Florent Schmitt and the Flute (Scherzo-Pastorale; Quatuor; Suite en trois parties)

For a composer who wrote many pages of chamber and instrumental music featuring nearly every instrument of the orchestra, Florent Schmitt’s compositions featuring the flute are comparative few. This may seem surprising for a musician who actually played the flute in several military musical ensembles during World War I.  Nevertheless, I count only three such works in the Schmitt […]

World premiere recording of Florent Schmitt’s Suite for Flute & Orchestra, dedicated to the great Jean-Pierre Rampal (1954).

Welcome news in that Florent Schmitt’s Suite for Flute & Orchestra, Opus 129, is receiving its world premiere recording by flautist James Strauss, with Laercio Diniz conducting the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra. The Suite was composed in 1954 when Schmitt was 84 years old.  It was dedicated to the great French flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal — […]