Pianist Tomoki Sakata talks about performing Florent Schmitt’s brilliant orchestral showpiece Symphonie concertante (1932) with Yan Pascal Tortelier in Tokyo.

This past Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2023), the young Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata presented Florent Schmitt’s complex, über-brilliant Symphonie concertante, Op. 82 with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of veteran French conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier. The concert marked the first time this music had been performed anywhere in the world since the […]

“Pure Music Masterpiece”: Florent Schmitt’s Sonate libre for Violin and Piano (1918-19).

Within Florent Schmitt’s musical output are a half-dozen works that feature the violin.  Perhaps the most significant of them is his Sonate libre, Op. 68, a work he composed in 1918-19 at Artiguemy, his country retreat in the Hautes-Pyrenees. The formal title of the music is a real mouthful:  Sonate libre en deux parties enchaînées, ad modem Clementis […]