Alain made important first recordings of French piano scores by Florent Schmitt, while Tristan is exploring the composer’s sumptuous early-career mélodies. Recently a multi-country recital tour was announced featuring tenor Cyrille Dubois and pianist Tristan Raës, in which mélodies by the composer Gabriel Fauré and several of his students would be performed. I was pleased […]
Category Archives: Vocal Music
Among the final crop of compositions that Florent Schmitt brought forth during his long career are a group of sacred works written for chorus or mixed solo voices. They are seven in number, penned or published during the final eight years of the composer’s life: Trois liturgies joyeuses, Op. 116 (1951) Psaume VIII (Domine, Dominus […]
The French author and playwright Jean de la Fontaine is best-known for his fables, which are considered masterpieces of French literature. The fables of the ancient Greek author Aesop may be better known across the world, but La Fontaine deserves an equivalent place in the spotlight considering that he produced no fewer than 240 of […]
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 […]
“It’s as if someone said to you: ‘Throw yourself from a fourth-floor window — and mind you, fall gracefully.’” — Claire Croiza, French mezzo-soprano, on Florent Schmitt’s vocal music Music-lovers who are familiar with Florent Schmitt’s catalogue of works know that vocal compositions comprised an important part of his creative output over a seven-decade creative […]
Recently, an upload appeared on American composer George ‘Nick’ Gianopoulos‘ estimable YouTube music channel that features Florent Schmitt’s late-career choral work Quinque cantus, Op. 121, presented along with the score. It’s one of more than 2,300 score-with-audio uploads that Mr. Gianopoulos has assiduously prepared for the benefit of performing artists and music-lovers the world over […]
On the evening of May 12, 2022, an unforgettable performance of Florent Schmitt’s monumental Psaume XLVII, Op. 38 was presented at Maison de la Radio in Paris. For those of us who were lucky enough to attend the concert, it was a performance that will long stay in our memories — so fine was the […]
Vocal music comprises an important component of Florent Schmitt’s catalogue of works. Throughout his long career the composer would return again and again to the human voice, creating many sets of songs along with a wide range of secular and sacred choral music. One of the most intriguing of these works is the a cappella […]
Even before the onset of World War I, Florent Schmitt was already known as a pathfinding composer. Indeed, such works as Psaume XLVII (1904), La Tragédie de Salomé (1907) and the Piano Quintet (1908) had already cemented his reputation as one of the most influential voices among his generation of French composers. But it was during […]
One of the serendipitous aspects of music history is coming across rare and precious documents that have remained hidden for decades. Such an occurrence happened this past summer when JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, received a package in the mail containing a collection of documents pertaining to a recital given by […]
Throughout his lengthy career as a composer, Florent Schmitt would return again and again to the human voice when creating his compositions. Although Schmitt distanced himself from operatic projects (he created no operas of his own although he prepared piano-reduction scores of several of Frederick Delius’ operatic scores), Schmitt lavished attention on sorts of other […]
When the composer Florent Schmitt died in August 1958 at the age of nearly 88 years, many prominent musicians, scholars and journalists wrote words of tribute honoring the last of the “grand generation” of French composers that had included, among others, Debussy, Dukas, Ravel, Roussel, Koechlin, Pierné, Cras, Rabaud, Ropartz and Tournemire. Along those lines, […]
Recently, several photos were uploaded to Twitter that had been taken at a social event in Paris celebrating the release of the first-ever commercial recording of Florent Schmitt’s stunning choral composition Psaume XLVII. Held in February 1953 at Pathé-Marconi headquarters, the event was attended by tout Paris – at least in terms of the classical […]
Throughout his extraordinarily long and productive life, the French composer Florent Schmitt would return again and again to the human voice. His earliest catalogued compositions dating from the 1880s were various mélodies, and his final work was the Messe en quatres parties for mixed chorus and organ, completed just a few months before his death […]
The 2020 NAXOS recording, completed just days before the COVID pandemic shuttered classical music performances across the globe, includes two colorful ballet scores along with two world premieres. Since its November 2020 release during Florent Schmitt’s 150th birthday anniversary year, the NAXOS recording of four orchestral works by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under its music […]