For his newest Florent Schmitt Chandos recording (scheduled for release in October 2026), when French conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier was considering contemporaneous compositions to pair with Schmitt’s strikingly modern Symphonie concertante (1931-32), one of his choices might seem curious: Çançunik, Op. 79, dating from 1927-29. Compared to the Symphonie concertante – and indeed to several […]
Tag Archives: Yan-Pascal Tortelier
“It is one of the most important recordings of my entire career.” — Yan Pascal Tortelier, French conductor In late October 2025, I had the privilege of being invited to Manchester, UK to observe the recording of a program of mid-career orchestral works by Florent Schmitt (composed between 1929 and 1938), featuring the BBC Philharmonic […]
This past Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2023), the young Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata presented Florent Schmitt’s complex, über-brilliant Symphonie concertante, Op. 82 with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of veteran French conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier. The concert marked the first time this music had been performed anywhere in the world since the […]
On Valentine’s Day 2023, Japanese pianist Tomoki Sakata presented Florent Schmitt’s stunning Symphonie concertante, Op. 82 in concert with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Yan Pascal Tortelier. The Symphonie concertante was the centerpiece of an all-French program presented at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall that also included music by Gabriel Fauré (the Prélude […]
In addition to multiple presentations of Schmitt’s best-known composition La Tragédie de Salomé, music-lovers will be treated to two mid-career works — In Memoriam and the Symphonie concertante. It comes as no surprise that in the upcoming 2022-23 concert season, various conductors and orchestras will be presenting Florent Schmitt’s ballet La Tragédie de Salomé. Not […]
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 […]
In 2020, the NAXOS label plans to release its second disk of music by the French composer Florent Schmitt that features the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and its music director, JoAnn Falletta. The first recording, which was released in 2015, included several orchestral pieces by Schmitt: the two Antoine et Cléopâtre suites (after William Shakespeare) and […]
Florent Schmitt’s three instruments were the flute, the organ and the piano. Arguably the piano was the one he preferred most — at least based on the quantity of music he created — for within the catalogue of Schmitt’s compositions are vast swaths of music written for the piano solo, piano duet and duo. The […]
Their designation of Paul Paray’s classic reading with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as the best overall recording is echoed by France-Musique’s listener audience. As part of its popular broadcast series La Tribune des critiques de disques, in October 2017 the French national public radio channel France-Musique aired a two-hour program in which a roundtable panel of eminent […]
“Florent Schmitt’s music should be mentioned in the same breath as Debussy and Ravel.” — JoAnn Falletta, American Orchestra Conductor In March of this year, the American conductor JoAnn Falletta recorded two important works by Florent Schmitt: the 1904 symphonic etude Le Palais hanté, Opus 49 and the two suites of incidental music for André […]
Le Palais hanté is also planned for performance and recording. North American classical music lovers are in for a treat this coming orchestra season. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has announced that its 2014-15 concert schedule includes the first performances in North America of Florent Schmitt’s complete Antoine et Cléopâtre Suites, Op. 69. The performances of this […]
Around the world today, the news is full of stories about bloated government bureaucracies and the inefficiencies of various public agencies. From France and Italy to the United States, there are persistent calls for governments to become leaner and more effective, beginning with eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” from various agencies. But this isn’t a […]
“Years go by without depriving this musical monument of its nobility and power. On the contrary, it seems to shine with brighter radiance than when it was new.” — René Dumesnil, music critic, Le Monde When Florent Schmitt’s monumental score Psaume XLVII was premiered in December 1906, it burst upon the Parisian music scene in […]
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 […]