When I welcomed a disc of Schmitt’s orchestral music in 2011 I
commented that I was none the wiser whether he was a great composer or not.
In part this was due to the fact that the music on that particular CD was -
relatively - well-known but also because it was early and thereby hard to
judge how the composer might mature. The current disc in part rectifies this
by offering two world premieres but the maturity issue remains. Schmitt
lived until 1958 but the latest work here is from 1904. The CD liner tells
us that this is Volume One of four which will contain all the original works
for Piano 4-hands and 2 pianos. The point is also made that all of the music
for these instrumental combinations was written between 1893 and 1912.
Rather bravely the liner bullishly states; “Schmitt stands alongside
Debussy and Ravel as one of the most original and influential composers
of his time”. I’ll leave that comment hanging in the air
for the moment - I’m not sure it helps a composer to make such
well-intentioned but unsubstantiated comments. Certainly nothing on
this disc, pleasant though much of it is, supports that as a theory.
According to Leslie De’Ath’s article elsewhere on this site
he wrote some 88 works for piano duet so through sheer quantity alone
he
is one of the leading French composers in the medium. The
disc opens with the
Trois Rapsodies Op.53 for 2 pianos. This
work has been recorded before - in 1956 by Robert and Gaby Cassedesus.
Each movement has a title;
Française,
Polonaise
and
Viennoise respectively and waltz rhythms dominate. One can
see why this has maintained a toe-hold within the repertoire and its
appeal lies in the fluency of the writing and the charm of the melodies.
What it lacks is that scintilla of musical backbone to lift it away
from the easy charm of a sophisticated salon alone. Without doubt all
the music here shares a harmonic landscape and spirit with Debussy and
Ravel - but it is those composers in their earlier and/or more relaxed
incarnations. With the former it’s Debussy of circa 1890. Check
Ravel’s compositional catalogue and you will see that at around
the same time that Schmitt was writing these works Ravel was producing
his
Miroirs - “la différence entre la craie et le
fromage” if the phrase exists so literally in French! Concerns
also surface regarding the quality of the performance. For sure this
is perfectly reasonable playing by the Invencia Piano Duo but they seem
to lack the musical charm and technical panache to lift the music from
the passable into the exceptional. By chance for pleasure I listened
recently to a duet disc by Peter Donohoe and Martin Jones - playing
of near super-human unanimity and flair in which company the Invencia
pale to something much more mundane. Likewise the production and engineering
of the disc is acceptable but no more and some way off demonstration
class with the piano(s) recorded quite close and with relatively little
acoustic around them. The pianos used are Steinway Model D Concert Grands
but I have heard such instruments recorded to much better effect.
The longest work on the disc is also the earliest -
Sept
pièces Op.15 for piano four hands
. This was
Schmitt’s first large-scale work for piano duet. The influences are
pretty clear for all to hear but there is a natural modesty about the
writing that is very charming. Each movement has a picturesque title that
immediately identifies its character as well as showing the homage to the
likes of Schumann and latterly Chabrier. Indeed Chabrier would seem to be
more of a link than either Debussy or Ravel due to the Salon aesthetic that
hovers over much of this music. However, in direct comparison it is hard not
to declare Chabrier the more impressive composer; try his Trois Valses
romantiques of 1883 in direct comparison to the
Trois Rapsodies.
Highlights of the
Sept pièces are the third movement
Scintillement and the closing
Traversé heureuse. Both
are gems and they receive effectively sympathetic performances. Curiously,
the work I liked best on this disc by some distance was the unpublished
Rhapsodie parisienne of 1900. The current duet gave the work its
American premiere in 2011. Indications on the manuscript show that it was
intended to be orchestrated which perhaps explains the exuberant energy of
the work and why the Duo perform it on two pianos as opposed to the piano
4-hands of the original score; in other words the manuscript is a short
score rather than performing material. Certainly it receives the most
dynamic performance on the disc by some way. As an aside - I am probably
showing my linguistic ignorance here; but when is a Rapsodie
not a
Rhapsodie since both spellings are used here?
As mentioned earlier, the liner is rather curiously written. Choice
comments include a reference to Schmitt’s “complex and vast
Second Symphony”. Now the only version of that I know is on Marco Polo
conducted by Leif Segerstam. Nothing indicates that version is cut but it
lasts a rather un-vast and not overly-complex 24 minutes and while it is
quite interesting for 1957 Darmstadt wasn’t quite rewriting its rule
book on account just yet. Likewise it says “(he) became a
highly-respected and visible role model for his contemporaries.”
Apparently, from 1929 Schmitt established himself as a controversial critic
in which post he courted controversy with his habit of shouting out instant
verdicts form his seat in the hall. The publisher Heugel went so far as to
brand him “an irresponsible lunatic” in response to one
particularly vitriolic outburst after some Kurt Weill songs. From any of the
on-line biographies and the Stanley Sadie New Grove there is no reference to
any pupils except that he was director of the Lyon Conservatory from 1922-24
so it is hard to fathom quite how influential he was certainly post-World
War I.
The truth would seem to be that, at his best, Schmitt wrote some
very good, typically French music of the early 20
th Century but
that it belongs to the second rank is not a damning judgement simply an
objective one. Composers such as Ropartz or Magnard share a similar status
although I find their music of more sustained and sustaining interest. Add
the consideration of rather mean playing time - the total timing of the
Sept pieces is wrongly given on the CD cover as 32:20 - in fact they
play for a more modest 26:03; the given total disc time of 54:14 is correct
- so whilst collectors of piano duet music will welcome this release
interest must be limited for the more general music enthusiast.
Nick Barnard
