body of men of which the orchestra is composed, but has also drawn the public into the vast spaces of the Pleyel Hall and transformed emptiness into enthusiasm.
Two eminent composers likewise helped to make the Maazel reception noteworthy, One was Florent Schmitt, whose music occupies a place on many concert programs and has been much in evidence at the Opéra-Comique recently. The other was the widely known Russian composer, Prokofieff, who had his violin concerto and a new symphony played at two different orchestral concerts in Paris last week.
A Russian woman cellist, Lydia Garbouzova, who recently played a number of Glazounoff’s compositions in Paris with the composer at the piano, was overheard conversing in several languages with the usual polyglot facility of the Slavonic races. Frances Berkova, delightful American violinist of Russian extraction, was full of enthusiasm for young Yehudi Menuhin, as was also another American violinist, Frances Morgan. They both agreed that the exhibition of such genius was discouraging. Jan Hambourg, Parisian violinist, entertained his hearers with many anecdotes about the young prodigy, whom he knows well. Virginia Morgan, harpist, whose forthcoming recital is already planned, was conspicuous among the ladies of shorter stature. Hilda Roosevelt, an American soprano who resides and teaches in Paris, was in animated conversation with a number of French ladies and gentlemen concerning the musical opportunities for the really great artists when touring the United States. Sarah Fischer, who came unknown from Montreal not very long ago, but is now well known in Paris for her work at the Opéra-Comique and the recent Mozart Festival, sang a varied program of songs including two French Canadian folksongs, accompanied on this occasion by the American pianist, Herbert Carrick, who was heard here in recital during the first week in June. Another American pianist present was Marguerite Morgan, of the Morgan Trio which recently returned to Paris from a very successful tour in Italy and the south of France. Anton Bilotti, whose recent piano recital in the old hall of the Conservatoire drew together many lovers of music and persons of social eminence, proved to be a very entertaining guest. Marcel Meyer, the French pianist whose recital of music, mostly Spanish, was heard by a very large audience in the Pleyel Hall, was deeply interested in Mme. Monteux’s account of musical conditions in Holland, where her illustrious husband has been so royally received.
Maazel, the host, was heard to remark that the elaborate supper at midnight was only “a full-dress rehearsal for breakfast.” The company, which broke up long after the refreshments — solid, liquid, opaque, semi-transparent, sugared, acidulated, farinacous, carbohydrate — were served, further included literary men, painters, society ladies, politicians, critics, businessmen, as well as musical amateurs.
Also in 1932, the duo-piano team of Arthur Loesser and Beryl Rubinstein presented the Trois rapsodies in recital at the Singer’s Club in Cleveland, Ohio. It was about this time that the music began to be heard in Latin America as well, with the duo-pianist team of Tila and Jair Montés presenting the Rapsodies in recital in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Pianists Arthur Loesser (1894-1969) and Beryl Rubinstein (1898-1952) were fellow-faculty members at the Cleveland Institute of Music. They played recitals together from the 1920s to the 1940s. This promotional bulletin announces a 1940 appearance at New York’s Town Hall. Arthur Loesser was the half-brother of Broadway composer Frank Loesser. Amusingly, he would refer to Frank as “the evil of two Loessers.”
Frank Cooper (l.) and Martin Marks (r.)
Moving ahead some three decades, one of the first teams to begin performing the complete Trois rapsodies in concert again after years of neglect were duo-pianists Frank Cooper and Martin Marks. Their October 1967 live performance of the music at Butler University’s Clowes Memorial Hall has been uploaded to YouTube and can be heard here.
The Gordon Piano Duo was active from the early 1970s until 1990. (Photo: Roger Robles)
The husband-and-wife piano duo team of Steven Gordon and Nadya Cataldo Gordon also included the Rapsodies as part of their touring recital programs presented in the 1980s before the untimely death of Mr. Gordon in June 1990.
First recording: Robert and Gaby Casadesus for Columbia Masterworks (1956). Florent Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies were in the piano duo’s repertoire from the 1920s onward.
