Passionate advocate: French conductor Lionel Bringuier talks about the music of Florent Schmitt and La Tragédie de Salomé.

French conductor Lionel Bringuier’s meteoric rise in the classical music field has been noteworthy.  Not yet 30 years old, he has been conducting major orchestras in the United States and Europe since 2006. Currently, Maestro Bringuier is chief conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich, Switzerland.  Prior to that, he was an associate conductor of […]

Voluptuous Colors: Florent Schmitt’s Suite en trois parties for trumpet (1955)

Over his long composing career, Florent Schmitt wrote numerous concertante pieces showcasing nearly every instrument of the orchestra. As with a good number of other French composers, some of these works were written as examination pieces for students at the Paris Conservatoire. A representative example is Schmitt’s Suite en trois parties for Trumpet & Piano, Op. […]

French Composer Florent Schmitt’s Romance with the Orient

“The music is vigorous, colorful, and imbued with a slightly fierce sadness which is perhaps the most personal characteristic of the author … a feeling that, rightly or wrongly, we take to be oriental and even Semitic.” — Music critic Louis Laloy, writing about the 1920 premiere of Florent Schmitt’s Antoine et Cléopâtre. When one […]