French music specialist Michael Feingold talks about creating orchestrations of Maurice Ravel’s piano and vocal scores.

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 […]

Experiencing Florent Schmitt’s Antony & Cleopatra (1920) and other orientalist masterpieces from France’s “Golden Age” of classical music live in concert: An eyewitness report from Paris.

American cellist Aaron Merritt and French arts administrator Eric Butruille traveled to the Philharmonie in Paris for the June 2018 event and were interviewed immediately thereafter. On June 9th and 10th, 2018, the Orchestre de Paris presented a program that must rank as one of the most interesting concerts of this year’s artistic season in the […]

Musicologist and Author Nicolas Southon talks about his new book profiling orchestral works by 16 Francophone composers including Florent Schmitt.

Published in English and French versions, the book is available for viewing and download free of charge. Recently, the music publishing firm Durand-Salabert-Eschig (part of Universal Music Publishing Group) released a book titled A French Touch: Rediscovering a Uniquely French Symphonic Repertoire. Researched and written by French musicologist and author Nicolas Southon, the slender volume (44 pages long) […]

French Conductor Fabien Gabel talks about Rêves (1915), other compositions of Florent Schmitt, and the future of French music in the concert hall.

This month, the French conductor Fabien Gabel revealed his plans to lead the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in a December 2016 performance of Florent Schmitt’s tone picture Rêves, Opus 65 (Dreams), composed just over a century ago. In subsequent discussions with the Maestro, I discovered how much he is doing to program French repertoire from the late […]

In Memoriam: Florent Schmitt’s tribute to his teacher and mentor Gabriel Fauré (1922/35).

During his time as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, Florent Schmitt had his share of esteemed teachers including Jules Massenet, Théodore Dubois, André Gédalge and Albert Lavignac. But Gabriel Fauré, who along with Massenet were Schmitt’s two instructors in composition, was his favorite teacher — and also arguably the most influential one. Time and again, […]