In April 2017, the Delaware-based chamber group Mélomanie presented Florent Schmitt’s Sonatine en trio, Opus 85, an intimate and engaging piece for flute, clarinet and harpsichord the composer created in 1935. The Schmitt Sonatine was part of a fascinating program that featured seven works stretching from the 1600s (Marin Marais) through to contemporary pieces by Nicolas Bacri, Shulamit […]
Category Archives: Chamber Music
In March 2017, the German ARS Produktion label will release a new recording consisting of works for trumpet and piano created by ten Francophone composers, featuring the esteemed international soloist and pedagogue Reinhold Friedrich. Titled L’Amour française, the recording is particularly noteworthy in that much of the repertoire is relatively unfamiliar – even to trumpet […]
One of the most fascinating pieces of music featuring the French horn is Florent Schmitt’s Lied et scherzo, Op. 54. Originally composed in 1910 for double wind quintet in which one of the horns plays an important solo role, subsequently the composer prepared three other versions of this music: one for horn and piano; another […]
Florent Schmitt composed just three works for the saxophone, but all three of them hold a place of prominence in the repertoire. Soloists frequently play the Légende (1918) as well as the Songe de Coppélius (1908). Both of these are works that are Impressionistic and Romantic in style — with a more than hint of Schmitt’s […]
“I’ve learned a good deal in terms of structure by listening to classical music — and particularly to music created by a person like Florent Schmitt. In fact, I think that a well-structured text, including a share of the predictable and unpredictable, should be modeled on a piece of Schmitt’s music!” — Julien Columeau, novelist […]
In April 2016, the Garth Newel Piano Quartet presented Florent Schmitt’s piano quartet Hasards, Op. 96 as part of a chamber music program of French music that also included compositions by Ernest Chausson and Maurice Ravel. I was fortunate enough to attend this concert, played in the aesthetically and acoustically pleasing Herter Hall, a former […]
The new recording is scheduled for release in fall 2016. Word has just been received from Stéphane Topakian, head of Timpani Records, that his enterprising label will release its latest Florent Schmitt recording later this year. The new release will include six works composed by Schmitt featuring wind instrumentation. The generously filled recording will contain the following pieces, spanning […]
