Schmitt Antoine et Cléopâtre

[Alan Howe]

If you're up for a real late-romantic wallow-fest, I can't think of anything better than the two suites composed by Florent Schmitt and available on the Timpani label, conducted by Jacques Mercier and wonderfully played by the Orchestre National de Lorraine. The idiom is pretty predictable if you know Schmitt's other exotic scores; I was also struck by its likeness to the similarly languorous music of Joseph Marx. Dive in!

[mbhaub]

Schmitt is another of those composers whose utter neglect is astonishing. There are so many conductors who love to play Ravel, Debussy, and company you'd think they would find Schmitt's Salome or Anthony & Cleopatra a natural fit. But no. Paul Paray at least had Schmitt on his radar; it's a crying shame that Dutoit, Cluytens, Maazel, Previn, Davis and others who excel in the French literature never did Schmitt. That disk you recommend IS a wallow - gorgeous orchestral sounds, playing, and recorded sound.

[minacciosa]

And Antony et Cleopatra isn't even his best work! Schmitt is one of the greats. I played his Sonate Libre several times; it's an astonishing work.

[adriano]

Schmitt's two suites from "Antoine et Cléopâtre" were already recorded by Leif Segerstam in 1987 for the Adès label, coupled with "Rêves", a short orchestra piece.
On the same Adès label (who may have disappeared in the meantime), there is another Schmitt CD of interest, conducted by Pierre Stoll, containing the suite of "Oriane et le Prince d'Amour", "In Memoriam", "Ronde Burlesque" and "Légende" (recorded in 1987).
Segerstam also recorded Schmitt's great 2nd Symphony, coupled with "Danse d'Abysag", "Habeyssée" and "Rêves" for Marco Polo in 1987-88; he is an excellent Schmitt conductor!
Schmitt's Suite from "La Tragédie de Salomé" (adapted for large orchestra) is well-known; the recording by Jean Martinon is, in my view, still the best, compared to those by Thierry Fischer (Hyperion), Yan Pascal Tortelier (Chandos) and Marek Janowski (Warner). Don't forget the composer's own and the one by Piero Coppola, both 78s from the 1930s!
The original (and complete) version of "La Tragédie de Salomé" was also recorded for Marco Polo in 1991, conducted by Patrick Davin. It it scored for a smaller orchestra.
Schmitt's masterwork is his incredible "47th Psalm", one of the most impressive chorus-and-orchestra pieces of French music history; this was also masterfully recorded by Jean Martinon for EMI – and later by Janowski and Fischer.
On a Warner double-CD reissue one can find Jurowski's Salomé and Psalm (both quite boringly interpreted) and some other shorter orchestral and chamber pieces by Schmitt.
Not to forget are the three suites of Schmitt's silent film score "Salammbô". There is (was?) an excellent Adès CD, conducted by Jacques Mercier, another very sensitive conductor for French repertoire. This CD was recorded in 1991; two years later my own chances to record the same pieces for Marco Polo were dropped by Klaus Heymann, who had found out that the hire price of the orchestral material was too expensive. This, of course, after having confirmed the project and after I had studied the scores and checked the orchestral parts!
Last but not least, listen to Schmitt's fabulous Piano Quintet, op. 51, another masterwork of French chamber music!

[mbhaub]

"...the hire price of the orchestral material was too expensive."

And that brings up another stupid thing going wrong in music these days. Did the publisher ever consider that maybe if they let music be recorded, people might listen to it and say, "hey, that's a heck of a piece!" and then rent it to perform? Penny wise, Pound foolish. I realize that publishers spent huge sums to produce music in an age long before photocopying, Finale, and other modern tools were available to cheaply produce printed music. With these outrageous pricing policies, a lot of good music will remain collecting dust.

[Gareth Vaughan]

The shortsightedness of music publishers never ceases to amaze me. Mind you, it's not helped by the fact that some of the people working in "classical" music publishing nowadays are unbelievably pig-ignorant about the product they are supposed to be promoting. One person I spoke to at a music publisher who shall remain nameless seemed never to have heard of Bantock and kept thinking I wanted music by Bartok!!!!

