“Keenly alert features, a sharp eye — more like a banker or statesman than a musician”: American critic and Musical Courier editor-in-chief Leonard Liebling meets with Florent Schmitt in Paris (1932).

In the summer of 1932, the American music critic Leonard Liebling, longtime editor-in-chief of the weekly national publication Musical Courier, sat down with Florent Schmitt in Paris, four months prior to Schmitt’s first (and only) trip to the United States, for a meet-and-greet conversation. Mr. Liebling’s impressions of the French composer were published in the […]

Chant du soir (1895): An early composition by Florent Schmitt comes into its own — 125 years after its creation.

Up until recently, familiarity with the earliest compositions of Florent Schmitt was rather scant.  The composer’s first works were created in the decade leading up to his winning the Prix de Rome first prize for composition in 1900. It was the period after Schmitt had completed his music studies at the conservatory in Nancy and […]

French-American conductor David Grandis talks about discovering the music of French composer Max d’Ollone and championing his repertoire in the concert hall.

Regular readers of the Florent Schmitt Website + Blog know that occasionally we “relax the routine” a bit and delve into the artistry of other composers — particularly ones who lived and worked in the same time period as Schmitt.  (See, for example, these articles about Stravinsky, Ravel, Falla and Zandonai.) Another such person is […]

Florent Schmitt Goes to Germany: Reflets d’Allemagne (1902-05).

For music-lovers who aren’t very familiar with the music of Florent Schmitt, they may well think that the composer is German. Or at the very least, they might assume that the music bears a strong resemblance to Germanic musical style. Of course, for those who know Schmitt and his artistry, they realize that any “German” musical influence falls well-behind French influence […]