Musicians of the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra talk about discovering Florent Schmitt’s Quartet for Trombones and Tuba (1946) and preparing it for performance.

Late last year, several clips quietly appeared on Facebook — each of them featuring a movement from Florent Schmitt’s Quartet for Trombones and Tuba, Opus 109, a fascinating piece that the composer created in 1946. This quartet is a composition that, despite its creativity and inventiveness, remains one of the least-known of Schmitt’s scores.  Indeed, […]

Florent Schmitt’s strikingly inventive Quartet for Trombones and Tuba (1946): Leaving the ‘oompah’ behind.

It’s quite likely that many music-lovers who know of French composer Florent Schmitt are most familiar with his “big” pieces scored for large orchestral forces, overlaid with sparkling orchestration in the grandest post-Rimsky tradition.  And it’s true that many of Schmitt’s best-known works are just those kinds of compositions — pieces like La Tragédie de Salomé, […]