Florent Schmitt

Composer, born in Blamont, E France. From Nancy he went to the Conservatoire de Paris with Dubois, Lavignac, Gédalge, Massenet, and Fauré, whom he admired, as well as Debussy. He gained the Prix de Rome (1900) with ‘Semiramis’. ‘Psaume XLVII’ (1904) shows him in full possession of his technical abilities, and a quintet for piano was finished in 1908. Other works include the ballet Salomé(1907), Poème Symphonique (1910), piano pieces evoking his travels in Europe, and an impressive piece for the film Salambô (1925). In 1922–4 he was director of the Conservatoire de Lyon, and was elected to the Institut in 1936.

Florent Schmitt (September 28, 1870, Blamont, Meurthe et Moselle – August 17, 1958 Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French composer.

Schmitt wrote 138 works with opus numbers. Other works include a violin sonata (Sonate Libre), a late string quartet, a saxophone quartet, Dionysiaques for wind band, and two symphonies. His own style, recognizably impressionistic, owed something to the example of Claude Debussy, though it had distinct traces of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss also. From 1929 to 1939 he worked as a music critic for Le Temps, in which role he created considerable controversy, not least for his indiscreet habit of shouting out verdicts from his seat in the hall; the music publisher Huegel went so far as to call him "an irresponsible lunatic".

Having been one of the most often performed of French composers in the period between the two world wars, he afterwards fell into comparative obscurity, although he continued writing music till the end. He became the subject of attacks – both in his old age and posthumously – over his pro-German sympathies during the 1930s, and over his willingness to work (as indeed a great many other eminent French musicians did) for the Vichy government later on.