“A forlorn sky, a low horizon and the slow, monotonous falling of snow”: Florent Schmitt’s Ballade de la neige (1896).

In 2021, the NAXOS label’s Grand Piano imprint issued a CD featuring solo piano music of Florent Schmitt performed by Biljana Urban. This Paris-trained pianist. now living in Amsterdam, has a particular appreciation for the piano music of French composers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – Florent Schmitt included. (Click here to […]

Scènes de la vie moyenne (1950): Florent Schmitt’s late-career work for orchestra.

During the latter years of Florent Schmitt’s long and illustrious career, the composer turned his creative talents increasingly toward music for scored small instrumental forces.  Among the notable achievements of this late creative period are the fascinating (and challenging) String Trio (1944) and String Quartet (1948), as well as a group of compositions that showcase […]

Symphonie concertante: When Florent Schmitt Came to America (1932)

All his life, Florent Schmitt was an inveterate traveler … but we think of his globetrotting primarily in connection with Europe, the Mediterranean Region, the Middle East, South Asia and Brazil, rather than North America. And in fact, the composer was to travel to the United States only one time his life – in 1932 […]