Fortunately for us, the music is well-represented on disk these days — although it took decades before the first recording would appear. That premiere recording was made by in Paris in 1956 by Philips engineers for the Columbia Masterworks label with Robert and Gaby Casadesus – and it would remain the only commercially recorded documentation of this music for nearly 40 years thereafter.
In his review of the recording in the August 1958 issue of American Record Guide magazine, keyboard artist Igor Kipnis characterized the Trois Rapsodies and its companion work on the album, Une Semaine du petit-elfe Ferme l’oeil, as “charming pieces full of wit and humor, and they receive the most brilliant performances imaginable. Highly recommended.”
Author, announcer and music critic Martin Bookspan (1926-2021), photographed in the radio broadcast studio. Among other long-term engagements, Bookspan was announcer for the PBS series Live from Lincoln Center from 1976 until his retirement in 2006.
Over at HiFi & Music Review (later renamed Stereo Review) magazine, also in August 1958, author and arts critic Martin Bookspan wrote, “This was the surprise package in the enormous pile of records I received for review this month. The Three Rhapsodies … are each in a different national vein — French, Polish and Viennese — very aristocratic, very French and very nice! Good clean, well-defined piano sound, too.”
In the same vein, a review of the Columbia recording in the May 25, 1958 issue of the Los Angeles Times described Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies as “brilliant pieces almost all other duo-pianists have overlooked,” adding that the Casadesus Duo “play with splendid style and vivacity.” It’s true: The Casadesus’ full-bodied performance is viscerally very exciting, and I think it’s fair to say that no other recording since has conveyed quite the degree of swagger that this team delivers.
This photo of French pianist Gaby Casadesus (1901-1999) was taken at Maurice Ravel’s home Belvédère in Montfort l’Amaury. Along with her pianist husband Robert, Mme. Casadesus left us scintillating recordings of the piano music of Fauré, Debussy, Ravel and Florent Schmitt, among others. The Casadesus Duo programmed the Trois rapsodies from the 1920s onward — in Paris and on tour as well, including at a Town Hall recital in New York City in 1936.
Florent Schmitt is pictured with members of the Pasquier Trio and the Casadesus Piano Duo following a concert of his music at the Salle de Caen on February 14, 1953. The all-Schmitt program included the String Trio and Trois rapsodies for two pianos, along with several mélodies. The composer’s newly composed Clarinet Sextet was also premiered by members of the Garde Republicaine wind ensemble. Standing at left in the photo is Mme. Renée Fortin-Jammes, secretary of the Association des Prix de Piano du Conservatoire de Paris. In her 1994 memoir Mes noces musicales, Gaby Casadesus wrote that when she and her husband performed the Trois rapsodies in Schmitt’s presence, “The emotion that could be seen on the face of this elderly gentleman, whom we hadn’t seen in years, was our most beautiful reward.” (Photo: Musical Courier, March 15, 1953)
The Casadesus recording is available to hear on YouTube. If you listen past the somewhat scratchy vinyl and the thin bass response (a defect in the transfer, not in the original Columbia recording which is satisfyingly full-bodied), you’ll discover just how effective the Casadesus interpretation is.
Even better, the recording has finally been reissued on CD mere months ago, after being out of the catalogue for decades.
This 1957 Columbia Masterworks advertisement appeared in various American music magazines. Among the items featured was the new Casadesus recording of two-piano works by Florent Schmitt.
First stereo recording: Huseyin Sermet and Kun Woo Paik (Valois, 1992).
In 1992, the first stereo recording of the Trois rapsodies appeared – an effective reading by pianists Huseyin Sermet and Kun Woo Paik. Released on the Valois label, this interpretation inhabits a sound-world redolent of the Casadesus performance — but perhaps with a bit more “icy brittleness.”
But you can compare for yourself, thanks to Philippe Louis who has uploaded the Valois performance on one of his worthy YouTube music channels. The same recording has also been uploaded along with the score, for those who wish to investigate the music in greater depth.
