Florent Schmitt Program Notes and Sheet Music

The Untamed Romantic of Modern Music

The scene was the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, May 1933. The premiere of The Seven Deadly Sins, a new ballet by the German Jewish composer Kurt Weill and his collaborator Bertolt Brecht, was underway. As the performance unfolded, a disturbance broke out. A group of nationalist hecklers, incensed by the work of these foreign artists, began to protest. Amidst the chaos, a towering, white-bearded man, the 62-year-old composer Florent Schmitt, was heard shouting insults, allegedly culminating in the cry, "Vive Hitler!" The shocking outburst, for which he later expressed regret, was a stark public display of the volatile temperament and troubling political leanings that would come to define the controversial legacy of one of France’s most powerful and imaginative composers. Florent Schmitt was a man of immense contradictions: a musical revolutionary who became a political reactionary, an artist of profound sensitivity whose personal conduct could be brutish, and a composer whose magnificent works were nearly eclipsed by the darkness of his character.

Early Life and Prix de Rome

Florent Schmitt was born on September 28, 1870, in the small town of Blâmont in the Lorraine region of northeastern France. This region, fiercely contested between France and Germany, instilled in him a fervent, lifelong patriotism. He began his musical studies locally before moving to the Nancy Conservatoire. In 1889, at the age of 19, he was admitted to the prestigious Paris Conservatoire. There, he studied with some of the leading figures of French music, including the opera composer Jules Massenet and the great Gabriel Fauré. While his teachers recognized his prodigious talent, Schmitt was fiercely independent and rebellious, a trait that would characterize his entire career.

His primary ambition was to win the coveted Prix de Rome, the highest honor for a young French composer. It was a prize that had launched the careers of Berlioz, Bizet, and Claude Debussy. Schmitt, however, failed in four successive attempts, his bold and unconventional style often clashing with the conservative tastes of the judges. Undeterred, he finally achieved victory on his fifth try in 1900 with his cantata Sémiramis. The prize afforded him a period of travel and study, and for the next three years, he journeyed across Italy, Germany, Austria, and Turkey. These travels profoundly impacted his musical imagination, exposing him to new cultures and landscapes that would later find expression in the rich, exotic textures of his orchestration.

The Rise of a Modern Master

Upon his return to Paris in 1904, Schmitt began composing the works that would cement his reputation as a major new force in European music. The first of these was the monumental Psaume XLVII (Psalm 47), completed in 1904. Scored for a massive orchestra, organ, choir, and a solo soprano, the piece was an explosion of sound—a work of exhilarating, almost barbaric power and ecstatic joy. Its premiere in 1906 was a sensation, revealing a composer who could merge the grand traditions of Romanticism with a startlingly modern rhythmic and harmonic language.

Even more significant was his 1907 ballet, La tragédie de Salomé. Originally composed for a small theatre orchestra, Schmitt re-orchestrated it in 1910 into a sumptuous symphonic poem. The work is a masterpiece of orchestral color, rhythmic ferocity, and sensual atmosphere. Its pounding, asymmetrical rhythms and brilliant orchestration were admired by many, including a young Igor Stravinsky, who was in Paris working on The Firebird. Stravinsky later admitted that Schmitt’s Salomé had been a significant influence on him, and many critics have since cited the ballet as a direct precursor to the revolutionary polyrhythms of Stravinsky’s own The Rite of Spring (1913). With these two works, Schmitt positioned himself at the vanguard of modern music, a composer who commanded the epic scale of the past while pushing music into a new, electrifying future.

Les Apaches and the Parisian Scene

In the creatively fertile environment of pre-war Paris, Schmitt became a key member of a group of artists, musicians, and writers known as Les Apaches (The Hooligans). This informal circle of friends was dedicated to championing new and innovative art. Its members included composers Maurice Ravel and Manuel de Falla, pianist Ricardo Viñes, and the brilliant Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. They met to share their latest works, discuss art, and defend their modernist ideals against the entrenched conservatism of the musical establishment, represented by figures like Camille Saint-Saëns. Schmitt, with his imposing physical presence and combative personality, was a natural fit for a group that called itself "The Hooligans." He was a fierce advocate for the music of his colleagues, but also a formidable critic, known for his sharp tongue and uncompromising opinions. He began a parallel career as a music critic for the influential newspaper Le Temps in 1929, a post he held for a decade.

Controversy and Later Years

While Schmitt's musical reputation grew, his personal politics began to drift alarmingly to the right. Throughout the 1930s, fueled by an aggressive nationalism and a resentment toward foreign artists he felt were dominating French culture, he became an outspoken supporter of right-wing ideologies and expressed virulently anti-Semitic views. This trajectory culminated in his actions during the Nazi occupation of France. While he never formally joined the collaborationist government, he accepted a position as president of the music section of the collaborationist Groupe Collaboration and did little to protest the Nazis' anti-Jewish policies.

After the liberation of France in 1944, his collaborationist activities led to his suspension from the prestigious Institut de France. Although the suspension was temporary, his reputation was permanently damaged. In the post-war era, as the musical world turned toward the atonality of the Second Viennese School and the avant-garde experiments of Boulez and Stockhausen, Schmitt’s lush, post-Romantic style was increasingly seen as outdated. Though he continued to compose prolifically until his death in 1958 at the age of 87, he was largely ignored by the critical establishment. He had become a relic from another time, his name irrevocably stained by his political failings.

Musical Style and Legacy

Florent Schmitt’s music is a powerful synthesis of seemingly contradictory forces. It is rooted in the rich harmonic language of his teacher, Fauré, and the opulent orchestration of Russian composers like Rimsky-Korsakov. Yet, it is also infused with a rhythmic dynamism and harmonic adventurousness that was entirely modern. His work can be sensuous and delicate one moment, then volcanically powerful the next. He was a master of the large orchestra, using its resources to create textures of incredible density and brilliance. Unlike his contemporary Debussy, whose music often dissolves into shimmering suggestion, Schmitt’s music is always anchored by clear formal structures and a visceral rhythmic pulse.

For decades, Florent Schmitt’s legacy was a complicated and often ignored subject. The brilliance of La tragédie de Salomé, the grandeur of Psaume XLVII, and the profound beauty of his Quintette pour piano et cordes (Piano Quintet) were undeniable, yet his personal politics made him a difficult figure to celebrate. In recent years, however, there has been a significant revival of interest in his work. Performers and scholars are now re-examining his vast output, rediscovering a composer of immense skill, originality, and emotional depth. His music stands as a testament to the turbulent era in which he lived—a bridge between the glories of late-Romanticism and the violent birth of modernism. He remains one of the most compelling and problematic figures of his generation, an untamed talent whose music possesses a power that time and controversy have been unable to diminish.

References and Further Reading

• Gubisch, Michel. "Florent Schmitt et le régime de Vichy." In La vie musicale sous Vichy, edited by Myriam Chimènes, 296-308. Complexe, 2001.

• Hucher, Yves. Florent Schmitt: L'homme et l'artiste. Éditions Le Carre du Monde, 1953.

• James, Burnett. "Florent Schmitt: A Neglected Master." The Musical Times, Vol. 99, No. 1388 (Oct. 1958): 544-546.

• Morgan, Robert P. Twentieth-Century Music: A History of Musical Style in Modern Europe and America. W. W. Norton & Company, 1991.

• Nichols, Roger. The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris, 1917-1929. University of California Press, 2002.