Members of the Prisma String Trio talk about preparing, performing and recording Florent Schmitt’s endlessly fascinating Trio à cordes (1944).

It was a dream come true for the three Prisma musicians, who prepared for nearly a decade before venturing into the recording hall to document their interpretation of Florent Schmitt’s stunning creation: “a string trio with sextet ambitions.”  “It’s everything about human life: It’s about happiness, it’s about madness, it’s about freedom. All of it […]

Albert Gleizes, Florent Schmitt, and Le Chant de guerre (1914-15).

The pioneering Cubist artist and the forward-looking composer — kindred spirits in their disdain for the “conventional” in the arts — are forever linked by an iconic painting. In 2012, the French postal service issued a stamp portraying a 1915 painting by the French Cubist artist, theoretician and philosopher Albert Gleizes titled Le Chant de […]

Musicians of the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra talk about discovering Florent Schmitt’s Quartet for Trombones and Tuba (1946) and preparing it for performance.

Late last year, several clips quietly appeared on Facebook — each of them featuring a movement from Florent Schmitt’s Quartet for Trombones and Tuba, Opus 109, a fascinating piece that the composer created in 1946. This quartet is a composition that, despite its creativity and inventiveness, remains one of the least-known of Schmitt’s scores.  Indeed, […]