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Florent Schmitt’s early art songs: A trove of treasures awaits rediscovery.

Phillip Nones
Florent Schmitt French composer

Florent Schmitt in his early years as a composer.

Recently, the INA archives (French National Radio and Television) has begun offering for download a memorial concert held in honor of Florent Schmitt.  The concert, which was broadcast in October 1958 two months following the composer’s death, has never been made available since its initial airing until now.

The memorial program featured five works by Schmitt including his two most famous compositions, Psalm 47 and La Tragédie de Salomé.  In addition, three “rarities” were presented — one of which was a short work for soprano and orchestra titled Musique sur l’eau (“Water Music”).

It is perhaps the most significant discovery on the program, even though the piece is barely five minutes in length.  But it opens up an entirely new realm of the composer’s work that has been untouched for decades — namely, his music for solo voice and piano/orchestra.

Albert Samain, French Symbolist Poet (1858-1900)

To realize what this trove of music might represent, let’s start by focusing on Musique sur l’eau.

The work dates from 1898 (although it wasn’t published until 1913).  It was inspired by a poem of Albert Samain (1858-1900), the French symbolist writer whose works were also set to music by other French composers such as Camille Saint-Saëns, Lili Boulanger and Jean Cras.

The words to the poem give clues as to the musical atmospherics Florent Schmitt would create for it.  The poem is presented below not in its original French, but in an English translation by Kevin Germain:

Oh! Listen to the symphony;
No softness like anguish
In the unlimitable euphony
Breathing in the vaporous distance;

The night, a langour intoxicates,
And delivers our heart
From the monotonous labor of living,
One dies a langourous death.

Let us slip between sky and wave,
Let us slip beneath the deepening moon;
All my heart, from the world away,
Takes refuge in thy eyes.

And I gaze at thy eyes
That swoon beneath the chanted tones,
Like two ghostly flowers
Under melodious rays.

Oh! Listen to the symphony;
No softness like anguish
Of the lips on lips, kiss
In the unlimitable euphony. . .

About this particular poem as well as other literary creations of Albert Samain, the American writer and poet Amy Lawrence Lowell made this insightful observation:

“These poems are as fragile as the golden crystals [Samain] speaks of.  What do they give us?  It is impossible to say.  A nuance … a colour … a vague magnificence.”

Régine Crespin, French Soprano (1927-2007)

Responding in kind, Florent Schmitt’s music is ravishingly beautiful; that is plain to hear by listening to the fine interpretation by the French soprano Régine Crespin in the 1958 memorial concert, accompanied by conductor Désiré Inghelbrecht and the French National Radio Orchestra (ORTF).

You can listen to this gorgeous music here — five minutes of sheer magic.  (A special “thank you” to Eric Butruille, a faithful reader of the Florent Schmitt blog, for preparing the high-res audio file.) 

Indeed, it is “water music” in the finest French tradition.

The first page of Florent Schmitt’s Musique sur l’eau, from the first edition of the published score by A. Z. Mathot (1913).

Florent Schmitt and fellow French composer Maurice Ravel made their U.K. performing debut in 1909 at London’s Bechstein (Wigmore) Hall, appearing in the very same program. They performed their own piano works and accompanied vocalists in selected chansons. Among the selections performed was Schmitt’s Musique sur l’eau.

The unexpected (and welcome) emergence of this ORTF “musical relic” from 60 years ago makes us eager to hear more from Schmitt in this vein. And in fact, a perusal of the composer’s catalogue of works reveals that Musique sur l’eau is hardly an isolated piece.

Indeed, Florent Schmitt produced numerous such chansons over a roughly 20-year period beginning in 1890.  And yet … it’s a part of his output that is barely known.  The question is: Why?

Perhaps one reason is because the early works of Schmitt, like those of many other composers, might be prone to reflect other musical influences rather than an “authentic” style.

That certainly seems to be the case when listening to Schmitt’s early work Soirs, Op. 5, a set of nocturnes composed for piano between 1890 and 1896 and also orchestrated by the composer.  It is easy to discern the influence of composers like Robert Schumann and Gabriel Fauré, Schmitt’s own teacher and mentor, in that work.

But in the Musique sur l’eau of 1898, we already hear elements of Schmitt’s own personal style, and the inventiveness of the score makes one wonder what other vocal gems await an intrepid explorer.