The three most recent recordings of the Trois rapsodies – two Canadian and one American – are more broadly expansive in their approach. They include:
Kanazawa-Admony Piano Duo (Tami Kanazawa and Yuval Admony) – Roméo Records (recorded in 2001)
Invencia Piano Duo (Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn) – NAXOS Grand Piano (recorded in 2010)
Leslie de’Ath and Anya Alexeyev – Dutton Epoch (recorded in 2011)
Having listened to all five of the commercial recordings of the Trois rapsodies, I can confirm that each one has its own merits. All of the performances are polished efforts; whichever interpretation one would consider “the best” is purely a matter of personal preference.
The Invencia Piano Duo’s Tenth Anniversary recital in Norfolk, Virginia featured the Trois rapsodies and Rhapsodie parisienne of Florent Schmitt (September 2013).
I have also been fortunate to see this music performed in recital — a terrifically exciting performance by the Invencia Piano Duo done in 2013. From this experience, I know first-hand that the rhapsodies can make quite an impact when heard live. It can be safely assumed that the recital attendees did not know this music at all before hearing it that evening … and yet the audience response was electric.
Interestingly, there is another two-pianist rhapsody by Florent Schmitt that exists – an unpublished work composed in 1900. Written in much the same vein as the Trois rapsodies, this other one is called Rhapsodie parisienne.
The score was discovered among the composer’s papers at the Bibliothèque National in Paris when Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn (who make up the Invencia Piano Duo) were doing research as part of their project to record the entire works by Florent Schmitt for piano duet and duo. (Those four CDs were released by NAXOS Grand Piano in 2012 and 2013.)
Thanks to permission granted by Florent Schmitt’s granddaughter, the Rhapsodie parisienne was able to be recorded. It appears on the same Invencia Duo CD as the Trois rapsodies, and proves itself to be every bit as colorful as the other three pieces. An exciting public performance of this rhapsody, played by the Invencia Piano Duo, is also available on YouTube.
The first of the three rhapsodies orchestrated by Florent Schmitt: Rapsodie viennoise (1911). (Collection Palazzetto Bru Zane)
Schmitt was known to consider the piano to be “a convenient but disappointing substitute for an orchestra” (to quote his own words). So it should come as little surprise that he orchestrated a good number of his piano scores for performance in the concert hall. Examples of these works include Soirs, Feuillets de voyage, Mirages, Pupazzi and Reflets d’Allemagne.
Such was the case with the Trois rapsodies as well. The first movement to be orchestrated was Rapsodie viennoise, done by Schmitt in 1909. It received its first performance in October 1911 by the Orchestre Lamoureux under the direction of Camille Chevillard (and it would later be recorded by Albert Wolff with this same orchestra in 1931).
English conductor Sidney Walter Beer (1899-1971).
Shortly after its premiere, Gabriel Pierné directed the piece with the Colonne Concerts Orchestra, and the work appeared on various concert programs in France in the years thereafter. Interestingly, one such Parisian program on April 17, 1937 (Société Philharmonique) was conducted by the English conductor Sidney Beer, in a performance that Michel-Léon Hirsch of the newspaper Le Ménestrel characterized as “carefully executed” — perhaps a euphemism for a less-than-exciting interpretation!
Swedish composer and conductor Adolf Wiklund (1879-1950) also led the RSPO in Florent Schmitt’s La Tragédie de Salomé (in 1936).
That same year, the orchestrated Rapsodie viennoise was performed in Scandinavia by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Adolf Wiklund (December 15, 1937).
The American release of Albert Wolff’s recording of Florent Schmitt’s Rapsodie viennoise was on the Brunswick label. Upon its release, the January 1932 issue of Phonograph Monthly Review stated, “The Viennese Rhapsody here makes its phonographic debut. It is another instance where the Viennese waltz is laid on the operating table, but the patient pulls through all right with no great disfiguration … The opening measures might lead you to suspect that, after all, it is only Salome disguised as a Kellnerin, but the vision soon disappears when the waltz theme gets underway; incidentally, it is a first-rate tune. The performance is vivicious and you will no doubt find this a most interesting disk.”
