In the century-long period from 1850 to 1950, the Prix de Rome prize for composition was probably the single most important and prestigious recognition for any French composer. And for that reason, nearly every important French composer strove to win it. Offered to students at the Paris Conservatoire, winners of the award were rewarded with a handsome stipend, along with a multi-year stay […]
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“The music is vigorous, colorful, and imbued with a slightly fierce sadness which is perhaps the most personal characteristic of the author … a feeling that, rightly or wrongly, we take to be oriental and even Semitic.” — Music critic Louis Laloy, writing about the 1920 premiere of Florent Schmitt’s Antoine et Cléopâtre. When one […]