Florent Schmitt
Encyclopedia
Florent Schmitt was a French
composer.
, Schmitt originally took music lessons in Nancy with the local composer Gustave Sandré
. Subsequently (at the age of 19) he entered the Paris
Conservatoire
. There he studied with Gabriel Fauré
, Jules Massenet
, Théodore Dubois
, and Albert Lavignac
. In 1900 he won the Prix de Rome
.
From 1929 to 1939 Schmitt worked as a music critic for Le Temps
, in which role he created considerable controversy, not least for his indiscreet habit of shouting out verdicts from his seat in the hall. The music publisher Heugel went so far as to call him "an irresponsible lunatic".
). He became the subject of attacks — both in his last years and posthumously — over his pro-German sympathies during the 1930s, and over his willingness to work for the Vichy regime
later on (as indeed other eminent French musicians did, notably Alfred Cortot
and Joseph Canteloube
).
He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine
in 1958, aged 87. The 1990s witnessed a small-scale revival of his output, and an increased coverage of it on compact disc
.
s. He composed examples of most of the major forms of music, except for opera
. Today his most famous pieces are La tragédie de Salome and Psaume XLVII (Psalm 47). His piano quintet
in B minor, written in 1908, helped establish his reputation. Other works include a violin sonata
(Sonate Libre), a late string quartet
, a saxophone quartet, Dionysiaques for wind band, and two symphonies
. He was part of the group known as Les Apaches
. His own style, recognizably impressionistic, owed something to the example of Debussy
, though it had distinct traces of Wagner
and Richard Strauss
also.
Schmitt composed a ballet La tragédie de Salomé in 1907 as a commission from Jacques Rouché for Loie Fuller
and the Théâtre des Arts
. From the original ballet score, scored for twenty instruments and lasting about an hour, Schmitt prepared a symphonic poem
of the same name, half as long as the ballet score, for a much expanded orchestra. The symphonic poem version is much better-known (with recordings conducted by Schmitt himself, Paul Paray
, Jean Martinon
, Antonio de Almeida
, Marek Janowski
and others), but there is also an excellent recording of the 1907 ballet score under Patrick Davin on the Marco Polo label. The rhythmic syncopations, polyrhythms, percussively treated chords, bitonality, and scoring of Schmitt's work anticipate Stravinsky
's The Rite of Spring
. While composing The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky acknowledged that Schmitt's ballet gave him greater joy than any work he had heard in a long time, but they fell out with each other in later years, and Stravinsky reversed his opinion of Schmitt's works.
In 1927 he was one of the ten French composers who each contributed a dance for the children's ballet L'éventail de Jeanne
: he wrote the finale, a Kermesse-Valse.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
composer.
Early life
A Lorrainer, born in Meurthe-et-MoselleMeurthe-et-Moselle
Meurthe-et-Moselle is a department in the Lorraine region of France, named after the Meurthe and Moselle rivers.- History :Meurthe-et-Moselle was created in 1871 at the end of the Franco-Prussian War from the parts of the former departments of Moselle and Meurthe which remained French...
, Schmitt originally took music lessons in Nancy with the local composer Gustave Sandré
Gustave Sandre
Gustave Sandré was director of the Nancy Conservatoire in eastern France, where Florent Schmitt was one of his pupils. Most of his music scores were published around 1900 as supplements to the magazine "L'illustration".- External links :...
. Subsequently (at the age of 19) he entered the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
Conservatoire
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...
. There he studied with Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
, Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
, Théodore Dubois
Théodore Dubois
François-Clément Théodore Dubois was a French composer, organist and music teacher.-Biography:Théodore Dubois was born in Rosnay in Marne. He studied first under Louis Fanart and later at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas. He won the Prix de Rome in 1861...
, and Albert Lavignac
Albert Lavignac
Albert Lavignac was a French music scholar, known for his essays on theory, and a minor composer.-Biography:Lavignac was borin in Paris and studied with Antoine François Marmontel, François Benoist and Ambroise Thomas at the Conservatoire de Paris, where later he taught harmony...
. In 1900 he won the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
.
From 1929 to 1939 Schmitt worked as a music critic for Le Temps
Le Temps (Paris)
Le Temps was one of Paris's most important daily newspapers from April 25, 1861 to November 30, 1942.Founded in 1861 by Edmund Chojecki and Auguste Nefftzer, Le Temps was under Nefftzer's direction for ten years, when Adrien Hébrard took his place...
, in which role he created considerable controversy, not least for his indiscreet habit of shouting out verdicts from his seat in the hall. The music publisher Heugel went so far as to call him "an irresponsible lunatic".
