“I’d never before seen a score as mind-blowing as the Symphonie concertante …” 

— Yan Pascal Tortelier, Conductor Emeritus, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

In late October 2025, veteran director Yan Pascal Tortelier, joined by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra of which he is the conductor emeritus, as well as pianist Peter Donohoe, recorded a program for Chandos Records of four Florent Schmitt works composed between the years of 1929 to 1938. I was privileged to be a witness to those recording sessions, which were notable not only for the significance of the music being showcased, but also the consummate artistry of the performers.

The centerpiece of the program’s repertoire was only the second commercial recording ever made of Schmitt’s blockbuster Symphonie concertante pour orchestre et piano, Op. 82, a work that was written for the 50^th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its then-music director, Serge Koussevitzky.

Schmitt and Koussevitzky had become acquaintances beginning with the arrival of the Russian conductor to France’s capital city in the early 1920s. Koussevitzky had already programmed a number of Schmitt’s compositions in his concerts in Paris and in Boston – among them Psaume XLVII, La Tragédie de Salomé, Rêves and others.

Florent Schmitt himself was the piano soloist at the Boston Symphony’s premiere performances of the Symphonie concertante in late November 1932, undertaking his only journey to United States for the occasion. (Schmitt would also take the opportunity to perform several of his compositions on tour across a number of key additional American cultural centers in late 1932 and early 1933 – among them New York City, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles – while completing his circumnavigational world tour with appearances in Hawaii, Japan and the Soviet Union.)

As the full title of Schmitt’s piece indicates, the piece isn’t an actual piano concerto with orchestra, but rather a symphony with the piano playing a complementary role. As the British author and music critic Lionel Salter once noted about its title, “The order [“orchestra and piano”] is significant, since although the keyboard part … is of great complexity and difficulty, its role is that only of a first among equals.”

History records that the premiere performances of Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante came as something of a shock to the relatively conservative Boston audience. Likewise, some of the critics who reported on the two Boston performances were taken aback by the modernity of the music – including some who were already familiar with Schmitt’s better-known works such as the Psaume and Salomé. As one representative example, a review published in the November 26, 1932 issue of the Christian Science Monitor noted:

“The Symphonie concertante is perhaps best described as cosmopolitan, or international. It reveals fellowship not only with Wagner and Debussy, but with Ravel, with Honegger, with Stravinsky — and with Mossolov. This is not to say that  the score is imitative; it is too cerebral for that …

The work was rather coolly received by the Friday afternoon subscribers, but Mr. Schmitt need not feel too badly over that. A work so strictly intellectual and so free from any ingratiating elements does not easily appeal to an audience on first hearing. There is a lyric element in the slow movement, together with some of the enchanting atmosphere which we have come to consider distinctly ‘French’; but the first and last movements are uncompromising in their dissonance and their violence. The last movement in particular contains rhythms which seem more complicated than Stravinsky’s own …

This difficult score was played with the greatest virtuosity by the orchestra, which was justly called upon by the conductor to share the applause which an enthusiastic minority persisted in at the close.”

A second critic, Grace May Stutsman, commented particularly on the extreme difficulty of the score, writing in her December 10, 1932 review for Musical America magazine:

This [second] movement evoked sincere applause from an audience which, for the most part, found its keenest pleasure in the extreme virtuosity of Dr. Koussevitzky and his men, who do not deny that in this work, dedicated to them, Mr. Schmitt has supplied the most difficult score they have yet undertaken.” 

From our vantage point nearly a century later, while the music of the Symphonie concertante no longer shocks — and indeed seems much easier to understand and to appreciate — some aspects of the initial critical and audience reactions to the work continue to ring true, at least in part. Yan Pascal Tortelier reveals as much when he describes becoming first acquainted with the music:

“I was immediately fascinated by this score — and not a little overwhelmed by its power, intricacies and complexities. In fact, I’d never before seen a score as mind-blowing as this one. In this kind of monster work, the wealth and breadth of ideas — along with the abundance of schemes and features with all their developments — make great demands not only on the pianist, but on every player in the orchestra as well.”

