“It is one of the most important recordings of my entire career.”

— Yan Pascal Tortelier, French conductor

In late October 2025, I had the privilege of being invited to Manchester, UK to observe the recording of a program of mid-career orchestral works by Florent Schmitt (composed between 1929 and 1938), featuring the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of its conductor emeritus, Yan Pascal Tortelier.

It was a memorable week of activities that began with two days of rehearsals followed by two days of recording — the first day of which featured the esteemed English pianist Peter Donohoe in Schmitt’s incredible Symphonie concertante pour orchestra et piano, Op. 82.

I have known Yan Pascal Tortelier for more than a dozen years. Our first meeting was in 2011, backstage at the Todd Performing Arts Center at Chesapeake College on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where Maestro Tortelier was leading the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in music of Mozart, Elgar and Sibelius in one of the BSO’s provincial run-out concerts.

My meeting with the conductor and his wife occurred in a walk-in closet filled with brooms, mops and maintenance supplies – a space that also served as an ersatz dressing room for the maestro. It was the same year as the release of Tortelier’s Chandos CD featuring three of Schmitt’s early-career masterpieces: Psaume XLVII, La Tragédie de Salomé and Le Palais hanté.

In addition to generously inscribing the CD booklet from my copy of the Schmitt recording, the maestro talked about his passion for the music, which he had first encountered as a young violin student at the Paris Conservatoire, playing in orchestral concerts led by Manuel Rosenthal.

Our cordial conversation had to be cut short to allow the buses carrying Tortelier and the musicians to make the late-night trip back to Baltimore, but I remained in touch with the maestro in the ensuing years.

A decade following our first meeting, Maestro Tortelier revealed that he had begun studying the score to Schmitt’s blockbuster showstopper Symphonie concertante pour orchestre et piano, which he planned to present in concert in Tokyo in 2023 joined by Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata. It was the conductor’s fervent wish to be able to record this brilliant (and very challenging) piece of music as well.

When those recording plans began to firm up in 2024, Maestro Tortelier reached out to me again in order to solicit my suggestions for additional repertoire items to include on the program. He was particularly interested in recording additional pieces written during Schmitt’s mid-career period.

After consideration of a number of options I presented to him, the program was finalized as follows:

• Symphonie concertante pour orchestre et piano, Op. 82, written in 1931-32 for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra … premiered in November 1932 in Boston by the BSO under the direction of Serge Koussevitzky, with the composer at the piano.

• Trois danses, Op. 86, Schmitt’s 1938 orchestration of a piano suite dating from 1935 … premiered by Paul Paray and the Colonne Concerts Orchestra in February 1939.

• Stèle pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas, from Chaine brisée, Op. 87, Schmitt’s 1938 orchestration of a piano piece written in memory of Dukas, originally published in a 1936 commemorative issue of La Revue musicale. The orchestrated version was premiered in December 1938 by Charles Munch leading the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. The score and parts were in Maestro Munch’s private papers that are housed today at the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection in Philadelphia, PA.

• Çançunik, Op. 79, a two-movement suite composed in 1929 in response to TSF Paris-Radio’s call for new classical scores written expressly for radio broadcast … and which received its concert hall premiere in February 1930 at the Concerts Poulet in Paris under the direction of its founding conductor, Gaston Poulet.

The new recording will be only the second time that the Symphonie concertante has been commercially recorded, while the other three items are recording premieres. Attending the recording sessions in Manchester, it quickly became apparent that Yan Pascal Tortelier was ideally suited to lead the program, in that he has captured the artistic essence of Florent Schmitt in ways that are subtle and at the same time massively significant.

All three premieres are important new additions to the Schmitt discography of orchestral music. Each of them employs the sumptuous orchestration treatments that are so customary with Schmitt — gleaming pages of music drenched with atmosphere. All the trademark Schmittian touches are in evidence – gorgeous melodies dressed in glistening instrumental garb, with wonderful instrumental passages punctuated by little splashes of color. The writing is endlessly fascinating as Schmitt takes each musical line or phrase and turns it into its own special adventure.

Maestro Tortelier’s interpretation of the Symphonie concertante is sure to come as a revelation even to listeners who think they know this work well. The conductor’s intensive examination of the score over the past three years has resulted in possessing a solid understanding of the complexity of Schmitt’s writing. It’s clearly evident that Tortelier and pianist Peter Donohoe were in complete agreement over how the piano integrates with the orchestral tapestry.  More broadly, it was impressive to witness how the maestro was able to work his magic to produce the sounds that he intended — almost a form of alchemy.