Later life
Having been one of the most often performed of French composers during the first four decades of the 20th century, Schmitt afterwards fell into comparative neglect, although he continued writing music till the end (and in 1952 he became a member of the Légion d'honneurLégion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
). He became the subject of attacks — both in his last years and posthumously — over his pro-German sympathies during the 1930s, and over his willingness to work for the Vichy regime
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
later on (as indeed other eminent French musicians did, notably Alfred Cortot
Alfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...
and Joseph Canteloube
Joseph Canteloube
Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret was a French composer, musicologist, and author best known for his collections of orchestrated folksongs from the Auvergne region.-Biography:...
).
He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
in 1958, aged 87. The 1990s witnessed a small-scale revival of his output, and an increased coverage of it on compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
.
Works
Schmitt wrote 138 works with opus numberOpus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
s. He composed examples of most of the major forms of music, except for opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
. Today his most famous pieces are La tragédie de Salome and Psaume XLVII (Psalm 47). His piano quintet
Piano quintet
In European classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly piano, two violins, viola, and cello . Among the most frequently performed piano quintets are those by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák...
in B minor, written in 1908, helped establish his reputation. Other works include a violin sonata
Violin sonata
A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, which is nearly always accompanied by a piano or other keyboard instrument, or by figured bass in the Baroque period.-A:*Ella Adayevskaya**Sonata Greca for Violin or Clarinet and Piano...
(Sonate Libre), a late string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
, a saxophone quartet, Dionysiaques for wind band, and two symphonies
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
. He was part of the group known as Les Apaches
Les Apaches
Les Apaches or was a group of French musicians, writers and artists which formed around 1900. Members of the group included:* Edouard Benedictus, painter and composer* M.D...
. His own style, recognizably impressionistic, owed something to the example of Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, though it had distinct traces of Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
also.
Schmitt composed a ballet La tragédie de Salomé in 1907 as a commission from Jacques Rouché for Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller
Loie Fuller Loie Fuller Loie Fuller (also Loïe Fuller; (January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.-Career:...
and the Théâtre des Arts
Théâtre Hébertot
Théâtre Hébertot is a theatre at 78, boulevard des Batignolles, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, France. The theatre, completed in 1838 and opening as the Théâtre des Batignolles, was later renamed Théâtre des Arts in 1907...
. From the original ballet score, scored for twenty instruments and lasting about an hour, Schmitt prepared a symphonic poem
Symphonic poem
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...
of the same name, half as long as the ballet score, for a much expanded orchestra. The symphonic poem version is much better-known (with recordings conducted by Schmitt himself, Paul Paray
Paul Paray
Paul Paray was a French conductor, organist and composer. He is best remembered in the United States for being the resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for more than a decade. He married Yolande Falck on 25 August 1944.-Biography:Paray's father, Auguste, was a sculptor and organist...
, Jean Martinon
Jean Martinon
Jean Martinon was a French conductor and composer.-Biography:Martinon was born in Lyon, where he began his education, going on to the Conservatoire de Paris to study under Albert Roussel for composition, under Charles Munch and Roger Désormière for conducting, under Vincent d'Indy for harmony,...
, Antonio de Almeida
Antonio de Almeida
Antonio de Almeida may refer to:* Antonio de Almeida , French conductor* António José de Almeida , sixth president of Portugal*Antonio de Almeida e Costa , Portuguese naval officer and politician...
, Marek Janowski
Marek Janowski
Marek Janowski is a Polish-born conductor.Janowski grew up in Wuppertal, Germany, near Cologne, after his mother traveled there at the start of World War II to be with her parents...
and others), but there is also an excellent recording of the 1907 ballet score under Patrick Davin on the Marco Polo label. The rhythmic syncopations, polyrhythms, percussively treated chords, bitonality, and scoring of Schmitt's work anticipate Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring, original French title Le sacre du printemps , is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky; and concept, set design and costumes by Nicholas Roerich...
. While composing The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky acknowledged that Schmitt's ballet gave him greater joy than any work he had heard in a long time, but they fell out with each other in later years, and Stravinsky reversed his opinion of Schmitt's works.
In 1927 he was one of the ten French composers who each contributed a dance for the children's ballet L'éventail de Jeanne
L'Éventail de Jeanne
L'éventail de Jeanne is a children's ballet choreographed in 1927 by Alice Bourgat and Yvonne Franck.The music is a collaborative work by ten French composers, each of whom contributed a stylised dance in classic form:...
: he wrote the finale, a Kermesse-Valse.