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 […]
Tag Archives: Walter Damrosch
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]