Tout Paris came together 100 years ago to fete the Russian-born conductor upon his election as a Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur. The Russian-born conductor Serge Koussevitzky arrived in Paris in 1920, leaving behind Soviet Russia where he had led the Philharmonic Orchestra of Petrograd since 1917. Maestro Koussevitzky was already a household name in […]
Category Archives: Classical Music
Much has been written about the famous salonnières of Paris — the wealthy and often-flamboyant grandes dames who opened up their drawing rooms to musicians, authors and artists — facilitating not only the camaraderie of “breaking bread” together but also providing a venue for these creatives to socialize with prominent members of Parisian society representing […]
In September and October 2023, American pianist Matthew Bengtson performed three recitals in which he introduced a selection that was new to his repertoire: Florent Schmitt’s Trois danses, Op. 86. Composed in 1934-35, the piece is a relatively late work among the voluminous quantity of piano music that Schmitt created for piano solo, duet and […]
In the latter part of his career as a composer, Florent Schmitt devoted a good portion of his energies to writing vocal music, both for solo voices and for chorus. These projects give him the opportunity to indulge his passion for writing for the human voice — a persistent trait we can see throughout his […]
In addition to multiple presentations of Schmitt’s best-known composition La Tragédie de Salomé, music-lovers will be treated to three works from the composer’s early and late career. Four compositions spanning Florent Schmitt’s seven-decade career as a composer are part of the 2023-24 symphony season. (Portrait: Pierrette Lambert, 1992) For the upcoming 2023-24 concert season, the […]
This past Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2023), the young Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata presented Florent Schmitt’s complex, über-brilliant Symphonie concertante, Op. 82 with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of veteran French conductor Yan-Pascal Tortelier. The concert marked the first time this music had been performed anywhere in the world since the release […]
Over the past decade or more, Florent Schmitt’s music written for solo and duo-pianists has appeared on commercial recordings with ever-increasing frequency. Among them are several premiere recordings of the composer’s scores for two piano players as offered up by the Invencia Piano Duo (released in 2012-13 on a series of four CDs on NAXOS’ […]
When Florent Schmitt died in August 1958 at the age of nearly 88 years, his fellow composer Henri Dutilleux penned this memorable epitaph: “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, […]
“At the crossroads of dance, poetry and music”: Les Apaches’ December 2021 live presentation at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris was commercially recorded and has now been released on the b●records label. La Tragédie de Salomé is French composer Florent Schmitt’s most famous work – and it has been so ever since it first […]
Florent Schmitt’s Reflets d’Allemagne, Op. 28, inspired by his travels throughout Central Europe during his Prix de Rome period (1900-04), is a suite of eight waltzes originally written for piano duet — and music that fairly cries out for ballet treatment. By turns the pieces are whimsical and elegant, but also shot through with notable […]
“Florent Schmitt will not have left this earth without taking away, like a viaticum, the certainty of his genius.” — Bernard Gavoty At the time Florent Schmitt passed away on August 17, 1958 at the age of nearly 88 years, he was considered by many to be the doyen of French composers. One of the […]
American composer George N. ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos is well-known in the classical music community of Southern California, where he has been based for 15 years. A native of Syracuse, New York, the composer did his initial musical studies in the state university system of New York before relocating to Los Angeles. Gianopoulos’ compositions (there are nearly […]
On Valentine’s Day 2023, Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata presented Florent Schmitt’s stunning Symphonie concertante, Op. 82 in concert with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Yan-Pascal Tortelier. The Symphonie concertante was the centerpiece of an all-French program presented at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall that also included music by Gabriel Fauré (the Prélude from […]
These charmers, written for violin or cello soloist, make for perfect recital pieces. Music-lovers who are familiar with Florent Schmitt’s catalogue know that he composed a number of works featuring the violin and cello as solo instruments. Most of the composer’s violin pieces have been gathered together in a fine collection of works including the […]
A slender, petite man — and the giant legacy he left us — draw parallels with Maurice Ravel. Over the decades, a total of four biographies of the French composer Florent Schmitt have been published – all of them written in French. Three of these biographies were written during the composer’s lifetime, and with his […]