On August 17, 2025 two of Florent Schmitt’s Trois rapsodies, Op. 53 – Polonaise and Viennoise – were presented in concert at Garth Newel Music Center in Hot Springs, Virginia by duo-pianists Genevieve Fei-wen Lee and Brian Hsu. The performance was part of Garth Newel’s “Piano Weekend” set of two concerts featuring four pianists (Jeannette […]
Category Archives: Piano Four-Hand Music
Bruno Belthoise and Grégoire Pont are revitalizing the stories of French children’s ballets more than a century after their creation. It’s interesting to note that four of the most important composers from France’s “Golden Age” each wrote music for ballet productions based on children’s topics. Not only that, the music for all four of them […]
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 […]
Among the most impressive music channels on YouTube are two that are run by Helen Moritz, who has uploaded a wealth of rare piano performances from yesteryear. Ms. Moritz has painstakingly searched for audio recordings of recitals given by some of classical music’s greatest pianists. Among the artists are Jorge Bolet, Mieszyslaw Horszowski, Raymond Lewenthal, […]
It isn’t uncommon for classical composers to create alternate versions of their musical creations. Many have prepared piano reductions of their orchestral works, or done the opposite by orchestrating pieces originally written for piano. We also have numerous examples of pieces that began life as chamber music that were later orchestrated by their creators; the […]
Regular readers of the Florent Schmitt Website + Blog know that sometimes we “relax the routine” and publish an article that focuses on a different composer – usually a contemporary of Schmitt. Of the many fellow composers who Schmitt interacted with during his lengthy career, one with whom he shared an enduring professional and personal bond […]
Often, composers “favor” instruments that they themselves know how to play. Florent Schmitt’s own instruments were the piano, organ and flute, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that a significant number of this composer’s creations would feature these instruments. In particular, Schmitt was a highly proficient pianist, which helps explain the expressiveness and effectiveness of his piano compositions […]
In 2013, one of the earliest interviews I conducted for the Florent Schmitt Website + Blog was with the French pianist Bruno Belthoise. I had discovered him from YouTube, where several movements of Florent Schmitt’s piano four-hand suite Une semaine du petit elfe Ferme-l’oeil, Opus 58 had been uploaded from a performance he gave at the […]
Throughout his long composing career spanning from the late 1880s to the late 1950s, Florent Schmitt would return again and again to the human voice. While he never composed an opera, he wrote voluminous pages of music in every other form that features solo and mixed voices. Tellingly, the composer’s Opus 1 and his final Opus 138 […]
Available in mid-January 2017, the boxed set includes all 14 compositions first released in 2012-13 … now at a special price of four CDs for the price of two. Several years ago, the Grand Piano label issued a series of four CDs that together make up the complete original works for piano duet and duo by […]
For music-lovers who aren’t very familiar with the music of Florent Schmitt, they may well think that the composer is German. Or at the very least, they might assume that the music bears a strong resemblance to Germanic musical style. Of course, for those who know Schmitt and his artistry, they realize that any “German” musical influence falls well-behind French influence […]
There’s no question that in the past two decades, the breadth and depth of French composer Florent Schmitt’s music that has made it to the microphones has increased dramatically. Nearly every year, we are treated to world premiere recordings of more Schmitt works. The most recent examples are the complete works for piano duo and duet as […]
One of the most musically satisfying of Florent Schmitt’s extensive trove of compositions for piano duet and duo – and the one that is my personal favorite among all of them – is Trois Rapsodies, Op. 53, a work he composed in 1903-04 during his time at the Villa Medici in Rome. Made up of three […]
One of the most interesting works by Florent Schmitt is his Lied et Scherzo, Op. 54, which he composed in 1910. The genesis of the music was a request from Gabriel Fauré for Schmitt to write a horn competition piece for the Paris Conservatoire. The original manifestation of the Lied et scherzo was as a […]
Throughout classical music history, “omnibus” compositions have been rather rare – and for the most part, they’ve been forgotten shortly after their celebrated premieres. Perhaps the earliest one of these interesting concoctions that has at least remained on the fringes of the repertoire is Hexameron — a morceau de concert put together in the late […]