Florent Schmitt - La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (1907)

Florent Schmitt (28 September 1870 - 17 August 1958) was a French composer. He was part of the group known as Les Apaches. His most famous pieces are La tragédie de Salome and Psaume XLVII (Psalm 47).
He has been described as "one of the most fascinating of France’s lesser-known classical composers"
La Tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (1907)
1e partie
Prélude
Danse des Perles (11:01)
2e partie (14:35)
Les Enchantements sur la mer (16:16)
Danse des éclairs (25:24)
Danse de l’effroi (28:47)
New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Antonio de Almeida
Highly independent in style and spirit, Schmitt was almost equally admired and detested by a broad spectrum of his contemporaries. While at work on The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky admitted that La tragédie de Salomé “has given me greater joy than any work I have heard in a long time.” Satie, on the other hand, later advised young composers to “kill yourselves rather than orchestrate as badly as Florent Schmitt.” (Schmitt’s pro-German and Vichy sympathies did not endear him to many in post-WWII France, or elsewhere.)
Stravinsky’s enthusiasm (later withdrawn) was understandable, since Schmitt’s ballet has much of the color and dynamism of The Rite of Spring, down to specific matters such as bitonality and polyrhythms. Originally composed in 1907 for the American dancer Loie Fuller and the Théâtre des Arts, Salomé was based on a poem by Robert d’Humières. Schmitt expanded the orchestration in 1910 (dedicating the work then to Stravinsky) and it quickly became popular for a number of companies, including the Ballets Russes and the Paris Opéra, where Ida Rubinstein danced it in 1919. Swirling, shimmering water imagery is very important in the music, as the story was set on a terrace of Herod’s palace overlooking the Dead Sea. In this version of the story, John the Baptist attempts to shield Salome after Herod rips off her veils, causing Herod to have him decapitated. Salome throws the head into the sea, only to have it reappear, spurring the fiercely Stravinskian “Dance of Fear” in which the tragedy comes to its crashing climax.

[@nocturnallsnake4228]

Best channel on youtube today.

[@bartjebartmans]

Wow, thanks!

[@steveegallo3384]

I SEE you....and I RAISE you....BRAVO, Professor Bartje!

[@Danzig987]

It is fantastic, isn't it!

[@gilad1arnon]

Final few pages predict rite of spring... the use of orchestral sections as contrasting masses, and the percussion use of gong cymbals and g.c. as well as the basses rhythmic ostinato in the end. The fast tempo in eighths measures. A nice transition from Debussy to Stravinsky.

[@robkeeleycomposer]

What a magnificent score - perhaps a little over-long for its substance, but still a terrific work. I'm sure I heard a celesta added to the harps parts at the start. Imagine the effect this would have at the Proms....if only....

[@obduliorincon6112]

Sparkling orchestration.
🎧 🤯 !

[@tyeereer]

So wonderful 😮

[@norwalltino]

So fantastic, never heard before but now I’m delighted !!

[@Danzig987]

Contemporary composer Alistair Hinton: “Florent Schmitt’s artistic legacy is of such importance that his work deserves all the exposure it can get. Once it has done so, it’s no exaggeration to say that the history of French music in the 20th century will have been rewritten.”

[@arvidtom]

Well that does seem to be a bit of an exaggeration, doesn't it? I mean, this is a great piece and Schmitt was a wonderful composer, but he was not *that* important to the history of French classical music. I'd place him in the league of composers such as Dukas, Koechlin or Roussel, all composers who developed their own brand of impressionism but who did not do anything truly groundbreaking (like Stravinsky, Schoenberg or Debussy).

[@Danzig987]

@@arvidtom Perhaps a bit -- but only a bit. To quote the French composer Alain Margoni, "Florent Schmitt’s contributions to French music are huge - but up until recently, quite unknown to many people. But upon closer investigation, one can easily see how important he is by looking at the music of other composers and how he is reflected in their own output. On the one hand, Schmitt’s musical aesthetic is a cross between late-Romanticism, the modernism of Debussy, and also Stravinsky ... Closer to our day, we can also see shadows of Schmitt in the music of Milhaud, Honegger and Dutilleux."
The American conductor JoAnn Falletta considers Schmitt to be the "missing link" in French music of the era, not as revolutionary as Debussy but more pathfinding than Maurice Ravel. At the time of Schmitt's death in 1958 Dutilleux wrote, “Florent Schmitt was the last of that great family to which Ravel, Dukas, and Roussel belonged. He remains one of them who, by a happy assimilation of German and Central European influences, recalled the French school to certain notions of grandeur.” Listening to Schmitt's chamber works like the Sonate libre (1920), String Trio (1946) and String Quartet (1948) underscores this as well.
I think what Hinton, Margoni and Falletta are saying is that Schmitt needs to be written into the history of French music of the period, so that his considerable influence is better understood and acknowledged.