[adriano]

Well, I must say that Klaus Heymann - as far as my commitment was concerned - had a strategy of his own, since he was used that in some cases, after he threatened me that a project was to be cancelled because of the hire price of the material, I would reply to be willing to record the CD without fee. My fees, at that time were 1000 Deutsche Mark! The Mario Pilati CD on Marco Polo (now Naxos) was done under such circumstances, even though I had brought in some 8'000 Dollars from a sprivate sponsor!
In the case of the Schmitt hire material, I had already obtained a special rebate, but just for a change I did not wanted to conduct free of charge.
Many music publishers had ceded me materials totally free of charge, incidentally. Not all of them are such hyenas...
And there is another aspect: many publishers have to set up high hire prices, since there are still some greedy composer's widows or sons/daughters around, setting such conditions.
Another example - this time in connection with my Fritz Brun recordings: 3 of Brun's Symphonies had been published around 1910 by Hug & Co., a Swiss publisher. For these 3 Symphonies they wanted around 4'500 dollars each! It needed many months to make them clear that this whole project was being sponsored by the composer's son, and that it would be a shame to charge him. Finally, they went down to 50%, which is still shameful, considering that Symphonies 3 and 8 were world premier recordings. The paper of the original printed material is, actually, in such bad condition that it needs to turn the pages to fall apart, so I had to scan everything and print it out anew myself - and at my own expenses. The hire fee remains the same. Fortunately, all other Brun scores are manuscripts!

[eschiss1]

Hrm- since Brun died in 1959, not all -that- long from now those published scores will be public-domain everywhere (or almost) anyway (in the US (1910<1923) and Canada (1959+50<2015) already, and in the EU in 2030); the Gebrüder Hug seem to be getting (funds, not fleeing) while the getting is good..., I suppose...

[strelsa42]

For those interested in long forgotten ballet music, there is a recent release by Timpani of a Schmitt ballet score "Le Petit Elfe Ferme-l'oeil". The work has a complicated history having been worked up from an original piano duet suite. It's scored for a large orchestra and is interesting to hear the sonorities, which I have associated with his large scale "oriental" scores, used for a Hans Andersen inspired work.

[minacciosa]

Ah, Hadrianus, good to meet another member of that select club of conductors who have had projects cancelled at the last minute by Heymann. My experience was very similar. It was very frustrating at the time, yet such are the vagaries of the recording business. The same happens in film and TV production.

I cherish all of the aforementioned Schmitt recordings, particularly Martinon's Psalm and Segerstam's go at the 2nd Symphony (a truly great work).

[adriano]

Hi minacciosa and thanks for your you message :-)
Are you a woman that you call yourself "minacciosa" in feminine? :-)
Read the article about my experiences with Marco Polo-Naxos on my homepage adrianomusic.com

[minacciosa]

I use the name "Minacciosa" as homage to the great Nikolai Medtner. I will check out your website, and also will write to you privately. Thanks for all your great work.

[Phillip Nones]

I notice the "notoriety" of Mr. Heymann in the various responses to the original post.  Assuming this one comes to fruition(!), JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing and recording the "Antoine et Cleopatre" Suites (1920), along with "Le Palais hante" (1904), for NAXOS early next year.  For those who might wish to actually see some of Schmitt's music performed in the concert hall, there is schedule and ticket information on the BPO website (www.bpo.org).

Also, the complete ballet music for "Oriane et le Prince d'Amour" (1933) was issued just last week by Forgotten Records, a French-based CD-on-demand label.  It's taken from a 1956 live concert broadcast by Pierre Dervaux and the ORTF Orchestra + Chorus.  This is the full ballet -- nearly an hour of music compared to the suite which is less than 20 minutes (once available on Cybelia).  The filler item is the Symphony #2, in a 1960 concert performance by Jean Martinon and the ORTF.  I have heard from European friends that the recording quality is decent, but I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail.

On a personal note, the music of Florent Schmitt has been a particular passion of mine for decades, and I started a blog about the composer and his music in 2012.  So far, I have published about 60 articles on various works, interpreters/performers (including some interviews), links to music clips, and so forth.  There are some real rarities that are very, very fine pieces of music, from a catalogue that includes 138 opus numbers plus additional works.  If you're interested in exploring further, go to http://florentschmitt.com and use the search box to find particular topics, or you can just scroll down the Home Page to browse the various posts in reverse chronological sequence.  I hope it's useful and worthwhile information.

[adriano]

Bravo, Phillip Nones, for your Schmitt commitment :-)
As far as JoAnn Falletta is concerned, I think her (excellent) conducting just lacks the sensual dimensions works by composers like Gliere and Schmitt are requiring. The Gliere was quite a disappointment. As far as Mr. Heymann's empire is concerned, it's like an unstoppable typhoon. In one of my Amazon reviews I compare him to Citizen Kane; he is taking over the power of the music world in quite a dangerous way, by eating up all other smaller labels he distributes in order to get total control of his repertoire.

[minacciosa]

I am also completely convinced by Schmitt's genius, and consider his Symphony No.2 to be an extremely original work, as well as one of his masterpieces. Yes, his style grew through the years - but that's a good thing. He travelled quite a long way stylistically. I've performed his Sonate Libre a few times, and it always makes a great impression on the audience. There are many other treasures in his output; Schmitt deserves to be a household name.