The postwar UK release of Albert Wolff’s recording of Florent Schmitt’s Rapsodie viennoise, on the Decca label. Back when the recording was first released in the early years of the Great Depression, reviewer Richard Gilbert wrote in Musical Courier magazine: “This is a work of an exuberant and highly colored nature. Admirers of Ravel’s La Valse might like it; yet in these days of economy, would one wish to buy two works of such identical inspiration?”
Georges Longy (1868-1930)
Meanwhile, the first North American performance of the orchestral version of Rapsodie viennoise happened in March 1912 in a Boston concert directed by Georges Longy. The following year, the piece was presented by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokowski (November 1913). Next up was the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, which performed the piece in January 1914 led by that ensemble’s first music director, Emil Oberhoffer.
The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra program featuring Florent Schmitt’s Rapsodie viennoise (January 4, 1914). The accompanying program notes state, “The title is the best clue to the character of the composition, except that the word ‘valse’ might appropriately precede the existing title. It is, in fact, a Frenchman’s … conception of the Viennese waltz, embellished and augmented by all the intricacies of modern orchestration and instrumentation.”
Thereafter it was the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, which presented the work in a pair of February 1918 concerts led by its music director, Alfred Hertz. Musical Courier magazine’s February 21, 1918 review characterized the rhapsody as “a waltz of the Viennese type” and declared it a “brilliant composition.”
The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra’s performances of Florent Schmitt’s Rapsodie viennoise happened in February 1918. Writing about the piece, Musical Courier magazine noted that Schmitt took his original piano composition and “elaborated it in the most extraordinary fashion for the modern orchestra.”
Pianist and conductor Ossip Grabrilowitsch (1878-1936)
In 1919 and 1920, the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Josef Stránský, presented the piece to audiences there.
Then in January 1925, Ossip Gabrilowitsch conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in two performances of the work, while in November of that same year, Frederick Stock led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the music as well.
The program for the first New York performance of Florent Schmitt’s Rapsodie viennoise (December 11, 1919). Musical Courier magazine reviewed the piece and the performance in its December 25, 1919 issue, stating, “[It’s] a sort of rhapsodic poem on the subject of a Viennese waltz. It would have been decidedly better if Mr. Schmitt had been a little more Viennese and a trifle less rhapsodic. One is reminded of Richard Strauss, who is always saying to himself: ‘Heavens! I must be original, at all expense’ — and who, just as he has started what promises to be a nice tune, branches off into some unrelated key or extraneous harmonization.”
Nathaniel Shilkret (1889-1982)
The Rapsodie viennoise was even performed over U.S. radio by the General Electric Orchestra under the direction of light-music conductor Nathaniel Shilkret. The program, which also included music of Wolf-Ferrari, Humperdinck, Moszkowski, Glazunov, Massenet, Chabrier and Cyril Scott, was aired nationally on September 28, 1929.
Paul Paray (1886-1979) premiered more orchestral works of Florent Schmitt than any other conductor. The Trois rapsodies was premiered by Maestro Paray in Paris in 1928, several years after this photo was taken.
Schmitt orchestrated the Française and Polonaise rhapsodies as well — about 15 years following Rapsodie viennoise. The orchestrations were carried out at the composer’s country retreat in Artiguemy (Haute-Pyrénées), and a letter Schmitt wrote in August 1927 indicates that both were completed by that time. Those orchestrations were published by Durand, and the full set was premiered by Paul Paray and the Lamoureux Orchestra in 1928.
[According to a report from Andrey Kasparov, when studying the manuscript for the Rhapsodie parisienne he noticed instrument markings made by Schmitt on the score. This leads Kasparov to believe that the composer had intended to orchestrate this work as well. Why he didn’t – and why the original two-piano version wasn’t published either – remain a mystery.]
