Musicologist and conductor César Leal talks about the impresario Gabriel Astruc and his consequential role in Parisian musical and artistic life in the early 1900s.

Not long ago, I compiled a listing of published biographies, other books and dissertations that cover music and the arts in Paris during the time of Florent Schmitt’s career as a composer (roughly the 70-year period from 1890 to 1960).  Among the many documents I discovered, one of the most interesting was one that focused […]

Four important compositions of Florent Schmitt to be featured in the upcoming 2018/19 concert season by orchestras in Bern, Buffalo, Malmö, Mexico City, Norfolk, Paris, Québec City, Warsaw and Washington.

The international Bachtrack website is in the process of uploading its global database of classical music programs for the upcoming season. Although it isn’t an exhaustive listing of every professional group, the site covers nearly all of the major orchestras, opera and ballet companies around the world, making it the “go-to” resource for information about what’s happening […]

French conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud, soprano Ewa Biegas and choral director Teresa Majka-Pacanek talk about the 2016 Polish premiere performances of Florent Schmitt’s choral masterpiece Psalm 47 (1904).

Florent Schmitt’s powerful choral work Psalm XLVII may have been composed in 1904, but it took more than a century for the piece to receive its premiere performances in Poland, in February 2016. That’s when French conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud and the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra joined forces with the Krakow Philharmonic Choir, directed by Teresa Majka-Pacanek and soprano […]

In the cross-currents of history: An interview with musician and author Alberto Nones about the life and work of Italian composer Riccardo Zandonai.

Faithful readers of this blog know that its focus is nearly 100% on the life and music of French composer Florent Schmitt.  However, occasionally we “relax the routine” to present a different sort of musical topic. Back in 2013, one of those articles was an interview with the Italian pianist and author Alberto Nones about his newly published […]

French Soprano Denise Duval: Muse to Francis Poulenc … Friend of Florent Schmitt

A living legend today — well into her nineties — the French soprano Denise Duval is a link to France’s glorious musical past. History remembers her as the famous muse to Francis Poulenc, but Duval was also an important interpreter of the music of other significant French composers of the early- and mid-twentieth century — among […]

Giuseppe Verdi and the nexus of music and politics: An interview with author Alberto Nones.

“For Verdi, music was an integral part of reality … a force behind history …” In something of a change of pace for regular readers of the Florent Schmitt Blog, this post is on the topic of the Italian operatic composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901).  Highly successful during his lifetime, his fame has hardly dimmed in […]

A Surprising Collaboration and Friendship: Florent Schmitt and Frederick Delius (1894-1934)

One interesting yet virtually unknown early chapter in Florent Schmitt’s musical life involved the work he did in creating the piano/vocal reduction scores of the first four operas of the English composer Frederick Delius (1862-1934). These efforts began around 1894 when Schmitt was not yet 25 years old, with the transcription of Delius’ opera Irmelin.  The […]