Florent Schmitt - Suites from Antoine et Cléopâtre; Symphony No. 2 (Sakari Oramo)

Information

Composer: Florent Schmitt

• (01) Orchestral Suites from 'Antoine et Cléopâtre', Op. 69
• (07) Symphony No. 2, Op. 137

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo, conductor

Date: 2018
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205200

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review

Nearly four decades separate the works here but they are very recognisably by the same composer: Florent Schmitt, though eclectic, was remarkably consistent. Overall it’s a disc, lavishly recorded (and sounding especially fine in hi res guise), that offers a persuasive snapshot of a composer hardly over-represented on disc beyond a few key works.

And I’m not sure the two Shakesperean suites have ever sounded more luxurious, either. Composed to accompany a grand, self-financed 1920 show by Ida Rubinstein, this is music that is heavy with sultry eroticism, with dashes of other French composers of the time as well as, to my ears, the sonic ripeness of Richard Strauss’s 1914 Josephslegende.

Sakari Oramo’s new account is more leisurely than JoAnn Falletta’s recent Naxos recording with the Buffalo Philharmonic and he certainly gives the score space to convey its allure – from the languorous shimmers of the opening portrait of the two lovers through to the ominously bellicose ‘Le camp de Pompée’. The night in the queen’s palace is sensuously evoked: ‘soft shivers from muted violins against delicately agitated cymbal and sparkling celesta immediately conjure velvet night’, as Paul Griffiths puts it in his exemplary booklet note. The eroticism of ‘Orgie et Danses’, meanwhile, is always carefully controlled, even when, halfway through, it all collapses into a big sweaty heap of exhausted brass chords.

The Second Symphony dates from the very final years of Schmitt’s life – it was premiered in 1958, just months before he died. It’s a fine, serious work, full of invention. Its first movement, chattily swapping material between sections of the orchestra, gains considerable momentum from the character of its simple opening motif. The slow movement is noble, gravely seductive and quietly moving. Only the finale perhaps risks losing its way among rather too much jauntiness.

Again, as compared with the main rival – from Leif Segerstem – Oramo is distinctly leisurely: he takes over two minutes longer in that second movement, marked Lent sans excès. But he’s convincing and persuasive in this work too, and helped by superior playing and engineering – advantages that certainly pay dividends in these scores. Recommended.

-- Hugo Shirley, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Feb/Schmitt_Cleopatre_CHSA5200.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Apr/Schmitt_Cleopatre_CHSA5200.htm
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_cd_review.php?id=15228
https://www.allmusic.com/album/schmitt-suites-from-antoine-et-cl%C3%A9op%C3%A2tre-symphony-no-2-mw0003152541
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Schmitt-Orchestral-Symphony-Orchestra-Chandos/dp/B079BJTWTY

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Florent Schmitt (28 September 1870 – 17 August 1958) was a French composer. He was part of the group known as Les Apaches. At the age of 19 he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied with Gabriel Fauré, Jules Massenet, Théodore Dubois, and Albert Lavignac. Schmitt wrote 138 works with opus numbers, in most of the major forms of music, except for opera. His most famous pieces are La tragédie de Salome and Psaume XLVII (Psalm 47). His own style, recognizably impressionistic, owed to the example of Debussy, and also had distinct traces of Wagner and Richard Strauss.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florent_Schmitt

***

Sakari Oramo (born October 26, 1965 in Helsinki) is a Finnish conductor. He started his career as a violinist and concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO), and studied conducting with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy. From 1998 to 2008, Oramo was Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with which he championed the music of John Foulds in concerts and recordings. He was Principal Conductor of the FRSO (2003-2012), and is currently Chief Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (since 2008) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (since 2013).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakari_Oramo

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLAC, tracks

Links in comment

Enjoy!