Musical comrades: The friendship between Manuel de Falla and Florent Schmitt (1907-31).

Throughout nearly all of Florent Schmitt’s long career as a composer, he was at the heart of artistic life in Paris. Not only was he well-acquainted with all the notable French composers, writers and painters of the day, he was quick to make friends with numerous composers from foreign lands who  made the artistic pilgrimage […]

Stretching tonality to the breaking point: Florent Schmitt’s weird and daring Kérob-Shal (1919-24).

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 […]