[@arvidtom]

@@Danzig987 Ok, that last paragraph of yours is something I do agree with. Schmitt definitely deserves to be better known as one of the great French composers of that era. I must say I find the slightly later Antoine et Cleopatre or the piano piece Ombres quite amazing, in a way more advanced than Ravel's music (but also less memorable in my opinion..) But then, I think there are lots of figures like Schmitt in French music of that period whose greatness is now no longer really understoord or acknowledged - e.g. Roger-Ducasse, Koechlin, Samazeuilh, M. Emmanuel or even the older d'Indy.

[@Vida-Erudita]

Belíssimo!

[@francisjd]

Thanks man, I love this piece.

[@bowecho]

Wonderful story telling.

[@CatkhosruShapurrjiFurabji]

Thanks this is my favourite orchestral set by Schmitt and for piano, it's the Ombres suite.

[@carlosmontes6568]

Oh.!!. .. The chorus!!..... Magnifique !!!! 👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻. Et à combinaison !!!!! ❤️🎶🎼❤️🎶🎼🎶❤️🎶🎶🎼❤️🎶🎼🎼🎼🎼❤️🎶🎼🎶🎼❤️🎶❤️🎶🎼

[@andreistoriei2050]

c'est plus qu'assez d'emojis

[@marcosPRATA918]

Impressionista em algumas harmonias etéreas. Puro sinfonismo, criando climas misteriosos.

[@FreakieFan]

Flairs of Rite of Spring quite a few years before Stravinsky even started writing it.

[@pianomanhere]

I don't give a crap if Florent Schmitt was a Fascist or a sympathizer, this is glorious, gorgeous music. Thanks for posting this, Bartje !

[@Danzig987]

No worries, he wasn't. If he was, he wouldn't have set the words of leftist/anarchist poets to music -- during World War II no less! florentschmitt.com/2020/08/21/giving-vibrant-voice-to-powerful-poetry-florent-schmitts-trois-chants-1943/

[@pianomanhere]

@@Danzig987 Thanks. If I could remember the source of the article I read about his supposed fascist leanings or entanglements, I would go back to it and then see if the author had actually cited any reliable sources. I appreciate your response.

[@Danzig987]

@@pianomanhere Florent Schmitt was known to make one-off wisecracks. He'll never live down his remarks during the Kurt Weill concert in Paris in 1933. It's also true that he didn't leave France during World War II and remained engaged in Parisian musical life (although spending most of his time at his country retreat in the Pyrenees Mountains). But the list of French musicians who did so as well goes on and on: Durufle, Honegger, Delvincourt, Ladmirault, Rabaud, Samazeuilh, d'Ollone, Cortot, Munch, Poulet, Evrard, Bigot, Martinon ... the list goes on. How many composers stayed in the Soviet Union throughout that murderous regime as well? If we applied an equal standard across the board ... This article about Schmitt's role as a music critic in Paris is also interesting: florentschmitt.com/2017/01/20/organist-and-music-researcher-guillaume-le-dreau-talks-about-french-composer-florent-schmitts-consequential-work-as-a-parisian-music-critic-1912-1939/

[@pianomanhere]

@@Danzig987 Thank you so much. Actually, politically, I am quite a bit toward the 'Right' (whatever that means these days), and as long as the music has some merit and moves me in some way, it matters not to me, one way or the other, if the composers supported Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Khmer Rouge or any other bloody regimes (or Mussolini, Ante Pavelic, Antonio Salazar, Father Tizo, Cornelius Codreanu , et al, for that matter, just to be almost neurotically extra-detailed).

[@Danzig987]

@@pianomanhere In most cases the composers weren't "supporting" anyone -- just trying to figure out a way to navigate the political rapids and make it safely across to the other side. My heritage is Jewish, so what I would have done (or what would have been done to me) during those times is obvious. But for others, who are we to know what they (or we ourselves) would have done "in the moment"? 20/20 hindsight "after the fact" is really, really easy -- and also intellectually lazy.

[@RaoulConstantine]

Hmm I wonder if Holst heard this before composing Venus.

[@wickedwietse]

I wonder if Pink Floyd heard this before they make "Atom heart mother suite"?

[@stacia6678]

22:08 vers la flamme

[@Danzig987]

More information about this music can be found here: florentschmitt.com/2012/09/14/salome-florent-schmitts-sinuous-temptress-seducing-audiences-for-100-years/

[@constantinocontreras1035]

1:03

[@Christian-tw7me]

almost la Mer

[@yutakato1568]

30:23

[@nbl4969]

Thank you Frank Ferrand

[@bearbeiter5109]

Das finde ich unmöglich, wenn musikalische Werke von Reklame unterbrochen werden!!!!!!!!! Nicht musikalische Werke!