Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Florent Schmitt

Florent Schmitt Rediscovered French Composer

Florent Schmitt was one of the most successful French composers of the early 20th century. However, as fashions changed, his characteristically opulent music became marginalized, only to experience something of a revival, in recent years, mostly on recordings.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll mark the sesquicentenary of Schmitt’s birth (on September 28, 1870) with selections from his incidental music for a production of Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” and his grandiose setting of “Psalm XLVII.”

Schmitt entered the Paris Conservatory in 1889, where he studied with Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet, and Théodore Dubois. He was a winner of the Prix de Rome in 1900. He also befriended Frederick Delius, while Delius was in Paris, and prepared the vocal scores for a number of his operas.

In addition, Schmitt was a music critic, who attained a degree of notoriety for shouting out his assessments from the audience. He was described by one music publisher as an irresponsible lunatic.

The later neglect of his music may have been due, in part, to his willingness to go along with the Vichy regime during the Nazi occupation of France. But Schmitt is too fascinating a figure to be dismissed out-of-hand. Stravinsky was an early admirer, remarking that the composer’s “The Tragedy of Salome” gave him greater joy than any other he had heard in a long time. Certain elements of the ballet anticipate analogous experiments in Stravinsky’s own “The Rite of Spring.”

Indeed, Schmitt’s appetite for overheated decadence and lurid orientalism seems to have been insatiable. There’s nothing on the menu tonight but overegged Florentine. I hope you’ll join me for “Schmitt Happens,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Exhaustive website devoted to all things Florent Schmitt: florentschmitt.com

September 27, 2020
Shakespeare Birthday Music on WPRB

First comes Groundhog Day, then comes Easter, then comes Shakespeare’s birthday. All that remains is for us to lock up a sacrifice in the Wicker Man on April 30 and Sulis will have been appeased.

We don’t know when, exactly, the Bard was born, but his baptismal date is April 26, 1564. Since it’s human nature to try to keep things neat, his natal day is generally held to be April 23, the very date of his death in 1616.

I hope you’ll join me this morning, as we celebrate the Bard, with a full morning of music inspired by his plays. We’ll hear selections from composers who were Shakespeare’s contemporaries, right on down to Paul Moravec’s “Tempest Fantasy,” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2004.

Other treats will include a recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams conducting his own “Serenade to Music,” after a text from “The Merchant of Venice,” a reconstructed duet from a projected opera on the subject of “Romeo and Juliet” by Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, and incidental music for a production of “Antony and Cleopatra” by French composer Florent Schmitt, in an opulent recording conducted by JoAnn Falletta.

Just some of the ingredients that will go into a secret recipe made public from 6 to 11 a.m. EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. We engage in a little Shake and bake, on Classic Ross Amico.

If music be the food of love, bake on.

April 20, 2017
WWFM Classical Music for Dreary Days

Dreary days make for great listening.

There will be Irish music to start this afternoon, hopefully some Florent Schmitt later on, and a nod to Philadelphia composer Romeo Cascarino on his birthday.

Pour yourself a cup of something nice, and then join me for these and more, between 4 and 7:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network, and at wwfm.org.

September 28, 2016
Florent Schmitt Rediscovered on The Lost Chord

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we bask in the opulent Orientalisms of Florent Schmitt.

Florent Schmitt, who lived from 1870 to 1958, studied at the Paris Conservatory, where Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet, and Théodore Dubois were among his teaches. He befriended Frederick Delius while Delius was in Paris and prepared the vocal scores of a number of his operas.

Schmitt was also a music critic, who attained a degree of notoriety for shouting out his assessments from the audience. As a composer, he was remarkably successfully, his works among the most frequently performed French music during the early decades of the 20th century.

His reputation plummeted in the years following the Second World War, and it wasn’t really until the past few decades that his music began to be revived in any significant manner, with a number of fine compact disc recordings of his work currently on the market.

One of the most recent of these was issued on the Naxos label, with the Buffalo Philharmonic, conducted by JoAnn Falletta. The disc features the symphonic etude, “The Haunted Palace,” after Edgar Allan Poe, and incidental music written for a production of Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra.” We’ll be listening to the first of the two suites.

Schmitt was a winner of the Prix de Rome in 1900. The later neglect of his music may have been in part due to his willingness to cooperate with the Vichy regime during the Nazi occupation of France, as well as a marked change in musical fashion from the kind of opulence characteristic of his music, with one foot in the world of Debussy and the other in the world of Wagner and Richard Strauss.

Even so, Stravinsky was an early admirer, saying of Schmitt’s ballet, “The Tragedy of Salome,” that the work gave him greater joy than any he had heard in a long time. Certain elements of the ballet anticipate analogous experiments in Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”

One of Schmitt’s most celebrated works is his setting of “Psalm XLVII.” Despite its Biblical source, the work has little to do with ecclesiastical matters. Rather, the composer was chiefly inspired by ceremonial acclamations of the Ottoman Sultan, which he had witnessed himself in Istanbul in 1903. He appropriates, and interprets, the text as an expression of Oriental triumph, in the opening and closing “O Clap your hands all ye people,” and languor, with a soprano soloist singing, “He hath chosen our inheritance for us, the beauty of Jacob whom He loved.” We’ll hear the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales conducted by Thierry Fischer.

I hope you’ll join me for “Schmitt Happens” – recordings from the Florent Schmitt revival – this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

Exhaustive website devoted to all things Florent Schmitt: http://florentschmitt.com/

January 31, 2016

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