Piero Coppola (1888-1971)
Three years after the 1928 Paray premiere performance of all three orchestrated rhapsodies, Rapsodie polonaise was included as part of a Polish-themed program presented by the Concerts Poulet Orchestra led by Piero Coppola — a concert that also included a Chopin piano concerto plus Chabrier’s Fête polonaise (November 1931).
Georges Martin Witkowski (1867-1943) was a French composer and conductor. Born in Mostaganem, French Algeria, he met organist Louis Vierne while serving as a cavalry officer, and later studied with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. Witkowski founded the orchestra in Lyon where he introduced local audiences to many works by emerging French composers including Roussel, Caplet, Poulenc, Schmitt and Ferroud, among others. His son was the cellist Jean Witkowski. (ca. 1896 photo)
Also in the 1930s, Georges Witkowki would lead the Orchestre Philharmonique de Lyon in a presentiation of the Rapsodie française — a performance that was described by critic Henry Martin in L’Art musical magazine’s January 27, 1939 issue as “sparkiling with color, movement and spirit.”
But over the years, it is the Rapsodie viennoise that’s proved to be the one most often performed in its orchestral garb — being programmed by French conductors such as Eugène Bigot in the 1930s and 1940s, along with Jean Martinon and Serge Baudo in the 1950s and 1960s.
In one Martinon performance with the Lamoureux Orchestra in 1954, the Le Monde music critic René Dumesnil remarked that the piece ended the concert “like a bouquet of fireworks.”
A letter written by Florent Schmitt during the time he was director of the music conservatory in Lyon (early 1920s). In it, he speaks about the orchestrated version of Rapsodie viennoise (1911), describing its musical form and thematic material as follows: “In the form of a waltz — themes of Viennese style. A brief introduction sumarizing the two main motifs. Exposition — mutual superfection of two, three and four themes. At its last appearance, the main idea is presented in the form of a variation, while the brass accentuates the second theme in staccato notes …”
Only orchestral recording (so far): Rapsodie viennoise, with Albert Wolff and l’Orchestre Lamoureux (1931).
But unlike the relatively robust recorded history of the piano version of the Rapsodies, no complete recording of the orchestral version has ever been made. The 1931 Rapsodie viennoise recording is still available today, contained in a large 4-CD set released by Timpani Records that includes all of Albert Wolff’s recordings made with the Lamoureux Orchestra.
The Forgotten Records CD reissue of Albert Wolff’s 1931 recording (FR 1346).
For those who don’t wish to invest in a big set such as this, the 1931 Wolff performance has also been issued by Forgotten Records in a single-CD format, along with works by Vincent d’Indy and Albert Roussel. That CD is available for purchase online and can be ordered here.
Unfortunately both the interpretation and the sound quality of the 1931 Rapsodie viennoise recording are disappointing; the orchestra sounds lumpy and sluggish, and the sound is thin and boxy. It is nice to have it for historical reference – but that’s about all.
Serge Baudo
An alternative to the Wolff/Lamoureux recording exists in the form of a 1964 concert performance done by Serge Baudo with the ORTF Orchestra and broadcast over French National Radio. Although not much better in terms of sonics, it is a far more vivacious and engaging interpretation. The Baudo performance has been uploaded in combination with the score, which you can “see and hear” courtesy of Jean-Marie van Bronkhorst’s YouTube music channel:
Florent Schmitt completed his orchestration of all three rhapsodies in the 1920s. Curiously, when Durand published the orchestral score the sequence of the movements had been changed, with Rapsodie viennoise now appearing first rather than last. (Collection Palazzetto Bru Zane)
Despite their sonic shortcomings, listening to these orchestral performances makes it clear that this music is well-worthy of resurrection in the modern era. Having paged through the instrumental score, I can report that all of the trademark aspects of Schmitt’s compositional style are present – most particularly the beguiling and highly colorful orchestration in the grandest Rimsky-Korsakov tradition.
A vintage copy of the instrumental parts for Florent Schmitt’s orchestrated version of Rapsodie viennoise, which the composer prepared in 1911.
