A link with music history: French composer Pierrette Mari’s remembrances of Florent Schmitt during the 1950s.

In a September 2025 interview, the 96-year-old composer shares her recollections of Florent Schmitt and his distinctive personality. In this year of 2025, it is difficult to imagine that there are any musicians alive who’d have had personal interactions with French composer Florent Schmitt. After all, Schmitt passed away in 1958, and nearly seven decades […]

Discovering the man behind the musician: The personal remembrances of French composer Florent Schmitt’s biographer, Yves Hucher (1958).

January 11, 2022 · by Phillip Nones | in Ballet, Choral Music, Instrumental Music, Piano Music, Vocal Music | tagged Academie des Beaux-Arts, Alrbert Lavignac, Andre Gedalge, Antoine Golea, Arthur Honegger, Conservatoire de Lyon, David Grandis, Feuilles Musicales, Florent Schmitt, Gabriel Faure, Gaston Poulet, Gustave Flaubert, Henri Dutilleux, JoAnn Falletta, Jules Massenet, La Tragedie de Salome, Legion d'honneur, Paul Dukas, Pierre Capdeveille, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, Prix de Rome, Psaume XLVII, Raymond Locheur, Rene Dumesnil, Schmitt, SMI, Societe nationale de musique, Societie Musicale Independante, Steven Kruger, Yves Hucher | 2 Comments

When the composer Florent Schmitt died in August 1958 at the age of nearly 88 years, many prominent musicians, scholars and journalists wrote words of tribute honoring the last of the “grand generation” of French composers that had included, among others, Debussy, Dukas, Ravel, Roussel, Koechlin, Pierné, Cras, Rabaud, Ropartz and Tournemire. Along those lines, […]

Chaîne brisée (1936-37): Florent Schmitt’s posthumous tribute to his friend and fellow-composer Paul Dukas.

June 2, 2021 · by Phillip Nones | in Classical Music, French Composers, Piano Music | tagged Alain Raes, Annie d'Arco, Anthony Girard, Arthur Hoeree, Barcarolle des sept vierges, Branle de sortie, Chaine brisee, Charles Munch, Clemens Gadenstaetter, Clement Canonne, Elsa Barraine, Emile Vuillermoz, Florent Schmitt, Gabriel Pierne, Guy Ropartz, Henri de Curzon, Henriette Puig-Roget, Henry Prunieres, IRCAM, Jawher Matmati, Jean Morel, Jean Prudhomme, Joaquin Rodrigo, Julian Klein, La Revue Musicale, Louis Aubert, Manuel de Falla, Messiaen, Micheline Moris-Thirion, Paul Dambly, Paul Dukas, Pauline Gordon, Pieter-Jelle de Boer, Ray Luck, Revue Musicale, Richard Whitehouse, Roger Venteuil, Societe nationale de musique, Stele pour le Tombeau de Paul Dukas, Tony Aubin, Yan-Pascal Tortelier | 6 Comments

Living and working as he did throughout the entirety of France’s “Golden Age” of classical music, Florent Schmitt was well-acquainted with all of the significant composers of the day in Paris. Among the most famous of them — Achille-Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Albert Roussel and Paul Dukas — the latter three were particularly close friends […]