Schmitt: Orchestral Works Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra & JoAnn Falletta

• Florent Schmitt (1870 - 1958):
• 1 La tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (Version for Voice & Orchestra): Pt. 1 12:56
• 2 La tragédie de Salomé, Op. 50 (Version for Voice & Orchestra): Pt. 2 13:39
• 3 Musique sur l'eau, Op. 33 (Version for Voice & Orchestra) 05:49
• 4 Oriane et le prince d'amour, Op. 83bis 17:49
• 5 Légende, Op. 66 (Version for Violin & Orchestra) 10:21
• Total Runtime 01:00:34

Info for Schmitt: Orchestral Works

Florent Schmitt was a student of Massenet and Fauré, and winner of the coveted Prix de Rome. His impressionistic style blends influences ranging from Debussy to Wagner, with references to Stravinsky and other contemporaries. Conceived as a ballet but revised as a symphonic poem, La Tragédie de Salomé depicts Salome’s dangerous seductiveness with subtle magnificence. Narrative symbolism also applies to the evocative word painting of the exquisite Musique sur l’eau. The perilous saga of Oriane et le Prince d’Amour contrasts with the poetic tapestry of orchestral colours in Légende, in a version that replaces the original solo saxophone with violin.

"The Buffalo Philharmonic musicians and I are delighted to be releasing a second album of works by the extraordinary French composer Florent Schmitt, just as the music world marks the 150th anniversary of his birth, in September 2020. Schmitt is an extremely important part of French compositional development in the 20th century, and his strong original voice illuminates the period between impressionism and modernism in France in a way that no other composer does.

Florent Schmitt seemed fascinated by strong women of questionable virtue, and his La Tragédie de Salomé is a masterful retelling of the exotic beauty who dances for Herod and demands the head of John the Baptist as her reward. Equally thrilling is the alternation of gorgeous love music and wild orgiastic dances in Oriane et le Prince d'Amour.

Mezzo-soprano Susan Platts features in one of the most beautiful orchestral songs every composed, Musique sur l’eau, while superstar violinist Nikki Chooi is the radiant soloist in Légende, a brooding and ecstatic rhapsody never before heard in Schmitt’s version for violin." (JoAnn Falletta)

Susan Platts, mezzo-soprano
Nikki Chooi, violin
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
JoAnn Falletta, conductor

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
was founded in 1935 and makes its home in Kleinhans Music Hall, a National Historic Landmark with an international reputation as one of the greatest concert halls in the United States. Through the decades the orchestra has grown in stature under a number of distinguished conductors including William Steinberg, Josef Krips, Lukas Foss, Michael Tilson Thomas, Julius Rudel, Semyon Bychkov, and Maximiano Valdés. As Buffalo’s cultural ambassador, the BPO has performed across the United States, Canada and Europe, including concerts at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Boston’s Symphony Hall, San Francisco’s Davies Hall and 22 appearances in Carnegie Hall. The orchestra’s European tour included two sold-out performances in Vienna’s Musikverein, and concerts in Milan, Geneva, Zurich and Frankfurt, among other venues. The BPO performs 120 concerts annually and is heard by millions on radio broadcasts across the United States and beyond on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

JoAnn Falletta
serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Virginia Symphony in the United States and Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland. She has guest conducted over a hundred orchestras in North America, and many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa and is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center of North Carolina. Recipient of the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award, winner of the Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter conducting awards, Falletta has also received eleven ASCAP awards and serves on the U.S. National Council on the Arts. A champion of American music, she has presented nearly five hundred works by American composers including over one hundred world premières. Her Naxos recordings include the double GRAMMY® Award winning disc of works by John Corigliano and GRAMMY® nominated discs of works of Tyberg, Dohnányi, Fuchs, Schubert, and Respighi.

Booklet for Schmitt: Orchestral Works