The town of Saint-Cloud honored its longtime resident Florent Schmitt on the occasion of his 80th birthday, presenting a gala concert featuring his recent compositions. When Florent Schmitt turned eighty years old on September 28, 1950, he was the most prominent French composer of his generation who was still active creatively. To be sure, there […]
Tag Archives: Hasards
His soon-to-be-released album includes two premiere recordings plus an unpublished 1950 piano sonata that later became the wind composition Chants alizés. A new recording of piano works by Florent Schmitt is scheduled for release in late 2024 – one that’s particularly important in that its focus will be on late-career compositions that have never been […]
In April 2016, the Garth Newel Piano Quartet presented Florent Schmitt’s piano quartet Hasards, Op. 96 as part of a chamber music program of French music that also included compositions by Ernest Chausson and Maurice Ravel. I was fortunate enough to attend this concert, played in the aesthetically and acoustically pleasing Herter Hall, a former […]
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 […]
The French pianist Élizabeth Herbin has long been a champion of the music of her father, the composer René Herbin (1911-1953). This includes making recordings of his music, including one featuring Herbin’s Quartet #1 for Piano & Strings, composed in 1949. That celebrated recording, on the Gallo label, also contains two works by Florent Schmitt: […]
The chamber music pieces of Florent Schmitt are quite interesting and varied. Among them are wonderfully intimate works such as the Sonatine en Trio from 1934 which have a flavor somewhat similar to the chamber works of Schmitt’s compatriots Debussy and Ravel. But there are numerous other Schmitt compositions for chamber players that inhabit a different sound-world – more full-bodied and containing surprising […]