Live concert performances of Florent Schmitt’s monumental Piano Quintet, Op. 51 (1902-08) may be an uncommon occurrence, but they’re always a cause for celebration.

The most recent presentation of this stunning product of France’s “Golden Age” of music occurred at Toppan Hall in Tokyo, Japan on April 30, 2026. The performance featured pianist Tomoki Sakata joined by the Yomikyo Ensemble — a group made up of first-chair (solo-class) members of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra (violinists Nao Tohara and Tetsuo Tsushima, violist Yasuhiro Suzuki and cellist Mari Endo).

In addition to the Piano Quintet, the program featured the Japanese premiere performance of the 1898 Suite sur des chantes bretons for piano trio by Jean Huré, a near-contemporary of Florent Schmitt.

Pianist Sakata has been a major advocate for Florent Schmitt’s piano music for a number of years now — most notably presenting the Symphonie concertante pour orchestre et piano in February 2023 with French conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier leading the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. The pianist also keeps several of Schmitt’s solo and duet/duo piano compositions in his recital repertoire.

In March 2025, Sakata and the Yomikyo Ensemble also presented another composition by Schmitt’s — his 1943 work Hasards for violin, viola, cello and piano. Both the 2025 and 2026 concerts were part of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra’s concert series, which includes chamber music events in addition to full symphony orchestra concerts.

The 2026 live presentation of Florent Schmitt’s Piano Quintet was clearly a drawing card for many Japanese music-lovers. One such audience member who traveled nearly 500 kms from Kanazawa to Tokyo to attend the performance was Mario Ishiguro, who is a longtime French music devotee.

Mr. Ishiguro had done the same Tokyo travel to take in Tomoki Sakata’s Symphonie concertante performance in 2023, following which he wrote his impressions of that concert; those were published on the Florent Schmitt Website + Blog and can be read here.

This year as well, Mr. Ishiguro has been kind enough to share his Piano Quintet concert experience, and his informative review of the April 30th concert is presented below. (Note: The review has been translated from Japanese to English.)

On April 30th, I travelled from Kanazawa to Tokyo and headed to Toppan Hall – an auditorium which possesses among the best acoustics in all of Japan. I was there to attend a concert that proved the true sense of what “overwhelming power” in music can attain. 

The program was part of a chamber music series produced by pianist Tomoki Sakata. I regret that I couldn’t attend a similar French music program in 2025 that had featured first-chair members of the Yomiuri Japan Symphony Orchestra centered on Fauré, but this year composer Florent Schmitt’s stupendous Piano Quintet, Op. 51 was to be performed. 

Mr. Sakata and I have struck up a sometime-correspondence over the past few years, stemming from my review of his performance of Schmitt’s super-challenging Symphonie concertante pour orchestre et piano, Op.82 in 2023. What I’ve since discovered is Sakata’s formidable talent as an artist, his special depth of insight backed by broad knowledge, and his personality which is full of kindness and humor.

Furthermore, as students and custodians of music research, he and I share a deep affinity and respect for common hobbies, such as collecting historical audio sources, vintage music scores and musicians’ autographs. 

Jean Huré’s Suite sur des chants Bretons was featured in the first portion of the program. Few people may know the name of Huré, but for me, he is one of the composers I’ve been listening to since I first discovered the violin sonata repertoire. Mr. Sakata had informed me that he was also exploring Huré’s Piano Quintet, but for this concert a trio of musicians (violin, cello and piano) was a delicacy through which shone through the simple beauty of the French landscape – literally and figuratively. 

In this work, the characteristic “mysterious silence” and “intellectual meticulousness” of Huré were interwoven by the violin, cello and piano. Within the context of such limited musical means, Mr. Sakata’s pianism was extremely eloquent. 

After the 15-minute Huré piece, Florent Schmitt’s composition, which lasts nearly an hour, began. Schmitt’s Piano Quintet had been started in 1902 during the composer’s stay at Villa Medici after he had won the Prix de Rome first prize for composition in 1900. The work was finally completed after a concentrated writing period from 1905 to 1908, resulting in a great work unfolding over six years of effort. 

At the time of its premiere in 1909, critic Albert Groz wrote of the piece’s “huge scale, but compositional power that never bores you for a moment.” The composer Kaikhosru Sorabji, known for his acerbic tongue, praised Schmitt’s vast canvass, unrelated to the “elegance” so common in French music of the time – instead characterizing the composition as “Byzantine architecture with golden mosaics.” 

Importantly, the flavor of the Piano Quintet is in its “thickness of density.” There is so much sound that the piano part is often written on four staves. To my mind, rather than coming across like a  five-person performance, instead it is more like an orchestra. Moreover, tricky combinations of varied rhythms and beats makes it incredibly difficult for players. 

In his pre-concert talk, Mr. Sakata pointed out the similarity of Schmitt’s work to Franck’s Piano Quintet — but even Franck’s and Fauré’s quintets sound reserved and modest next to Schmitt’s. 

In his discussion, Sakata also quoted Schmitt describing “this work, presented to my teacher Gabriel Fauré, where I feel a will to overcome my teacher.” It was when I actually bathed myself in the sound of the performance immediately thereafter that I could truly understand the meaning of those words: While maintaining respect for the teacher, there is a ferocious energy and a thirst for new sounds that does not fit into the framework of traditional French music. 

I’ve heard the Piano Quintet in recordings that display skillful and solid musicianship, but this was the first time I had attended a live performance, and I could feel the breadth of the music as never before. The flash of sound, the passion, the intricately intertwining passages, the resistance and blending of the piano and strings, the memorable melodies – these were sprinkled in the natural flow of the music, and I could immerse myself in the excitement of surrendering to the magnificent sounds. 

What struck me even more is that Mr. Sakata and the Yomikyo string players brilliantly handled this difficult and monstrous work as if being a full-blown orchestral ensemble. Mr. Sakata’s piano never overwhelmed – no matter how many sounds overlapped – instead coexisting with equal parts pearl-like beauty and earthen heaviness. 

The serious look and motion of breathing with the string players was mightily impressive, too. The five musicians tackled the complex rhythms with aplomb even while molding Schmitt’s emotions, sometimes with gentleness and sometimes with stinging intensity. The melody, played by the unison by the strings – a Fauréan characteristic – exuded a symphony-like strength. The volume and heat of the music as it came together was absolutely incredible – and in the end, the dazzling performance didn’t make you feel like you’d heard an hour’s length of music. 

I applaud Mr. Sakata’s brilliant vision and courage in taking a spot on this unheralded masterpiece, which has had too few opportunities to be presented live – and then performing it at such an exalted level. The experience of being surrounded by such incredible sounds in the acoustically magnificent space of Toppan Hall is one that will remain with me for years to come. 

For an encore, pianist Sakata and the string players performed the Intermezzo movement from Charles Koechlin’s Primavera Quintet, Op. 156.

— Mario Ishiguro, May 1, 2026