Florent Schmitt in 1957. (Photo: René Pari)

When Florent Schmitt passed away in August 1958 at the age of nearly 88 years, the noted composer Henri Dutilleux penned this memorable epitaph about his older compatriot’s significance to French music:

“Florent Schmitt was the last of that great family to which Ravel, Dukas, and Roussel belonged. He remains one of them who, by a happy assimilation of German and Central European influences, recalled the French school to certain notions of grandeur.”

Florent Schmitt (l.) and Igor Stravinsky at a social function at the American Embassy in Paris (1957). Vera de Bosset Sudeikine Stravinsky is pictured at left, and Henri Dutilleux is standing back-to-camera between the two older composers.

Dutilleux was just one of many of Schmitt’s fellow countrymen who recognized his contributions to classical music. In the days following his death, posthumous tributes appeared in nearly all major French newspapers and magazines. Among the more notable ones were those written by eminent musicologists, critics and authors Bernard Gavoty, René Dumesnil, Claude Baignères and Antoine Goléa – as well as Yves Hucher, who had penned  a biography of Florent Schmitt in 1953.

Across the English Channel, a music journalist who contributed his own tribute was the English composer and author Norman Demuth, whose article about Florent Schmitt was published in the October 1958 issue of The Musical Times.

Norman Demuth, who lived from 1898 to 1968, was largely self-taught in music despite having a short stint as a student at the Royal College of Music. Demuth was an organist and choral conductor in various London churches and produced a number of early compositions, including the Selsey Rhapsody that was premiered in 1925 by the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult.

Gordon Langford (1930-2017)

From the 1930s on Demuth taught at the Royal Academy of Music and later at the University of Durham, where his most prominent pupil was Gordon Langford.

Demuth continued to compose prolifically throughout his life, producing nine symphonies between 1930 and 1957, six operas, plus numerous ballets, concerti and overtures – and even works for military band. His compositions have not had staying power, possibly due to certain shortcomings that were noted in contemporaneous reviews of public performances. A representative example was music lecturer and critic Hugh Ottaway’s characterization of Demuth’s Viola Concerto, composed in 1951 and premiered in 1956. About this concerto Ottaway wrote:

“Designed in two linked sections – one slowish, the other quick – it made an impression through its capable workmanship and sense of purpose but did not offer much of imaginative distinction. A certain monotony of rhythm and texture was acutely felt, especially in the opening section which is a rather busy meditation whose concertante viola part is inclined to fuss and fidget.”

Norman DeMuth penned two biographies of French composers in 1947 — Albert Roussel (pictured) and Maurice Ravel. Later books authored by DeMuth included volumes on César Franck, Charles Gounod and Vincent d’Indy.

As a musicologist and author, Demuth’s sympathies lay clearly with French music. In 1947 he published two books on the music of Maurice Ravel and Albert Roussel, which were followed in due course by volumes on César Franck, Charles Gounod and Vincent d’Indy.

Demuth also authored books on French piano music and French opera. Tellingly, his 1952 book Musical Trends in the Twentieth Century exhibited a clear bias in favor of French music, whereas his judgments on German and American music were largely unsympathetic. This drew criticism from Austrian-born British musician Hans Keller in a book review published in Tempo magazine, wherein Keller called out the author’s “hostility towards Teutonic music” and contended that “Mr. Demuth’s all-too-transparent personal prejudices come into play.”

Tellingly, Demuth’s French music preferences are on full display in his 1958 posthumous tribute to Florent Schmitt, where his deep knowledge and appreciation of French music make his observations about Schmitt’s artistry insightful.

Norman Demuth’s tribute, which appeared in the October 1958 edition of The Musical Times, is reproduced below in its entirety:

FLORENT SCHMITT, who died at [the American Hospital in] Neuilly-sur-Seine on 17 August at the age of eighty-eight, was a pupil of Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire, winning the Prix de Rome in 1900. Apart from two years (1922-24) as Director of the Conservatoire at Lyon, he held no official position, but for many years he served on various musical committees in Paris and presided over the Advisory Committee of the French Radio for some time. He was a Member of the Institut de France (Académie des Beaux Arts) and at one time wrote pungent musical criticism for the Revue de France and later for Le Temps. His compositions covered almost every field and are remarkable for their strength and logic.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869). Norman Demuth wasn’t the only person to see a throughline from Berlioz to Florent Schmitt: At the time of the 1906 premiere of his Psaume XLVII, Schmitt was hailed as “The New Berlioz” in the Parisian press.

Schmitt was one of the first composers to write under the influence of Berlioz. His setting of Psalm XLVII is Berliozian in all its aspects. This work, composed as an envoi from Rome, was a remarkable achievement for a fairly young man. It drew attention from other works equally valuable but not so immediately attractive. In England he is best known for La Tragédie de Salomé, a dramatic ballet whose boldness and vivid color have somewhat obliterated recognition of other works in some ways superior: Antoine et Cléopatre, Le Palais hanté, and, above all, the Symphonie concertante for piano and orchestra.

Schmitt took his time over everything he wrote; consequently his serious large-scale works are of great length. His Piano Quintet, for example, written in 1901-8, plays for [fifty-five] minutes, and the six-movement Antoine et Cléopatre for [forty-eight]. Even the Sonate libre en deux parties enchainées [for violin and piano] lasts twenty-six minutes. However, there is nothing long-winded about these or other similarly proportioned works because the material was all taken to its logical conclusion. From this point of view Schmitt was outstanding in the first two decades of the century, and his example is being followed to an ever-increasing extent by jeune France.

Schmitt was always in the avant-garde and championed many advanced composers vociferously and violently on their initial appearances before hostile audiences in Paris. On the other hand, he was discriminating, and anything which struck him as artificial or insincere came in for an equal amount of abuse. La Tragédie de Salomé contains many of the then novel rhythmic features and patterns which made Le Sacre so notable. It may be said that his Symphonie Concertante, completed in 1931 [sic], equates [to] the kind of music Milhaud has written in his large-scale symphonies. This may indicate how much in advance of modern ideas Schmitt actually was.

Florent Schmitt biographies (l.-r.): Hucher (1953), Ferroud (1926), Lorent (2002).

In 1924 his opus numbers reached 129 — I quote this from the study written by Yves Hucher. Since then the numbers have increased and what was probably his last work, a symphony, was played with great success in August of this year. It is to be expected that in a catalogue of this size there is a certain amount which lacks interest and is, indeed, somewhat pointless. Schmitt was whimsical as well as cynical, and a lot of this whimsy found its way into his shorter works and pieces; but even these have their places in the panorama of French music.

Florent Schmitt (l.) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (r.), photographed in London in 1956. Schmitt and Vaughan Williams had been friends since before the First World War. Both composers died within days of each other in August 1958.

The surprising thing is that none of Schmitt’s early works have become dated, as have those of so many of his contemporaries. This is because his aesthetics were not founded upon musically-mannered composers, his inheritance coming from a French composer whose individuality and outlook lay in general rather than in particular. There is nothing ‘ Wagnerian’ about Schmitt’s music; it is ‘Berliozian’.

Schmitt was a great traveler, and at the beginning of this year undertook what he called ‘a little trip’ to Japan. He was the doyen of French music.

— Norman Demuth, The Musical Times, October 1958

Not surprisingly, the October 1958 cover for The Musical Times featured tributes to the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, who had passed away on August 26, 1958 — just nine days following Florent Schmitt’s death.