Florent's Schmitt Piano Quintet

[alberto]

Schmitt's Piano Quintet (1908) is fine and deserves, and really needs, repeated listening. The trouble is that at 58' 26" length the possibility of fully attentive and repeated listening is not great or frequent.
How many chamber works lasting about 58' stay in the repertoire? Just two, Schubert String Quintet (indeed even shorter if spoiled of some repeat, and cast in four balanced movements) and same composer's Octet.
The Schmitt has only three movements of unbalanced timings (21'44" - 14'17" - 22'14") and, as far I have listened up to now, not really contrasted.
It is a work that doesn't lend itself to concert programming (and was not fit to LP).
Dedicated to Fauré, it appears the contrary of that master elusive idiom. With Schmitt, rather big and bold gestures: he also whispers, but more often loves loud voice.
The Schmitt seems to me a bit an attempt to update, a generation after, the Franck quintet, much enlarging dimensions.
(Naxos 8.570489. Contains also "A tour d'anches" for piano and three winds (1943; four movements lasting 15'21").   

[eschiss1]

if this were Fanfare magazine- correction, old-style Fanfare magazine- there'd be a comparison of the new recording with the Angel LP (Calvet Quartet, composer- reissued I think on EMI 1993?) and two? more recent recordings (on Timpani in 2008 and an older one on Accord? in 1982? - I think I have heard that last one once.)  It hasn't kept its hold in the repertoire but I seem to recall it being a very good piece (like the other Schmitt chamber works I've heard, e.g. the string quartet which I've heard on LP). Glad Naxos has released this- another feather in their cap.
Eric

[ahinton]

Schmitt's Piano Quintet (1908) is fine and deserves, and really needs, repeated listening. The trouble is that at 58' 26" length the possibility of fully attentive and repeated listening is not great or frequent.
How many chamber works lasting about 58' stay in the repertoire? Just two, Schubert String Quintet (indeed even shorter if spoiled of some repeat, and cast in four balanced movements) and same composer's Octet.
The Schmitt has only three movements of unbalanced timings (21'44" - 14'17" - 22'14") and, as far I have listened up to now, not really contrasted.
It is a work that doesn't lend itself to concert programming (and was not fit to LP).
Dedicated to Fauré, it appears the contrary of that master elusive idiom. With Schmitt, rather big and bold gestures: he also whispers, but more often loves loud voice.
The Schmitt seems to me a bit an attempt to update, a generation after, the Franck quintet, much enlarging dimensions.
(Naxos 8.570489. Contains also "A tour d'anches" for piano and three winds (1943; four movements lasting 15'21").

That quintet is more than fine indeed - it's one of the greatesst works of French chamber music for piano and strings. What'd "unbalanced" about its movement lengths? It's easy to programme in a concert; it would simply occupy the second half of a programme whose first half would probably be shorter. Far from being the "contrary" of Fauré's admittedly "elusive" idiom, it absorbs it beautifully AND makes the grand and bold gestures within the same framework. Yes, the example of the Franck piano quintet (and the Brahms, too, for that matter) is salient - indeed, potent - but the extent to which the Schmitt "enlarges" the dimensions of either is not that great at all.

There's an Altarus recording of the piano and wind piece as well, by the way.

[Phillip Nones]

To my knowledge, the Calvet EMI recording is of the 2nd Movement only (Lent).  Interestingly, it has the composer himself playing the piano part, which gives it an added measure of interest (it dates from the 78-rpm ear originally).  But to have three "modern" recordings of this music available is indeed great.