Maestro Tortelier’s familiarity with the score dates from 2022, one year before presenting the work with Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra on Valentine’s Day in February 2023. “I prepared as I have never prepared before,” Tortelier admits, noting that he studied the score for more than a full year before presenting it in concert:

“I pride myself in taking the time to properly hear every note and detail of a score in my head without the support of recordings. What I like to do in studying scores is to alternate ‘weeks on/weeks off,’ and through that process dig always deeper until the musical content emerges from the page to my ears in the most organic way possible.

In works as challenging as the Symphonie concertante by Florent Schmitt, to extricate and synthesize mentally such a profusion of ideas, schemes, devices and developments certainly takes a long time …”

Maestro Tortelier has continued to study the music intently in the months and years since the Tokyo presentation, culminating in making the recording of the work for Chandos this past October.

During my conversations with the maestro during the week of rehearsals and recording, I asked if he would be willing to share his analytical thoughts on the Symphonie concertante, based on his deep familiarity with the score. Shortly thereafter the conductor responded by providing an analysis of the music, prepared in a spontaneous style similar to how he has presented pre-concert discussions on diverse works such as Debussy’s La Mer, Dutilleux’s Métaboles, Vaughan Wiilliams’ Fourth Symphony, and his own orchestration of Ravel’s Trio.

Maestro Tortelier’s insightful analysis of the three movements that make up the Symphonie concertante is presented in its entirety below:

A Journey Into Florent Schmitt’s Symphonie concertante

          By:  Yan Pascal Tortelier

First movement: Assez animé

Right from the beginning, Florent Schmitt sets the tone with a thunderous second beat and motoring ternary pulse from the piano, introducing immediately his urgent and dual first subject: basses in menacing chromatic syncopations and a powerfully surging figure, forcibly exchanged again and again between the full orchestra and piano.

Curiously, after this first statement there follows a totally offhand and abortive scherzando, but the music from the beginning of the movement restarts with the motoring triplets – this time given over to horns, woodwinds and trumpets. No sooner played, the powerful surging figure finds itself metamorphosed into an expressive variant (à l’aise), recurrently shared between keyboard and violins, and still punctuated by tuba and trombones on the chromatic syncopations.

The “authentic” main second subject will nevertheless appear by way of a quick buildup and a lovely bridge, modulating subtly via beautiful and undulating violins and celesta. This magnificent and generous new subject (some twenty bars long) is again given to the piano solo, supported by sultry, sophisticated harmonies from the muted strings – a revealing side of Schmitt’s uncommon gift for great lines and counterpoint. This superb and lyrical gesture will reappear three times throughout the movement.

The exposition of the thematic material concludes by way of short fanfare calls and a glorious general downward arpeggio in D major, though surprisingly landing instead in G major with a vaporescent flourish from the violin solo.

After a brief and spectacular exchange of abrasive calls from the brass in contention with velocity traits from the keyboard, we now reach the development of the dual original ideas, which is reintroduced by successive exchanges between the strings, piano and added drums. Then all of a sudden we hear anew the bouncy little scherzando motiv. This time it will develop in ostinato (obstinately) against the melodious second subject.

This central section leads, via a quick climax of horn calls, to an entire re-exposition that goes through various guises like bass clarinet, brass and strings on the chromatic syncopations and followed soon by the expressive variant (à l’aise), now taken each time by hearty violas. They will share it again not only with violins and piano, but even two trombones on the same motiv, yet at slower speed.

But the best is yet to come with the resurgence of the wonderful melodic second subject – this time played by solo violin and cello and brilliantly extended to 43 bars. With this buildup, at last comes a point of no return where Florent Schmitt manages a gradual and tonal progression of the music, using all of the means at his disposal to burst into a magistral C major fanfare. There follows an E-major peroration of two solo trumpets shouting triumphally the second subject on top of the entire orchestra, before plunging abruptly into a G-minor ending.

Altogether, it could be said that from beginning to end, this brilliantly inventive movement alternates between primal ruggedness and lyrical power.

Second movement: Lent

In the second movement, Schmitt draws many personal touches from his fertile imagination. The use of suspended quavers alternating in semi-tone octaves between the two hands on the piano, along with violin trills and light percussion (cymbals and triangle), creates an eerie atmosphere right from the beginning.