Of the three rhapsodies, Viennoise is the one that gets an occasional airing in concert these days. It was performed by the late conductor Gianfranco Masini and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Montpellier in July 1991 — a performance which the newspaper Le Monde characterized as follows:
“[The piece] begins a bit in the Russian way — Mussorgsky genre — then follows with splendid Viennese waltzes à la Johann Strauss which also resonate with the polyphonic complexity of Richard Strauss, and ends with an astonishing prefiguration of Ravel’s La Valse … This virtuoso, opulent piece puts the musicians of an orchestra to the test — a test that the Montpellier players dispatched with their heads held high.”
Let’s take a trip back in time to the early 1900s. Florent Schmitt composes Rapsodie viennoise for two pianos in 1903-4 … Schmitt and Maurice Ravel perform duo-pianist works together in concert in Paris (and in London). Ravel begins his sketches for Vienne (La Valse) in 1905 … Schmitt orchestrates Rapsodie viennoise in 1911 … Ravel completes and orchestrates La Valse in 192o. Welcome to Paris, where everyone is influencing (and being influenced by) everyone else.
Most recently, Jacques Lacombe and the Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse performed the Viennoise as part of their 2020 New Year’s Concert program. (Over the years, it’s notable how often the Rapsodie viennoise has appeared on New Year’s concert programs … as well as paired with Ravel’s La Valse.)
Moreover, several other conductors I know have considered programming Rapsodie viennoise, but that continues to leave the other two rhapsodies as the odd ones out. Here’s hoping that several of Schmitt’s more ardent advocates will redress this situation in the coming years – perhaps conductors Yan-Pascal Tortelier, Alain Altinoglu, JoAnn Falletta, Sascha Goetzel, Fabien Gabel, Jean-Luc Tingaud, Lionel Bringuier or Stéphane Denève will step up to the podium and make the premiere recording. Who’s game for it?
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Update (3/5/19): The Casadesus duo’s premiere recording of Florent Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies has finally been released in CD format featuring a remastering from the 1956 session tapes.
It is part of a collector’s edition set of 65 CDs released by Sony that encompasses all of Robert Casadesus’ recordings for Columbia Masterworks, as well as his Columbia recordings of duo- and triple-pianist works with wife Gaby and son Jean.
The Sony set features original jacket artwork, including the LP release of the Schmitt material (see above) that also contains the piano four-hand suite Une Semaine du petit elfe Ferme-l’oeil. The set is well-worth acquiring.
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Pianists Gwendolyn Mok and Jeffrey LeDeur in recital.
Update (9/1/24): Florent Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies has a new champion in the duo-piano team of Gwendolyn Mok and Jeffrey LeDeur. The piece was the pianists’ concluding selection in the final concert of the 7th Annual San Francisco International Piano Festival, presented at Old First Presbyterian Church.
The all-French program, which included works by Rameau, Fauré and Debussy in addition to Schmitt, was live-streamed to YouTube and can be viewed here:
The performance of the Schmitt rhapsodies begins at approximately minute-marker 1:31:00. Viewing it, I think you will agree that Mok and LeDeur deliver all of the panache and flair that this technically challenging — and endlessly fascinating — score by Florent Schmitt deserves. Simply put, it’s a thrilling performance, and the performers themselves sensed it as well. As pianist Jeffrey LeDeur said afterwards, “We had a blast with the Rapsodies and certainly look forward to playing them again.”
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Pianists Brian Hsu and Genevieve Fei-wen Lee at Garth Newel Music Center (August 2025).
Update (8/17/25): Two of Florent Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies — Polonaise and Viennoise — were presented in concert at Garth Newel Music Center in Hot Springs, Virginia by duo-pianists Genevieve Fei-wen Lee and Brian Hsu. Their performance was part of a concert titled “Rhapsodic” that also contained works by Liszt and Ravel.
I was present at this event and can personally attest to the fine quality of the interpretation of the Schmitt rhapsodies. The concert was livestreamed for the benefit of music-lovers who were unable to be present. The Schmitt rhapsodies can be viewed in this YouTube upload; the music begins at approximately minute-marker 3:30.
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