In this regard, Tortelier was aided by a stellar production team made up of personnel from the BBC and Chandos Records. The team included Jonathan Cooper (Chandos Producer and Audio Editor) along with Stephen Rinker (BBC Senior Technical Producer), Jonathan Esp (BBC Assistant Technical Producer) and Dan Carney (piano technician). Seasoned professionals all, they ensured that the music created by Tortelier, Donohoe and the BBC Philharmonic players was faithfully captured by the microphones.

With more than 200 audio takes captured over the two days, the finished recording will no doubt be of exceptional quality, both from an artistic as well as a sound engineering standpoint.

In addition to attending the recording sessions, during my visit to Manchester I was able to spend some time with Maestro Tortelier, which gave me the chance to ask him about the Schmitt recording project and what it means to him. He responded by saying:

“Making recordings is stressful, because there is such a responsibility in putting music out there that will be heard and talked about forever. In the case of Florent Schmitt, it is even more of a responsibility because you are advocating for a composer who is not as well-known as he should be. 

The term ‘advocating’ for Florent Schmitt is appropriate, because when you realize the richness and genius of his output, the reward is clearly there. It’s immensely rewarding to get the reaction of the orchestra.

In the case of such a sophisticated composer as Schmitt, it’s new music to the players and it’s difficult for them to know exactly how to handle it and to perform it. It was my job to put everything in place – like a puzzle. When you start, you have 10,000 little pieces, and the goal is to create the overall picture that the composer intended. If I may be so bold to say it, I think that Schmitt would be happy with the music that we have made here this week.”

Tortelier went on to explain that this recording project was his first time working with Chandos producer Jonathan Cooper, noting:

“For months I knew that I was going to have strictly two recording sessions to realize the musical monument that is the Symphonie concertante. Somehow we had to make it work within that one day of two sessions. 

It is a piece that is so demanding for everybody. But I am fortunate that I knew the score so well. I prepared myself as never before, and I knew the music inside out. You can say generally that the more you possess the music, the more the music possesses you – and that was certainly the case here. 

It’s very fortunate that we had a fine producer who was holding the leash – and he did it brilliantly. He kept me feeling comfortable with the sessions as they evolved because he was so much in control.

Some conductors are better at planning the music, the duration of takes, and knowing how to handle everything within the time constraints. I’m not terribly good at this; on some very tricky passages we may have to try three or four or even five times to get it just right, and all that takes time. It’s difficult for me because I am passionate about all I do — to the point that I sometimes lose the sense of time completely! In the case of Jonathan [Cooper], we were in good hands.”

Tortelier expressed gratitude that he was able to make this new Schmitt recording with the BBC Philharmonic — an orchestra with which he has been associated for nearly four decades:

“I have known this orchestra for 35 years. There have been changes in personnel over that time, but it is wonderful that what I established many years ago as their principal conductor is still present today, decades later. This makes it so much easier when recording works like Symphonie concertante and the Schmitt premieres. Knowing the orchestra and its personnel puts you that much closer to producing a recording that is as close to perfect as you can get, according to your desiderata and your sentiments about the music.

When you know that you’re going to be working with players who have sympathy and respect for you, it’s very encouraging — and it makes such a difference in achieving the goal of an exceptional recording.”

Perhaps the most surprising revelation from Maestro Tortelier – a conductor who has made so many recordings of French music over the decades – is how the new Florent Schmitt recording measures up in terms of its significance to him. As he remarked to me:

“I’ve been looking forward to these sessions immensely, because the music of Florent Schmitt is of such stature. He had such an incredible brain for composition, and the orchestration is both clever and ingenious. It’s been one of the greatest challenges in my life to record these pieces. As I approach 80 years, I can tell you that it is one of the most important recordings of my entire career.”

But the story doesn’t end there. Maestro Tortelier informed me that he now considers himself a confirmed “Schmittomaniac,” and he is interested in exploring more neglected gems from the Schmitt catalogue to perform and record.

It’s a tantalizing prospect indeed … but in the meantime we can look forward to his new Chandos recording, which is scheduled to be released by the label in fall 2026. Schmitt aficionados the world over will be waiting with anticipation.