Soon the English horn plus a stopped third horn enter with a sharp figure (in a similar way as Debussy’s opening of «Nuages» from his Nocturnes, even if in a more assertive way). Single woodwinds respond in turn, forming a motiv landing on a somber chord of muted horns, contrabassoon, bass drum and pizzicati basses.

Repeated at once and then taken over by mysterious clusters of dissonant strings, the sequence moves slowly, as if frozen, towards a most expressive solo oboe (and cymbal antique), which sings a plaintive chant (a kind of melopoeia); it is a wonderful Schmittian feature found also in his La Tragédie de Salomé and the «Lied-Nocturne» movement from Çançunik.

In a subsidiary passage, the piano solo embarks on a somewhat Schönbergian discourse. This is echoed, at times, by eloquent strings and is eventually joined by full orchestral strength for an early appassionato climax, followed by a short recapitulation of the mysterious beginning.

At this point in the Symphonie concertante, it is quite astounding to think of Florent Schmitt’s individuality and wealth of inspiration – as well as his mastery in framing ideas altogether. In the heart of this slow movement we discover a choral-like phrase – first introduced by noble horns, then played by trumpets, strings, piano and gradually by the whole orchestra – all in mounting expression leading to a truly terrifying climax. There, the master orchestrator uses drums, xylophone and piano to hammer a deadly rhythmical pattern on which fortissimo brass plus woodwinds restate the original sharp figure played by the English horn solo at the beginning.

This climactic outburst is duplicated a semi-tone higher, both times augmented by thunderous entries of deep basses, piano and lower woodwinds cut short by the bass drum. At its peak, two solo trombones reappear by playing once more the choral motif en dehors (brought out). Very rarely is such force attained in music!

Fortunately, the terror will subside into a recapitulation of the Schönbergian passage, and after the oboe solo returns with a reminiscence of the melopoeia (the end of which is admirably given to  muted trumpet and clarinet), the music fades away in an ethereal F-sharp minor (piano, harp, celesta).

Third movement:  Animé

The final movement of the Symphonie concertante presents an orchestral tour de force, demonstrating once again the ingenious compositional mind of Florent Schmitt.

The tempo (“animated”) is an understatement considering the velocity of what is to come – there are actually too many devices to enumerate here – but its structure is based on two distinct musical aspects which connect throughout the finale: a scherzo-like phrase turning into a heavy dance, and an odd parodic march plus fanfares followed by a complete recapitulation at the midpoint of the movement.

The very unusual metric of 8-8 — that is, 3+2+3 as in the first movement of Ravel’s Trio, but played much faster — makes it all the more challenging for the musicians who are assiduously counting. (Bear in mind that the speed of the quaver goes beyond metronomic marks!) Yet the composer is abundantly distributing his orchestration over the numerous instruments — who intervene sometimes for a single bar only! Fortunately, the conductor should secure a limping three-beat pattern which eventually takes on an organic character.

The whole scherzo section is  deliberately virtuosic, speedy, and extremely difficult to keep cohesive. But heavy percussion comes to the rescue for the subsequent wild dance.

Heraldic trumpets serve as a transition as we embark on a long urgent march, starting with pizzicati double basses. The march motiv begins to build with premises of fanfare, all the way to a martial midpoint climax revealing the power of the full orchestra.

There follows the complete recapitulation of all features — reappearing sometimes in enhanced ways with different instrumentation. The initial scherzo is re-exposed in a fugal form by bassoon and oboe solo, while in the second occurrence of the fanfares, the initiative is given to the piano in a flamboyant C major, in which Schmitt is even indulging in an incredible further step of modulation. Thus the orchestra is shown in all its splendor.

Only a brief recall of all the main features separates us from the thrilling concluding bars of the movement, which in its frenetic way symbolizes the intense duality between the orchestra and piano that is present all throughout this amazing composition.

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To be sure, no analysis can take the place of hearing the music itself. And for listeners who know and love the piano artistry of Peter Donohoe as well as Yan Pascal Tortelier’s fresh and idiomatic way with the orchestral masterpieces of France’s Golden Age of music, the wait will be over in the fall of 2026 when the new Chandos recording – which also features premiere recordings of three other Schmitt orchestral works composed between 1929 and 1938 – is scheduled for release.

Details about the new recording and its release date will be provided as soon as the information becomes available.