A 1923 Parisian program featuring chansons by Schmitt, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Caplet and Aubert, presented by soprano Marie France de Montaut.

Unfortunately, investigation isn’t easy, as very little if any if this output is available to audition.  Indeed, there are many early vocal works of Schmitt that have yet to receive their first commercial recording:

A vintage copy of the score to the second of Florent Schmitt’s Trois chansons, Op. 4. This piece was recorded by countertenor Philippe Jaroussky in a recording featuring songs set to words of Paul Verlaine (Erato, 2014).

Particularly intriguing is that Schmitt found his inspiration for these compositions in the poetry and words of leading French literary figures including:

The score for Florent Schmitt’s early chanson Les Barques, Op. 8, composed in 1897 and based on the poetry of Robert de Montesquiou. As with many of his vocal works, the composer would later orchestrate this piece.

Robert de Montesquiou (1855-1921), one of the poets whose words Florent Schmitt set to music, was also the indefatigable social champion of dancer and dramatic actress Ida Rubinstein, with whom Schmitt enjoyed a fruitful artistic association in the 1920s and 1930s.

What’s more, while Schmitt’s mélodies were originally written for voice and piano, he also orchestrated a goodly number of them.  Such was the case with Musique sur l’eau.  Knowing that information makes the prospect of investigating this repertoire even more appealing.

Researching U.S. press clippings from the post-World War I/interwar period reveals that Schmitt’s mélodies were taken up by a variety of American singers who included them in their recitals. Among those artists were Cecile Barbezat, Amy Ward Durfee, Agnes Flannery, Eva Gauthier, Ethel Grow, Charlotte Lund, Beatrice Mack, Jacqueline Rosial, Rita Sebastian and Mrs. A. Roberts Barker.

This announcement of a January 1923 benefit recital presented at the Plaza Hotel in New York City by American contralto Ethel Grow appeared in the Christian Science Monitor. Note the inclusion of Florent Schmitt’s Trois mélodies, Op. 4 on the program.

In his later years, Schmitt would continue to compose works for solo voice and piano (and orchestral versions of them as well). Examples such as Trois chants, Op. 98 and Quatre poèmes de Ronsard, Op. 100 from the early 1940s — both of which were commercially recorded by the Roumanian-American soprano Yolanda Marcoulescou in the 1970s — underscore the fact that Schmitt’s writing for voice remained idiomatic and inventive over many decades.

Florent Schmitt: Kérob-Shal, Op. 67 (1920-24)

Numerous other chansons from Schmitt’s more daring “middle period” of composition, such as the three pieces that make up Kérob-Shal, Op. 67, have yet to receive their first recordings as well.

Speaking of Schmitt’s later songs, the great French soprano Claire Croiza acknowledged their challenging nature, remarking:

Claire Croiza (1882-1946), championed the vocal music of French composers such as Roussel, Honegger, Milhaud … and Florent Schmitt. (1934 photo)

“It’s as though someone said to you: ‘Throw yourself from a fourth floor window — and mind you, fall gracefully.'”

While I wouldn’t want to be without any of Schmitt’s endlessly fascinating pieces for voice, to my mind, it is the early works that beckon most invitingly. The Musique sur l’eau gives us a tantalizing foretaste of what splendors await exploration. Hopefully we won’t have to wait much longer to find out the treasures that are in store for us.

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Update (8/1/20):  Florent Schmitt’s 150th birthday anniversary year is being marked by several important new releases — among them the first-ever recording 100% devoted to the composer’s vocal works.

Contained in the new release are world premiere recordings of three vocal sets:

The new recording, released on the Resonus Classics label, features a quartet of fine singers and is well-worth hearing.  It is available for purchase from online music sites worldwide as well as on the Resonus Classics website.

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Update (11/12/20):  At long last, Florent Schmitt’s Musique sur l’eau has received its first-ever commercial recording — and it’s a beautiful one featuring the Canadian mezzo-soprano Susan Platts along with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta.

Among the many accolades the premiere recording has received, BBC Music Magazine called the music and the performance “utterly gorgeous,” while writing in the pages of Fanfare magazine, music critic Steven Kruger characterized the piece as “a dreamy song, beautifully rendered by Susan Platts without artifice or exaggerated vibrato, [that] can take its worthy place next to Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer in loveliness if not in length.”

For those who would like to follow along with the score, the Platts/Falletta recording has been uploaded to YouTube accompanied by the piano score. It can be viewed here.

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