Dancer and choreographer Francesca Todesco talks about resurrecting Isadora Duncan’s vision of Florent Schmitt’s Reflets d’Allemagne (1902-5) and presenting the premiere version of the full ballet in 2022.

Florent Schmitt’s Reflets d’Allemagne, Op. 28, inspired by his travels throughout Central Europe during his Prix de Rome period (1900-04), is a suite of eight waltzes originally written for piano duet — and music that fairly cries out for ballet treatment. By turns the pieces are whimsical and elegant, but also shot through with notable […]

“White-haired, bearded and thoroughly charming”: American contralto Rita Sebastian’s remembrances of performing with Florent Schmitt at Town Hall in New York City (1932).

One of the serendipitous aspects of music history is coming across rare and precious documents that have remained hidden for decades.  Such an occurrence happened this past summer when JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, received a package in the mail containing a collection of documents pertaining to a recital given by […]

Deux pièces (1911), Florent Schmitt’s strikingly original chromatic harp composition, gets a new lease on life.

Florent Schmitt’s three instruments were the piano, organ and flute. But during his lengthy career as a composer he would write music featuring nearly every instrument of the orchestra — including several pieces for the harp. More specifically, Schmitt wrote for the chromatic harp. In this regard, the composer was following the same path as […]

Canadian pianist Linda Ippolito talks about discovering and performing Pupazzi (1907), Florent Schmitt’s whimsical tribute to Commedia dell’Arte characters.

Over the past 20 years, the vast majority of Florent Schmitt’s music for piano solo has been rediscovered by a new generation of music-lovers and performers. Moreover, nearly all of this music has been commercially recorded at least one time. However, one piano composition, Pupazzi, Opus 36 (Puppets), hasn’t been part of the revival, and […]